India's Covid-19 situation is turning from "bad to worse," a senior government official said yesterday, as infections surge across several states.

"Remember if the cases are more, they will eventually overwhelm the system", senior NITI Aayog Member Vinod Kumar Paul told a news conference.

Paul also said: "As you have noticed in the last few weeks, the situation is becoming bad to worse. It is a serious cause of concern. In some states in particular, there is a huge cause of worry. No part of the country should be complacent."

His comments came as Maharashtra - home to the country's financial capital, Mumbai - seeing a rapid rise in cases over the past few weeks. 

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan bluntly told the 28 federal states to get a grip on lax coronavirus prevention measures "right now" to prevent healthcare systems being overwhelmed by the surge in infections.

The country's total case tally has risen rapidly, touching 1,20,95,855 on the back of 56,211 new cases in the last 24 hours. 

Covid-19 has killed more than 2.7 million people worldwide in the 15 months since it emerged, forcing governments around the world to introduce restrictions that have battered the global economy.

A team of international experts yesterday presented details of their findings from a mission to China, which concluded Covid-19 probably passed to humans from a bat via an intermediary animal, all but ruling out a laboratory leak.

But the report, drafted by World Health Organization-appointed international experts and their Chinese counterparts, offers no definitive answers on how the new coronavirus jumped to humans.

The findings match what WHO experts have said previously about their conclusions following a Jan-Feb visit to the central Chinese city of Wuhan where the first human cases were detected in late 2019.

At a press conference yesterday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus criticised lack of data access from China for Covid origins investigators and urged deeper probe into the origins theory.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday the pandemic has "shattered the lives" of millions of women and girls and reversed progress towards gender equality, reports AFP.

"In many places, the very idea of gender equality has come under attack," Guterres told a virtual forum in Mexico, which is itself grappling with widespread violence against women.

'WAR FAR FROM WON'

In the US, the White House said that 90 percent of adults would be eligible for Covid-19 shots within three weeks.

But in a television address, Biden warned the country -- which has the world's highest death toll -- that "our work is far from over. The war against Covid-19 is far from won."

He condemned the reckless behavior of some people flouting social distancing measures.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she's afraid of what will happen next.

"What we've seen over the last week or so is a steady rise of cases," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Monday.

"I know that travel is up, and I just worry that we will see the surges that we saw over the summer and over the winter again."

Italy imposed a five-day quarantine on all arrivals from other EU countries and its own citizens, as Germany said it will step up checks at its land borders to ensure travellers have tested negative.

Berlin and Munich yesterday suspended vaccinations with the AstraZeneca jab for under-60s, as further reports emerge of blood clots among people who have received it.

Canadian experts on Monday recommended halting the use of AstraZeneca Covid-19 shots for people aged under 55, after a small but rising number of patients abroad suffered blood clots.