Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray too made it clear that the the lockdown curbs in his state would continue beyond June 30. In an address to the state, Thackeray said, “Will lockdown be lifted after June 30? The clear answer is no. We can not leave this war halfway in this final phase. The crisis is not over yet. I am sure that you will continue to co-operate with the government to ensure that the lockdown is not re-imposed.”
In an interview to news agency ANI, Home Minister Amit Shah stressed that there is no community spread in Delhi. Shah also added that the government of India fought well against the virus and that the country will win both the battles (one against coronavirus and other along the India-China border) under the leadership of PM Modi.
Addressing the nation during his monthly radio address, Mann ki Baat, PM Modi said that India has always emerged out stronger from adversities. "People are commonly talking about one thing- when will 2020 end. They feel it has been a year of many challenges. There could be any number of challenges but our history shows that we've always overcome them. Guided by its strong cultural ethos, India has turned challenges into successes."
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Saturday that Delhi saw a shortage of beds for Covid-19 patients in the first week of June, because of which the death toll rose.
“In the first week of June, we started noticing a shortage of beds, of testing in Delhi. And because of the shortage, when some people couldn’t get beds, the death toll started to rise,” he said during a webcast.
Kejriwal also said that the speed at which Covid-19 cases rose in the city after the lockdown was eased in May was more than what the government had expected.
Of the total cases in Delhi till Friday, 73% have been reported since June 1 — the numbers surging from 20,834 then to 77,240 on June 26. From 426 Covid-19 deaths in the first week of June, the toll is now 2,492.
There have been several complaints in the Capital of people being turned away by hospitals — some because their Covid report was awaited. Kejriwal said Saturday that the situation has improved considerably and Delhi is in a comfortable position now regarding hospital beds.
Even though RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) remains the gold standard of frontline testing for the novel coronavirus, the Health Ministry has introduced a range of other tests from time to time as the country ramps up its testing to nearly 2.15 lakh per day.
Besides an expansion in testing strategy, including all “symptomatic individuals in every part of the country”, facilities and types of kits have also been gradually increased. With India’s strategy to combat Covid-19 being ‘test, track, and treat’, other types of tests like antibody, TrueNat and CBNAAT (tuberculosis tests) and antigen were introduced as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) faced a backlash for lack of testing.
However, it must be noted that unlike RT-PCR tests, which continue to be the most accurate method available for the detection of the pathogen that causes Covid-19, antibody tests are only for surveillance purposes, and can determine if a patient has previously had coronavirus. The ICMR has advised antibody testing as “supplementary” to RT-PCR testing.
Meanwhile, the United States registered the largest single day increase in coronavirus cases since the virus originated with over 40,800 new cases on Friday. In the US, new cases reported per day increased on an average of 60 per cent over the past two weeks, according to an AP analysis. The country has reported a rise in cases mostly in the south and west.
South Korea and China, in the last 24 hours, reported cases in double digits as what is being seen as a second wave of coronavirus.
India’s small southern neighbour has kept its Covid numbers extremely low, and the number of deaths from the disease to only 11. How did Sri Lanka do it? The country’s Director General of Health Services, Dr Anil Jasinghe, explained the areas that Sri Lanka focussed on, and the steps that it took. Read our explainer here
The Centre Monday issued new guidelines under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, to re-open more activities in the country in a calibrated manner. Unlock 2.0 will come into effect on July 1 and extend till the end of the month. The notification was issued a day before Unlock 1.0 guidelines were to expire.
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All activities will be permitted outside containment zones, except schools, colleges, education and coaching institutions; international air travel except as permitted by the government; metro rail; cinemas, gymnasiums, swimming pools, entertainment parks, theatres, bars, auditoriums, assembly halls; social, political, sports, entertainment, academic, cultural and religious functions.
The government said more domestic flights will be allowed to operate. Movement of individuals will remain prohibited from 10 pm to 5 am across the country.
Click here to read the full list of what is allowed, and what is not.
Prime Minister Narendra will address the nation at 4 pm tomorrow.
The Home Ministry on Monday issued fresh guidelines for the next stage of unlocking. The ministry has allowed more domestic flights to be operated. It has also changed curfew timings from 10 am to 5 pm, and added that not more than 5 people will be allowed in a shop. Educational institutes like schools and colleges will be shut till July 31. However, cinema halls and gymnasiums will be shut. Metro rail operations will also stand suspended.
Kerala reported 121 COVID-19 positive cases on Monday, with as many as 2057 people undergoing treatment for the infection and the death toll rose to 23 as the sample of a deceased man tested positive.
Of the positive cases, 78 had come from abroad and 26 from other states and five had been infected through contact. (PTI)
The Delhi government will set up a plasma bank within the next two days for coronavirus patients at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Monday. The chief minister said that the creation of the repository is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the entire country and appealed to recovered patients to donate their plasma.
The chief minister said the state government will issue dedicated helplines for those willing to donate plasma.
Like in blood banks, where blood is extracted and stored for those who might be in need, the idea is to extract and store plasma from people who have recovered from Covid-19 and give it to someone suffering from the disease. The CM said it will become operational within two days and is likely one of its kind in the country so far. Click here to read our explainer.
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu governments on Monday extended their state-wide lockdown till July 31 as coronavirus cases in the two cities touched a new high. Maharashtra’s cases touched 164,626, while there are 82,275 cases in Tamil Nadu.
The Nagaland Cabinet Monday decided to extend the state’s existing lockdown to July 15 to contain the spread of the COVID-19. As per an order signed by Chief Secretary Temjen Toy, the state's existing lockdown guidelines “shall continue to remain operative in Nagaland till the 15th July 2020” in line with the order issued on 04.05.2020. However, the earlier order is subject to relaxations regarding the opening of religious places and plying of local taxis and auto-rickshaw in border sub-divisions. Of the 451 COVID-19 cases, 283 are active while 168 have recovered. No deaths have been reported so far.
There is no demand for Shramik Special trains from any state now, the Railways said Monday, but offered to run more if states request for them.
At a press conference, a railway spokesperson said that no Shramik Special ran on Sunday and none is scheduled for Tuesday either.
"There was a demand for just one train from Karnataka and that train is running today (Monday) from Bengaluru to Muzaffarpur. There is no demand for such trains tomorrow as well. We will run them if demand arises from states," a spokesperson for the national transporter was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
He also said that so far 4,596 Shramik trains have operated since May 1.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray Monday launched world's largest convalescent plasma project and allocated Rs 16.65 crore from CM relief fund for this. The plasma trial under this project will be carried out in 21 medical colleges covering 500 patients. A critical Covid-19 patient will get two doses of plasma, 200 ml each, from recovered patients. Convalescent plasma is antibodies retrieved from recovered Covid-19 patients. It is used in critical patients to boost their fight against the virus. This is free of cost for patients. Until now, in Maharashtra, only mumbai was running plasma trial in Kasturba and Nair hospital.
'The Government of West Bengal has decided to procure 3 crore masks, which shall be provided absolutely free of cost to school students, 100-day scheme beneficiaries, frontline healthcare workers, police, fire services staff, municipalities, civic volunteers, etc,' Mamata Banerjee tweeted.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday launched convalescent plasma therapy-cum- trial project for treatment of critical COVID-19 patients with a state medical education department official calling it the largest initiative of its kind in the world.
Convalescent plasma therapy, also called passive antibody therapy, seeks to obtain plasma from the blood of people who have recovered from the infection to inject into patients undergoing treatment. “The project, titled ‘Platina’, is the largest convalescent plasma therapy-cum-trial project in the world. (PTI)
In Municipal Corporations of Region including Municipal Corporations of Pune, Solapur, Aurangabad, Malegaon, Nashik, Dhule, Jalgaon. Akola, Amravati and Nagpur following activities are permitted with restrictions as specified in the Orders issued from time to time:-
What is allowed
*All essential shops which are allowed to remain open before this order. shall continue
to do so.
*All non-essential shops will be allowed to continue as per relaxations and guidelines issued vide Order 31st May 2020 and 4th June 2020. and are in operation as per the policy Of respective Municipal Corporation. All non-essential markets. market areas & shops except malls and market complexes will remain open from 9 am to 5 pm. Liquor shops will continue to operate if permitted. home delivery or otherwise.
E-commerce activity for essential as well as non-essential items & material.
*All the industrial units which are presently open will continue to operate.
*All construction sites (Public/Private) which are allowed to remain open and
operational. All such pre-monsoon works (Public and Private) which are allowed.
*Home delivery restaurants / Kitchen.
*Online/ distance learning and related activities.
*All Government offices (excluding Emergency, health & Medical, treasuries. disaster management. police. NIC. food & Civil Supply, FCI. N.Y.K..
*Municipal Services to function with strength or 15 persons whichever is higher.
*All private offices can operate up to strength or 10 people, whichever is more. Activities related to self-employed people like plumbers, electricians, pest-control and technicians
*Garages to mend vehicles with prior appointment.
Click here for more details.
Even as the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) is mulling reopening schools after August 15, the government is yet to share guidelines on how schools will function after the lockdown. While school administrations have less than two months to prepare, it is parents who are more concerned.
Many parents are not willing to send their children to school and demand to continue classes through the online mode. But for those who do not have access to the online infrastructure, the situation is worse. An online petition on change.org by the Parent Association demands that schools remain shut until “zero COVID cases in the (respective) state”. The petition has over 9.06 lakh signatures as of June 22. It claims, “Not a single child to be sent to the schools for their own safety” and demands that the entire “academic session should continue in e-learning mode.” Click here to know more.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday directed officers to increase COVID-19 testing facilities in the state and operate available TrueNat machines at full capacity.
Use of TrueNat machines should be promoted in private hospitals, he said addressing an unlock review meeting with senior officers and ministers.
"The testing capacity for COVID-19 should be increased. Available TrueNat and rapid antigen machines should be operated at full capacity for doing maximum tests in the state," an official release said quoting the chief minister. (PTI)
An order issued by Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta on Monday said wearing face covers or masks, maintaining social distancing, restricted gatherings, and other measures shall continue to prevail in Maharashtra. The state government has also advised that work from home should be followed as far as possible.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government on Monday extended lockdown in the state till July 31. It has also applied Mumbai police's diktat on allowing only neighbourhood movement to all municipal corporations in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Municipalities have been empowered to decide on easing of curbs outside the containment zones.
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy and the staff at his residence on Monday tested negative for COVID-19. However, the Chief Minister has been advised seven days home quarantine.
CM Narayanasamy and staff at his residence had undergone the examination for COVID-19 on Sunday after one of the staff had tested positive a few days ago.
A BJP MLA from Rewa in Madhya Pradesh test positive for novel coronavirus on Monday, news agency PTI reported. The swab sample of the MLA was collected on Sunday and contract tracing had begun as per protocol.
Three legislators, two from the BJP and one from the Congress, have been detected with the infection this month.
A coronavirus patient at Government Chest Hospital in Hyderabad died after doctors allegedly refused to put him on ventilator support last week. In a video, which he shot at the isolation ward of the hospital before he died, and was addressed to his father, 35-year-old V Ravikumar said doctors did not provide him with a ventilator even after he complained of breathing problem. Hospital authorities, however, refuted the allegations and said the patient died after he developed myocarditis.
China reported a further decline in coronavirus cases, with just 12 new cases on Monday, the Associated Press reported. Seven of these new cases were from Beijing, where as many as 8.3 million people have been tested in recent weeks. The National Health Commission said that new cases in the city were down by half from the day before. Beijing had shut a wholesale food market where the virus spread widely earlier this month, closed schools again and locked down some neighbourhoods. Those leaving Beijing are required to have a negative virus test result within the previous seven days.
At least 50 inmates of Akola District Prison have tested positive for Covid-19, taking the total number of positive cases among prison inmates in Maharashtra to 360. At least 11 prisons across the state have registered coronavirus cases till now.
On 24 June, 18 inmates were discovered to have coronavirus in the Akola District prison, following which more tests revealed at least 50 cases. Meanwhile, over the last four days, Thane Central and Mumbai Central prisons have reported 11 and three positive cases among staff members, respectively.
Rajasthan will allow the reopening of religious places in rural areas with a limited number of devotees from July 1, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said, ensuring that all precautionary measures to curb the spread of coronavirus will be in place. Only those religious sites in rural areas have been given permission to reopen where 50 or less people visit per day on normal days. During this, social distancing, sanitisation and wearing masks etc and other standard operating procedures need to be ensured, the CM said.
South Africa’s current surge of Covid-19 cases is expected to dramatically increase in the coming weeks and press the country’s hospitals to the limit, the health minister said Sunday, the Associated Press reported.
Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said in a statement that out of 1,38,000 confirmed cases, more than 4,300 people have been hospitalised. He further warned that this number is likely to rise rapidly. “We are seeing a rapid rise in the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases indicating that, as we expected, we are approaching a surge during the months of July and August,” Mkhize said in a statement.
The number of confirmed novel Coronavirus infections across the world crossed the ten million mark on Sunday, with half of these being accounted for by just four countries, the United States, Brazil, Russia and India. The United States has more than 2.5 million infections while Rusia and India have more than half a million each.
Globally, the infections are currently growing at the rate of about 1 to 2 per cent, which means that between 100,000 and 200,000 new infections are being detected every day. This number is still significantly higher than the number of people recovering from the disease every day, in the range of 80,000 to 130,000, and that would suggest that, even at the global level, the peak of the disease is still some distance away.
The European Union will have a list of COVID-19-safe countries for travel purposes ready by Tuesday at the latest, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Monday. EU officials are preparing a list of 15 countries that are safe for open borders based on epidemiological criteria, she told local radio Cadena SER, as the coronavirus pandemic wanes on most of the continent.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government has decided to start India's first Plasma bank. "Delhi govt will set up 'Plasma bank'; request people to donate plasma to save lives of COVID-19 patients. The government has so far conducted clinical trials of plasma therapy on 29 COVID-19 patients and the results have been positive. The bank will start operation in two days. This 'Plasma Bank' will be set-up at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in Delhi. Anyone who needs plasma will need a recommendation from a doctor."
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal paid tribute to Dr Aseem Gupta of city government-run LNJP Hospital who died battling the virus. He also announced Rs one crore for Dr Gupta's family. "Dr Aseem Gupta, a senior doctor of LNJP Hospital passed away due to COVID19 yesterday. We salute his spirit and sacrifice. His family will be given a compensation amount of Rs 1 Crore by our government."
As Bengaluru faces a bed crunch, the in-house software development team of the Karnataka Covid-19 War Room has been tasked with developing an application that will help patients in getting a hospital bed with as much ease as getting as a cab.
Munish Moudgil, an IAS officer whose team is working on the hospital bed app and the head of the state Covid 19 war room said, “We want to create an app for citizens that will work like an Ola or Uber app for access to hospital beds. Only those who test positive will be able to book a hospital bed and will be put on a list.” The app will verify the list with the ICMR database of persons who test positive for the Covid 19 each day and the bed allocations will happen only for those who test positive, Moudgil said.
Telangana's Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali tested positive for Covid-19 and is undergoing treatment at a private hospital. The 68-year-old was having symptoms since the last four days. The government is considering a total lockdown in areas under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) amid a drastic surge in Covid cases — 888 of the 1,087 positive cases reported on Saturday were from GHMC areas — in Hyderabad. Officials said a new strategy is being worked out and a total lockdown in GHMC areas is among the proposals.
South Korea has reported 42 new infections of COVID-19 as infections steadily climb in the greater capital area, forcing authorities to consider stronger social restrictions. With people increasingly venturing out in public, new clusters are tied to a variety of places.
Health Minister Park Neung-hoo during a briefing Sunday afternoon announced that the government is prepared to implement stronger social distancing measures if the epidemic continues to grow. He said the strongest measures — including banning all gatherings of more than 10 people, shutting schools, halting professional sports, and restricting operations of non-essential businesses — will be enforced if the daily increase in infections doubles more than two times during a span of a week.
A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00. About 1 in 4 of those deaths – more than 125,000 – have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.
The World Health Organisation announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world - topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.
The infections in India inched closer to 5.5 lakh-mark with 19,459 new cases being reported in the last 24 hours. The toll also rose to 16,459 after 380 deaths were reported. Of the 5,48,318 cases, 3.2 lakh patients have recovered, while 2.1 lakh infections are still active.
The COVID-19 pandemic may have pushed the world economy into a tailspin, with 2020 projected to be worse than any of the years since the global financial crisis. But billionaires, at least a select group of them across countries, have seen their wealth soar during the past three months, which have been financially painful for most people across the world. What's been the trend across the globe? What about Indian billionaires? We explain
In the wake of the Karnataka government announcing Sunday curfews from July 5 and extending night curfew timings from today (June 29), the South Western Railway (SWR) has revised timings of Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters in its Bengaluru Division.
According to an official notice, PRS locations in Bengaluru will now work from 8 am to 6 pm. On Sundays, when complete lockdown is in place, all such counters except those in KSR Bengaluru railway station will remain closed. "At KSR Bengaluru City railway station, the PRS counter will function in one shift from 8 am to 2 pm," the notice read.
Assam's Kamrup Metropolitan district — which includes Guwahati city — is under total lockdown till July 12, 6 pm. While the first seven days are stringent, the subsequent seven days may be more relaxed. Additionally, the government has ordered a 7 pm to 7 am curfew in all districts of Assam, and a “weekend lockdown” — applicable on Saturdays and Sundays —for the town and municipal committees in each district. From grocery stores to vegetable vendors, everything is closed. However, hospitals, pharmacies and testing laboratories, and other essential services will remain open.
Australia's second-most populous state said on Monday it is considering reimposing social distancing restrictions after the country reported its biggest one-day rise in new coronavirus infections in more than two months. While many states and territories have yet to report their latest numbers, Victoria said it has detected 75 cases in the past 24 hours - enough to make it Australia's biggest daily outbreak since April 11. The growing figures have stoked fears of a second wave in Australia after several weeks of fewer than 20 new cases a day.
“I am being intubated, Nirupama… I am not feeling good at all.” This was one of the last messages Dr Asheem Gupta sent to his wife on Saturday afternoon, just before he was put on the ventilator. At 6.05 am Sunday, after a 21-day struggle, the 58-year-old senior consultant in the Department of Anaesthetics at the Delhi government’s Lok Nayak Hospital succumbed to Covid-19.
Believed to have contracted the virus while on duty in the hospital’s ICU, he had tested positive on June 3, Lok Nayak Hospital authorities said. He was admitted to the hospital’s ICU on June 7 and a day later, shifted to Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket.
A nudge from the Union Home Ministry has pushed up the number of containment zones in Delhi to 417, mainly due to 13 containment zones across five districts undergoing an extensive remapping exercise, resulting in the creation of several new sealed areas. Read More
A week after it started home isolation for patients with mild symptoms or those who are asymptomatic, the PCMC has decided to change the norms of home isolation. From five days’ hospital quarantine, it has now decided to start home isolation of such patients from day one. Read More
West Bengal on Sunday registered its highest single-day jump in Covid-19 cases. An addition of 572 cases took the state’s count to 17,283, while the toll mounted to 639 with 10 more deaths, the health department said. Read More
Punjab Health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that they have managed to contain the spread of Covid-19 to a considerable extent with the efforts of the state government. The minister added that the state health department has collected more than 2.80 lakh samples. Read More
A burgeoning satellite town in Mumbai’s vast outback, Mira Bhayander has registered a 364 per cent jump in the total number of Covid-19 cases since June 1. The spike, from 699 cases and 13 deaths recorded on June 1 to 3,246 cases and 116 deaths on June 28, has raised questions on the contact-tracing, isolation and treatment measures implemented by the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC). Read more here
With a doctor, a staff nurse and three patients admitted to the Alchemist hospital of Panchkula — who were all seeking treatment for chronic kidney failure — testing positive for novel coronavirus in the past week, there is a fear of the hospital becoming the centre of a coronavirus outbreak. Read More
A BJP legislator in Haryana tested positive for Covid-19 Sunday, the first MLA to have contracted the infection in a state that has reported 13,829 positive cases so far. Subhash Sudha, the MLA from Thanesar in Kurukshetra district, was admitted to Gurgaon's Medanta hospital Saturday.
Gurgaon's Chief Medical Officer Virender Yadav confirmed that the legislator is under treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital. Read more here
The increasing Covid-19 death toll in Punjab has prompted Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to instruct deputy commissioners (DCs) to work towards bringing the mortality rate down. Read More
The number of positive Covid-19 cases in the Pune Police reached 122 as of Sunday, with the addition of 10 fresh cases in the last 24 hours. Of the total 122, around 37 are active. Read More
EVEN AS the PMC makes efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 among local residents, it is also facing another challenge as citizens, returning to India from abroad under Vande Bharat Mission, are testing positive for the novel coronavirus.
The declaration of complete lockdown in the country from March 25 had brought a halt to international arrivals at airports, leading to many Indian citizens being stranded abroad. Before that, the central government had also banned flights from select countries that had reported Covid-19 cases. Read more here
Tripura detected 12 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, raising the state's total coronavirus tally to 1,352. All the new patients have recent travel history from elsewhere in the country or were in close contact with people already affected by the virus. Among these patients, 281 are active patients while 1,071 have already recovered and were discharged from hospitals.
A 53-year-old ward boy of Hindu Rao hospital, who was COVID positive, died of kidney failure. He was admitted to the hospital on Friday after complaints of cough, breathlessness. This is first death at hospital after it was converted into COVID facility yesterday.
Medical, dental and paramedical undergraduate students of Gujarat University have demanded that exams be postponed in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. Citing health concerns of candidates taking exams like MBBS, BDS, Bachelor Physiotherapy and other paramedical courses which are scheduled to commence from July 27, students demanded that the exams be put off till September.
“We are not demanding a mass promotion. Since these are professional courses we understand the importance of exams. What we want from the authorities is to postpone the exams by a month or two and conduct these in September,” a final year MBBS student of BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital Asarwa said on condition of anonymity, adding that the college was threatening students to not speak to the media after they raised their demands earlier this week. Read more here
The number of COVID-19 containment zones in Delhi has risen to 421 after a re-mapping of such areas -- an increase of 141 zones -- in the last two days, with the Southwest district topping the chart. According to an official, around 2.45 lakh people were screened in the national capital till Saturday night in a mammoth exercise to check the spread of COVID-19. Officials said the count of containment zones is expected to jump further as the authorities in some districts are yet to complete the task of redrawing such areas, following the Centre's directions. Before the re-mapping exercise, the number of containment zones was 280 in the national capital on June 25, an official said. The exercise was launched on June 26. Another official said Southwest Delhi has reported a rise of 37 containment zones since the re-mapping exercise was launched, taking the number of such areas in the district to 80. (PTI)
A total of 402 new COVID-19 positive cases have been reported in the Haryana today; taking the total number of cases to 13829. Death toll rises to 223 after 5 deaths were reported today: Haryana Health Department.
Asserting that the coronavirus pandemic cannot continue forever, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday urge people to take all precautions to keep the virus away as the country lifts the nationwide lockdown. In a Facebook post, he appealed to the citizens of India to stay calm and have a firm belief that "no storm can continue forever."
Himachal Pradesh now has 902 cases.
A total of 88 people have tested positive for Coronavirus in Gurgaon today, and 1 person has succumbed to the infection. A total of 5158 cases have emerged so far, of who 3747 have recovered, and 84 have succumbed to the infection.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh announced extension of the coronavirus-induced lockdown in his state for another 15 days, that is, from July 1 to July 15. However, Biren Singh said the state has also decided to allow operation of inter-district bus service from July 1 by strictly maintaining SOPs and guidelines issued by the government. No other public transport system will be allowed during this period, he added.
The CM also said the daily domestic flight service which was limited to only one flight a day would be increased to five from Monday. The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the state is 1094, 432 cases have been discharged and at present, there are 660 active cases. The recovery rate is 39.56 %.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray Sunday said the battle against coronavirus cannot be left halfway and urged the people of the state to follow rules and ensure the lockdown was not re-imposed. However, Thackeray made it clear that the lockdown curbs in the state would continue beyond June 30.
In an address to the state, Thackeray said, “Will lockdown be lifted after June 30? The clear answer is no. We can not leave this war halfway in this final phase. The crisis is not over yet. I am sure that you will continue to co-operate with the government to ensure that the lockdown is not re-imposed.” Maharashtra tops the tally with respect to cases as well as deaths, with 7,273 fatalities and 1,59,133 infections. Read the full story here
Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has decided to finalise the strategy to contain spread of Corona Virus in the GHMC jurisdiction in the next three to four days. He said a decision will also be taken on the proposals that lockdown should be re-imposed under the GHMC limits for a few days. The CM said that there is no need to get anxious or entertain fear about the more number of positive cases in the city as the government had made all arrangments to offer proper treatment to all the needy. A high-level review meeting held at Pragathi Bhavan here on Sunday on containment of Corona Virus, treatment available for the Corona patients, strategy to be implemented in future and other related issues. Medical and Health Minister Sri Etela Rajender, Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao, R&B Minister Sri Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Chief Secretary Sri Somesh Kumar, Medical and Health doctors participated in the meeting. The review was held on Corona virus spread, meausres taken to contain it. Minister Sri Rajender explained about the prevailing situation.
“Hyderabad is a metropolitan city in which one crore people live. It is but natural that like other cities in the country, the spread of Corona is also high in the city. People started moving around after the lock down is lifted. This led to the spread of the virus. In Chennai in Tamil Nadu, lock down was re-imposed to contain the spread. Other cities in the country are also thinking on these lines. Medical and Health department also made proposals that the re-imposition of lock down in Hyderabad is a good. But re-imposition of lock down will be a very major decision. Government machinery and people should be made ready for this. Especially the police department should be kept ready. Cabinet meeting should be convened. A decision on lock down should be taken by eliciting views from all the concerned. Let us examine the situation keenly for two to three days. If need be, Cabinet will be convened in three to four days to discuss proposals for the lockdown, alternatives and other related issues and a decision will be taken,” CM Sri KCR said.
Fifty prisoners of the Akola district jail and 28 other people here in Maharashtra tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, health authorities said. The district jail currently has nearly 300 prisoners, a jail official said, adding that the facility has not taken in any new prisoner in the recent past. On Sunday morning, reports of 78 people, including 50 male prisoners of the district jail, came out positive, an official from the Government Medical College and Hospital here said. With this, the total number of coronavirus cases in the district has gone up to 1,498, he said. (PTI)