The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has reached out to life and general insurers on COVID-19 preparedness, sources informed CNBC-TV18.com. It has asked general and health insurers to keep hospital networks on standby and focus on cashless claims. It has further asked life insurers to assess their capital situation.
The insurance regulator has told insurers to promote COVID-19 vaccination through advertisements. The discussion with insurers on COVID-19 preparedness is, however, only advisory in nature.
This comes at a time when spurt in cases can be seen in Japan, United States of America, South Korea, Brazil, France and China. Chinese cities are currently hit by the highly transmissible Omicron strain mostly BF.7 which is the main variant spreading in Beijing and is contributing to a wider surge of infections in that country.
BF.7 is a sub-lineage of the Omicron variant BA.5 and has the strongest infection ability since it is highly transmissible. It has a shorter incubation period, and has a higher capacity to cause reinfection or infect even those vaccinated.
Meanwhile, India logged 196 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases marginally increased to 3,428, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday. The Covid case tally was recorded at 4.46 crore (4,46,77,302). The death toll stands at 5,30,695 with two fatalities reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.56 percent, while the weekly positivity was pegged at 0.16 percent, the ministry said. It said 35,173 tests for detection of Covid have been conducted in the last 24 hours. The active cases comprise 0.01 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate increased to 98.80 per cent, the ministry said.
An increase of four cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,43,179 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 percent. According to the ministry's website, 220.05 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.
-With agencies inputs