The next phase of vaccination, aimed at protecting 27 crore Indians from the novel coronavirus infection, will be based on a “citizen-centric model”. Coronavirus India Highlights: The Ministry of Home Affairs on Friday informed that the existing COVID-19 guidelines for surveillance, containment and caution will remain in force till March 31.
In a statement, the MHA said while there has been a substantial decline in the active and new COVID-19 cases, there is need to maintain surveillance, containment and caution so as to fully overcome the pandemic. The states and union territories have also been advised to speed up the vaccination of the target population so as to break the chain of transmission and overcome the pandemic.
“Accordingly, containment zones continue to be demarcated carefully; prescribed containment measures strictly followed within these zones; COVID-appropriate behaviour promoted and strictly enforced; and the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prescribed in respect of various permitted activities followed scrupulously,” the statement said. It further said that focused approach on surveillance, containment and strict observance of the guidelines/ SOPs, as envisaged in the guidelines issued on January 27 need to be enforced strictly by states and union territories.
So far, India has provided around 361.94 lakh doses of the Covid vaccine to countries around the world, the Ministry of External Affairs has announced. Of these, 67.5 lakh doses have been supplied as grant assistance, while 294.44 lakh were provided on commercial basis, the Ministry said.
“The supply of vaccines to countries will continue in the coming weeks and months in a phased manner but it will be ensured that domestic requirements for the national vaccination programme are kept in mind,” MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told PTI.
In the next phase of the nationwide Covid vaccination drive, those who choose to get the vaccine will have the option of either registering online or walking into a designated inoculation centre, the head of the committee directing the exercise said on Thursday.
Self-registration for beneficiaries above the age of 60, and those who are older than 45 and have associated comorbidities, will begin on March 1, R S Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority and chairperson of the empowered committee for the administration of COVID-19 vaccine, told The Indian Express. The next phase of vaccination, aimed at protecting 27 crore Indians from the novel coronavirus infection, will be based on a “citizen-centric model”, Sharma said.
India recorded 16,577 new Covid-19 cases and 120 deaths in the last 24 hours. With this, the country’s total virus caseload rose to 1,10,63,491, while the death toll surged to 1,56,825.
A senior resident wears a mask and shows his "Green Pass", a pass for those vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) or those with presumed immunity, as he enters a live performance by Israeli singer Nurit Galron, at Yarkon park, in Tel Aviv, Israel February 24, 2021. (REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to healthcare and frontline workers has crossed 1.37 crore in the country, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday.
As per the provisional report till Friday 6 pm, a total of 1,37,56,940 vaccine doses have been given through 2,89,320 sessions - 66,37,049 (76.6 per cent) healthcare workers (HCWs) who got their first dose, 22,04,083 (62.9 per cent) HCWs who received their second dose and 49,15,808 (47.7 per cent) frontline workers (FLWs) who were administered their first dose.
While the countrywide inoculation drive was rolled out on January 16, vaccination of frontline workers started from February 2. (PTI)
Just as the Delhi government had asserted that the coronavirus pandemic had been "defeated" in the national capital, cases are on the rise again dramatically, as doctors on Friday warned that the numbers could go up in the coming months and urged people to continue to wear masks and follow COVID-19 safety norms.
Many doctors at leading healthcare facilities here cautioned that the rise was "alarming" with an "upsurge" in the number of patients going there in the last couple of days, after the cases had shown a downward spiral for nearly six weeks.
Delhi had recorded 94 fresh COVID-19 cases on February 16, the lowest in over nine months then. However, after a week on February 24, it more than doubled to 200 and increased further to 220 on Thursday and 256 on Friday.
Health experts and doctors on Friday attributed this "sudden rise" to complacency in people and not following COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and "assuming all is well now". (PTI)
In view of rise in fresh COVID-19 cases, the Kerala government will conduct RT-PCR tests free of cost for expatriates returning to the state, the government said on Friday as 3,671 more peopled tested positive, taking the infection count to 10.52 lakh.
The decision on RT-PCR tests, considered the gold standard to detect the COVID-19, has been taken following a direction by the Centre in view of over 30 per cent increase in COVID-19 cases in the state in the last one week, Health Minister K K Shailaja said.
Addressing a press meet in Thiruvananthapuram, she said the Centre has directed the state to intensify testing at airports and also cautioned that there were chances of a second wave of coronavirus in the state
'The state government will conduct RT-PCR tests free of cost for the expats reaching the state and the results will be given to them,' the Minister said. (PTI)
Bharat Biotech will supply 20 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin to Brazil during the second and third quarters of current year, the city-based vaccine maker said on Friday.
It has signed an agreement with the Brazilian government for the supply of the indigenously developed vaccine, a press release from the company in Hyderabad.
"The company is delighted to partner with Brazil in its battle against Covid-19 and aid its immunisation programme against the virus. It has signed an agreement for delivery of Covaxin during Q2 and Q3 2021," it said.
Several countries around the world have expressed strong interest in Covaxin and the company was fully committed to ensuring supplies promptly and efficiently, the release added. (PTI)
Maharashtra minister Nitin Raut on Friday said coronavirus testing in Nagpur has tripled to over 10,000 tests per day, amid rise in infections. Addressing the media after a review meeting with district officials, Raut said that there are 1,769 oxygen beds, 684 ICU and 263 ventilator beds available for COVID-19 patients in the district.
The district's guardian minister said that although the cases of coronavirus are increasing in Maharashtra, the administration has been able to control the situation in Nagpur. 'Coronavirus testing has tripled, as more than 10,000 swab samples are tested in the district in a day,' he said.
He said that apart from this, stamping of people placed under home quarantine and recording data of patients visiting government hospitals are also underway. Nagpur had on Thursday recorded 1,116 fresh cases of coronavirus and 13 more casualties. The district's COVID-19 tally now stands at 1,46,831, of which 4,314 patients have died of the infection. (PTI)
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment for supporting vaccine equity and sharing COVID-19 vaccines with over 60 countries across the world, hoping that other nations will follow his example.
In a tweet, Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, said that India's support in supplying its vaccines is helping over 60 countries to begin the vaccination process. (PTI)
Considering the rise in COVID-19 cases in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra, the city's famous Siddhivinayak temple has decided not to give on-the-spot permission to devotees for taking darshan of Lord Ganesh from March 1, its office-bearers said on Friday.
Only those who have registered themselves online, will get a chance to take darshan, and only 100 such devotees will be allowed inside the temple per hour from next month, the said
The Siddhivinayak temple located in Prabhadevi area of the city is very popular. It was shut for devotees for several months last year due to the coronavirus outbreak. It was reopened in November 2020. (PTI)
Noted social worker and Ramon Magsaysay award recipient Prakash Amte has tested positive for coronavirus and is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Maharashtra's Nagpur city.
Amte (73) had been experiencing symptoms of coronavirus for the last seven days, but his test in Gadchiroli had come out negative for the infection, the Padma Shri recipient's son Aniket told PTI.
Amte suffered from fever and was taken to Chandrapur, before being admitted to a private hospital in Nagpur after he tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday evening, he said.
Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh wished Amte a speedy recovery. (PTI)
The state of emergency Japan set up to curb the spread of the coronavirus will be lifted in six urban areas this weekend and remain in the Tokyo area for another week, a government minister said Friday. Partially lifting the emergency, and just a week early, underlines Japan's eagerness to keep business restrictions to a minimum to keep the economy going.
The emergency, which began in January, centers around asking restaurants, bars and other businesses to close at 8 p.m. Japan has never had a lockdown, but has managed to keep infections relatively low, with deaths related to COVID-19 at about 7,600 people so far.
Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of pandemic measures, told a special government panel that the emergency would be lifted in Aichi, Gifu, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo, central Japan, as well as southwestern Fukuoka. Tokyo and surrounding Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa Prefectures will continue to observe the emergency until March 7, although an official decision has not yet been announced. (AP)
The COVID-19 vaccination sessions will not be held this Saturday and Sunday in view of the Co-Win digital platform transitioning from Co-Win 1.0 to Co-Win 2.0 as India gears up to inoculate people above 60 years and those over 45 years with comorbidities against the infection from March 1.
All states and UTs have been already informed about this transition, the Union Health Ministry said.
The Co-Win software was created for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine delivery.
The nationwide COVID-19 inoculation drive to vaccinate healthcare workers was launched on January16 by the prime minister. Vaccination of frontline workers started onFebruary 2.
"The country wide vaccination exercise is being exponentially expanded to include those above 60 years of age and those above 45 years with co-morbidities, fromMarch 1.
"On this Saturday and Sunday (Feb 27 and 28), the Co-Win digital platform will be transitioning fromCo-Win1.0 toCo-Win2.0. In view of this, COVID-19 vaccination sessions will not be scheduled during these two days. The states and UTs have been already informed about this transition," the ministry said.
According to official sources eligible beneficiaries would be able to register themselves on the Co-Win platform from Monday itself after the transition.
There will also be a walk-in provision for beneficiaries to get themselves registered at the session site itself to get vaccinated. (PTI)
With Covid-19 positive cases having doubled in the past week, the civic administration of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has said the situation was “worrisome” but it had no “immediate plans” of imposing a lockdown in the industrial city.
“Covid-19 positive cases have surged in the past few days. The situation is worrisome but there is no need to panic. We have no immediate plans to impose a lockdown,” Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil told The Indian Express Friday.
In the last two days, coronavirus cases have gone beyond the 400 mark which used to be the case late last year. Asked whether the PCMC would impose a lockdown after cases cross a 1000-mark, the PCMC chief said, “It will depend on how the situation pans out in the next few days. As of now, we are not thinking of imposing a lockdown. We will keep reviewing the situation.” Read the report here.
Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport will reopen Terminal 1 for domestic flight operations from March 10.
" Go Air, Star Air, Air Asia & Trujet will resume all their domestic operations from T1," the airport said in a statement. (ANI)
The rate of destruction of the world’s tropical forests is likely to have gathered pace last year, green groups warned, as the pandemic weakened environmental regulations, cut funding for protection work and forced city migrants back to rural areas.
In 2019, tropical rainforests disappeared at a rate of one football pitch every six seconds, according to monitoring service Global Forest Watch (GFW), despite more awareness of the key role of carbon-storing forests in slowing climate change.
The tracking platform, which uses satellite imagery and is run by the U.S.-based think-tank World Resources Institute (WRI), is due to release its deforestation numbers for 2020 -when the COVID-19 pandemic struck – in the next three months.
Frances Seymour, a senior fellow at WRI, said the work of law enforcement and forest protection agencies had been constrained by limited mobility due to coronavirus lockdowns and budget cuts linked to economic woes.
“In addition, there are indications that some governments have reacted to the economic crisis by relaxing environmental regulations as a way to facilitate investment and jump-start economic growth,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Read the report here.
Indian-American physician Dr Vivek Murthy, US President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as America’s Surgeon General, has told lawmakers that his first and foremost priority would be to turn the coronavirus pandemic around, an issue very personal to him as he lost seven family members to the deadly disease.
During his confirmation hearing by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Thursday, Murthy, 43, said that Americans are struggling due to the pandemic.
In his opening remarks, Murthy said that this is a moment of tremendous suffering for the nation, more than half a million people have lost their lives to COVID-19including beloved members of his own family.
“Many more are facing long-term health consequences and stressful financial struggles. If confirmed as the surgeon general my highest priority will be to help end this pandemic,” he said.
“I have had the privilege of serving once before. And the reason I’m back.. is because my priority, first and foremost, is to address COVID to turn this pandemic around,” Murthy said. Read the report here.
The district administration in Maharashtra's Latur has ordered private coaching centres and training institutes to get coronavirus testing of all its students done in five days, an official said. Latur district collector Prithviraj B P gave an order to this effect on Thursday, he said.
The collector urged such educational institutes in the district to follow the guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus. He asked them to get the coronavirus testing of every student done in the next five days, the official said.
The institutes have been asked to coordinate with the medical teams for the testing (RT-PCR or rapid antigen test), he said. These institutes have also been asked to ensure that each student maintains a distance of 1.2 meters in the classroom. Besides that, hostels have been asked to allow maximum 50 students to stay at a time and not more than two students should stay in a single room there, he said. (PTI)
India recorded 16,577 new Covid-19 cases and 120 deaths in the last 24 hours. With this, the country's total virus caseload rose to 1,10,63,491, while the death toll surged to 1,56,825.
More than 1.34 people have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine in India, according to the Union Health Ministry.
The Odisha government Thursday made screening of passengers coming to the state by flights and trains from 12 states mandatory as its COVID-19 tally touched 3,36,924 after 89 more people tested positive for the contagion, a senior state health official said. Keeping in view the upsurge in COVID-19 cases in 12 states the Odisha government alerted the authorities to take measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
The 12 states from where passengers will be screened are Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana, Chhattishgarh, West Bengal, Punjab, Delhi, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the official said.
The additional chief secretary to the health and family welfare department, P K Mohapatra said in a letter to all district collectors, municipal commissioners, directors of Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda airport and the general manager (operation) of East Coast Railways that precautions should be taken in order to enhance surveillance in Odisha to prevent resurgence of COVID-19 cases. (PTI)
On the same day Brazil reached the grim milestone of 250,000 deaths by COVID-19, the country's health ministry signed a deal with Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech for the purchase of 20 million doses of the Covaxin vaccine, which is yet to be approved by local regulators.
The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro said the first 8 million Covaxin shots, which will be made by Brazilian company Precisa Medicamentos, will arrive in March. A second batch of another 8 million doses is expected for April and in May, another 4 million doses will be available.
So far Brazil has vaccinated less than 4 per cent of its population of 210 million people, with some cities stopping immunization campaigns last week due to shortages. Neither Precisa nor Bharat confirmed the deal or the delivery dates. (AP)
South Korea on Friday administered its first available shots of coronavirus vaccines to people at long-term care facilities, launching a mass immunization campaign that health authorities hope will restore some level of normalcy by the end of the year. The rollout of vaccines come at a critical time for the country, which has seen its hard-won gains against the virus get wiped out by a winter surge and is struggling to mitigate the pandemic's economic shock that decimated service sector jobs.
The vaccinations began shortly before the country reported another new 406 cases of the coronavirus, brining its caseload to 88,922, including 1,585 deaths. More than 5,260 residents and workers at 213 nursing homes, mental institutions and rehab centers who are under the age of 65 will receive their first shots of a two-dose vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University on Friday.
An unspecified number of patients and workers at 292 long-term care hospitals in the same age group will also get the vaccine, according to officials at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. (AP)
With the addition of 734 coronavirus cases, the infection count in Thane district of Maharashtra mounted to 2,63,014, an official said on Friday. These new cases were reported on Thursday, he said. As the virus claimed the life of five persons, the death toll in the district rose to 6,256.
The COVID-19 mortality rate of the district now stood at 2.38 per cent, he added. So far, 2,51,455 patients have recuperated from the infection, which took the recovery rate to 95.61 per cent. There are 5,303 active cases in the district at present, the official said. In neighboring Palghar district, the coronavirus case count has gone up to 45,838, while the death toll has reached 1,204, another official said. (PTI)
Karnataka Thursday reported 453 new cases of COVID-19 and seven related fatalities, taking the total number of infections to 9,49,636 and the death toll to 12,316.
According to the health department, the day also saw 947 patients getting discharged after recovery. Out of the 453 fresh cases reported, 271 cases were from Bengaluru Urban alone. Read more
The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to healthcare and frontline workers in the country has crossed 1.30 crore, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday. From March 1, the COVID-19 vaccination will be extended to people aged 60 years and above and those aged above 45 years with comorbidities, it stated. --PTI
At least 1,116 fresh cases of coronavirus and 13 more casualties due to the infection were reported in Maharashtra's Nagpur district on Thursday, an official said. With this, the tally of infection in the district rose to 1,46,831, while the toll reached 4,314, the official said. As many as 1,028 patients were discharged from various treatment facilitates, taking the count of recoveries to 1,35,258, he said. --PTI
Sri Lanka on Thursday received 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines ordered from India. "Actively aiding #lka win against COVID, 2nd consignment of 500,000 COVISHIELD vaccines arrived from #India to #lka today," the High Commission of India in Sri Lanka tweeted. Sri Lanka's acting health minister Channa Jayasumana said 500,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine arrived on Thursday. He said the new batch was ordered under an agreement between the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) of Sri Lanka and the Serum Institute of India. The distribution of vaccines will start on Friday. India gifted 500,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine which kicked off Sri Lanka's vaccine rollout in late January. The vaccines were given to the frontline workers and the security personnel. --PTI
Indian expats in the UAE are seeking exemption from the self-paid COVID-19 tests for passengers on their arrival in India, saying it would be an added burden for those returning home after losing their jobs during the ongoing pandemic, according to a media report. In a plea, the expats have urged the Indian government to fund the RT-PCR test on arrival in India and exemption for children below 12 years from getting tested twice- in the UAE and India. Various community groups and social workers have supported the plea, the Gulf News reported. India has since February 23 made it mandatory for passengers to produce the negative report of the RT-PCR tests taken within 72 hours before their departure to India. --PTI
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is formally expanding a USD 3 million financial relief fund that it quietly launched earlier this month, to help people struggling to make ends meet during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The foundation, which grew out of the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement nearly eight years ago, said Thursday that it plans to make up to 3,000 microgrants of $1,000 each to people who it believes need it most. The BLM foundation has already begun asking recipients to apply for the Survival Fund grants as it builds out its philanthropic arm.
If approved, the money is deposited directly into recipients’ bank accounts or made available on prepaid debit cards, the foundation said ” no strings attached.
“This came from a collective conversation with BLM leadership that Black folks are being hurt the most financially during the pandemic,” BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors told The Associated Press. (AP)
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that the single-dose vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson is safe and effective against SARS-CoV-2. If it is authorised, it will become the third COVID-19 vaccine to be approved in the US.
However, phase 3 trials for the vaccine, which include about 40,000 participants, are ongoing. But a preliminary analysis of 39,321 participants demonstrated vaccine efficacy of 66.9 per cent. This means that in a setting of a controlled trial, using the vaccine reduces the incidence of disease by 66.9 per cent. This, however, is different from how the vaccine will act in the “real world”, which is referred to as vaccine effectiveness.
But, how does the single dose vaccine work?
This vaccine called Ad26.COV2.S uses some genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. More precisely, it uses the genetic code to make the spike protein, the protrusions that can be seen on the surface of the virus. The spike protein is used by many vaccines since this is what the virus uses to bind with human cells and initiate infection.
Taiwan will begin slightly easing restrictions on foreign visitors coming to the island beginning Monday. The Central Epidemic Command Center says foreign nationals wishing to come to Taiwan for business can apply for special permission at the island's representative offices abroad.
They will need to show negative coronavirus test results obtained three days before they travel and will be tested again after undergoing two weeks of quarantine. Travellers from a list of countries and regions classified as being of low or medium risk for COVID-19 can apply for shortened quarantine periods of between five and seven days.
Those include New Zealand, Macao, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia. Rule changes will also allow for foreigners in travel groups to change flights in Taiwan, and make it easier for Chinese nationals to visit for personal reasons and for Chinese students to return to Taiwanese institutions of higher education.
Taiwan instituted stricter measures on Jan. 1 to guard against variants of the coronavirus. The island of 23 million has recorded just 946 cases and nine deaths from COVID-19. (AP)
Mumbai's iconic Oval Maidan will be shut from tomorrow following a surge in coronavirus cases, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said. No sports or other activities will be allowed at the recreational ground in south Mumbai till further orders, ANI reported.
A total of 229 students of a public school hostel in Maharashtra's Washim district have tested coronavirus positive, an official said on Thursday. Four school staffers have also tested positive, the official said, adding the area has been declared a containment zone. Altogether 327 students from various districts in Vidarbha region reside at the hostel of the Bhavna Public School. Earlier this week, 39 students and five employees of a hostel in Latur district of Marathwada had tested positive.
Risod tehsildar Ajit Shelar told PTIthat the students had joined the Washim hostel on February 14. Twenty one students tested positivein the first few days after which RT-PCR tests of all the 327 students were conducted, he said. Maharashtra on Wednesday witnessed a significant rise in coronavirus cases, with more than 8,000 new infections coming to light in a single day after a gap of over four months, health officials said. The state reported 8,807 cases on Wednesday, taking its total infection count to 21,21,119.
It had reported 8,142 cases on October 21 last year, after which the numbers had declined. With 80 deaths reported on Wednesday, the state's fatality count rose to 51,937, the official said. (PTI)
Pune-based Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, dispatched its first batch of vaccine shots for the Covax global inoculation programme on Tuesday.
Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, said on Wednesday, “Covax receives its first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by SII, ‘Covishield’. We are delighted to see the combined efforts of everyone result in saving the lives of millions. SII will continue to be at the forefront of fighting the pandemic with affordable and immunogenic vaccines.”
Covax, led by the World Health Organization and the GAVI alliance, has struck agreements with manufacturers for two billion doses and has the option for another billion. At a recent webinar, Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at WHO, had said that the first shipments from India will go to 25-30 countries.
February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors' offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year. Flu has virtually disappeared from the US, with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades. Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling were a big factor in preventing a 'twindemic' of flu and COVID-19.
A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people travelling, they say. Another possible explanation: The coronavirus has essentially muscled aside flu and other bugs that are more common in the fall and winter. Scientists don't fully understand the mechanism behind that, but it would be consistent with patterns seen when certain flu strains predominate over others, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert at the University of Michigan. Nationally, this is "the lowest flu season we've had on record," according to a surveillance system that is about 25 years old, said Lynnette Brammer of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitals say the usual steady stream of flu-stricken patients never materialized.
At Maine Medical Center in Portland, the state's largest hospital, "I have seen zero documented flu cases this winter," said Dr. Nate Mick, the head of the emergency department. Ditto in Oregon's capital city, where the outpatient respiratory clinics affiliated with Salem Hospital have not seen any confirmed flu cases. "It's beautiful," said the health system's Dr. Michelle Rasmussen. The numbers are astonishing considering flu has long been the nation's biggest infectious disease threat. In recent years, it has been blamed for 600,000 to 800,000 annual hospitalisations and 50,000 to 60,000 deaths. (AP)
All day in his lab, Sudhi Payyappat leads a team of 20 in carefully examining dozens of sewage samples collected from wastewater treatment plants across New South Wales (NSW) state in Australia. It’s certainly not the most appealing job in the world, but the results he churns out on a daily basis hold significant ramifications: they help millions across Australia in steering clear of the coronavirus.
A methodology developed by Payyappat, a Kerala-born microbiologist settled in Sydney, in March last year has been adopted across Australia for its testing of waste-water to locate fragments of SARS-CoV-2 and thus detect hidden cases within the broader community. His methodology is founded on the premise that a person infected with coronavirus will start ‘shedding’ the virus within three-four days through his faeces. The ‘shedding’ can also occur while coughing, showering, sneezing or brushing one’s teeth.
Such virus fragments, travelling through toilets and sewer pipes, end up in sewage treatment plants. Samples taken from the sewage treatment plants subjected to intensive testing in labs can help the local health departments in detecting the presence of the infection within a community even before a person with symptoms shows up. Read our report here.
With 8,807 new cases on Wednesday, Maharashtra seems to be fast racing back towards its worst phase in this pandemic. The numbers of detected positive cases on Wednesday was the highest since October 20.
The state now has the highest number of active cases in the country, thanks to the steep rise in the last one week, and also the fact that Kerala has been slowly, but steadily, slowing down. Maharashtra now has more than 59,000 active cases, out of the country’s total of 1.51 lakh, while Kerala has slipped to second position with 53,000 active cases. The state with the third highest number of active cases is Karnataka, which has just about 6,000 of them.
The positive cases from just Mumbai and Pune are now similar to what the entire state was discovering about three weeks ago. Both the megacities reported more than 1,000 cases. Pune alone contributed about 1,500 new cases. Read our full breakdown of the Covid numbers here.
Over 19,600 people have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Mizoram since its rollout on January 16, a health official said on Thursday.
A total of 38 per cent of the registered beneficiaries have received the first dose of the vaccine so far, she said.
Around 15,750 health workers and 27,557 frontline personnel have been registered for receiving the first dose of the vaccine, the official said.
At least 4,031 health workers have received the second dose of the vaccine.
No adverse effect of vaccination has been reported to date, she said.
Mizoram did not report any new COVID-19 case on Thursday.
The state's caseload stands at 4,413, of which 23 are active cases, while 4,380 people have recovered from the disease and 10 patients have succumbed to the infection so far.
Mizoram has tested over 2.29 lakh samples for COVID-19 to date. (PTI)
India recorded 16,738 new Covid-19 cases and 138 deaths in the last 24 hours. With this, the country's total virus caseload rose to 1,10,46,914, while the death toll surged to 1,56,705.
An aggressive vaccination strategy in the second phase will help reduce transmission of infection, decrease mortality and also reduce the chances of mutation of the virus, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria said.
While the government is yet to make an official announcement on those who will be included in the over-45 age group with comorbidities, Guleria said those who are at higher risk of dying due to their underlying condition will be given priority.
“There are specific categories based on those who are at higher risk of dying because of Covid-19. People with heart disease, diabetes, those who have underlying cancer, people with disability which predisposes to severe pneumonia, or those who are on immunosuppressant steroids, and post-transplantation patients will come under this category,” Guleria told The Indian Express. Read the full report here.
A new coronavirus variant that shares some similarities with a more transmissible and intractable variant discovered in South Africa is on the rise in New York City, researchers said on Wednesday.
The new variant, known as B.1.526, was first identified in samples collected in New York in November, and by mid-February represented about 12% of cases, researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said on Wednesday.
The variant was also described in research published online this week by the California Institute of Technology. Neither study has been reviewed by outside experts.
The Columbia researchers said an analysis of publicly available databases did not show a high prevalence of coronavirus variants recently identified in South Africa and Brazil in case samples from New York City and surrounding areas.
“Instead we found high numbers of this home-grown lineage,” Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in a statement. (Reuters)
Amid a surge in coronavirus cases, a limit will be imposed on all indoor and outdoor gatherings in Punjab's Ludhiana district from March 1, ANI reported.
"Ceiling of 100 and 200 persons on various indoor and outdoor social/religious/sports/entertainment/educational/ cultural/religious gatherings would be strictly enforced from 1st March 2021 in Ludhiana district," the District Magistrate of Ludhiana said on Wednesday.