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back on track now that the Covid-19 situation improving. We pray that the situation remains the same.”

The government of Maharashtra state, which includes India’s economic powerhouse Mumbai, announced a five-level plan to ease restrictions depending on infection rates and hospital bed occupancy.

In level-one areas -- with infection rates below five percent and hospital bed occupancy below 25 percent -- all shops, restaurants and malls will be allowed to reopen.

But level-five districts -- with infection rates over 20 percent -- will remain under severe movement restrictions.

Daily infections reported across India have dropped to about 120,000 from more than 400,000 in May, according to official statistics.

Deaths have also fallen, with 3,380 reported in the previous 24 hours, although this is widely seen as a major underestimate.

At least 344,082 people in the country have lost their lives to the coronavirus, which is now surging in parts of rural India.

Delhi reported about 400 new infections yesterday, down from about 25,000 daily cases when the lockdown was announced seven weeks earlier.

The devastating surge was blamed on new virus variants and the government having allowed most activity to return to normal including mass religious and political gatherings.

India’s vaccination programme meanwhile is making slow progress due to shortages, confusion and squabbling between the central government and state authorities.

So far about 180 million people, only 14 percent of the population, have received one dose, and 45 million, or 3.4 percent, two shots.

Globally, the coronavirus has killed at least 3,714,923 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT yesterday.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 597,001 deaths.After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 470,842 deaths, India with 344,082 deaths, Mexico with 228,568 deaths, and Peru with 185,813 deaths.

The World Health Organization estimates that the pandemic’s overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19.