As the fear of getting fined for not wearing masks set in after the DDMA order, people in the national capital have again started masking up in public places, especially at busy markets, railway stations, Metro, buses and ISBTs. The inspection by the Delhi Police and authorities at these places has also intensified again. Delhi Friday reported 1,042 fresh Covid cases with a positivity rate of 4.64 per cent while two persons died due to the infection, according to data shared by the city health department on Friday.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday cited rising Covid-19 cases in Delhi and said people can continue wearing masks like him voluntarily though the state government had now made it optional. In Chennai, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said that people who fail to wear masks in public places will be penalised Rs 500 and the district collectors have been asked to monitor them.
A common anti-inflammatory drug has been found to be an effective antiviral agent in the treatment of mild and moderate Covid-19 patients. The drug, indomethacin, is widely used to treat various types of inflammation-related conditions. The study on Covid patients, by IIT Madras, has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.
THE DRUG: Indomethacin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug available as capsules and a liquid suspension, to be taken orally. According to the US National Library of Medicine, indomethacin works by stopping the body’s production of a substance that causes pain, fever, and inflammation. It is used to relieve moderate to severe pain, tenderness, swelling, and stiffness caused by various kinds of arthritis, and pain in the shoulder caused by inflammation.
The findings: A randomised clinical trial was conducted by IIT Madras researchers at Panimalar Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai. Out of 210 patients admitted, 107 were randomly allocated to a control group and treated with paracetamol and standard care, while 103 patients were administered indomethacin along with standard care of treatment, a media release from IIT Madras said.
A UK patient with a severely weakened immune system had Covid-19 for almost a year and a half, scientists reported, underscoring the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus. There’s no way to know for sure whether it was the longest-lasting Covid-19 infection because not everyone gets tested, especially on a regular basis like this case.
But at 505 days, “it certainly seems to be the longest reported infection,” said Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, an infectious disease expert at the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
A healthcare worker collects a swab sample of a passenger for Covid-19 testing. (PTI Photo)
San Francisco Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski was placed on the Covid-19 list Sunday after testing positive for the virus.
Yastrzemski, 31, is batting .267 with one homer and three RBIs in 14 games this season. He has begun to heat up of late, however, going 7 for 15 with a homer and two RBIs in his past four games.
"It really (stinks)," manager Gabe Kapler said, per the San Jose Mercury News. "He was obviously playing really good baseball. He would've been in the lineup today. It's disappointing."
The grandson of Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski, the younger Yastrzemski is batting .256 with 57 homers and 164 RBIs in 316 career games with the Giants.
The Giants were unable to bring in another player as a corresponding move prior to Sunday's game against the Washington Nationals. (Reuters)
Mumbai on Sunday reported 73 new coronavirus positive cases, which took its overall infection count to 10,59,286, a civic official said.
The death toll in the metropolis remained unchanged at 19,562 as nobody succumbed to the infection during the day, he said.
On Saturday, the city had reported 72 cases. (PTI)
Delhi on Sunday reported 1,083 fresh Covid-19 infections with a positivity rate of 4.48 per cent, while one person died due to the disease, according to the health department.
A total of 25,177 Covid-19 tests were conducted in the city a day ago.
The infection tally in the national capital now stands at 18,74,876 and the death toll at 26,168. (PTI)
Italy reported 56,263 new Covid-19 related cases on Sunday, against 70,520 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily number of deaths fell to 79 from 143.
Italy has registered 162,688 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February 2020, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth highest in the world. The country has reported 16.1 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 9,895 on Sunday, down from 9,914 a day earlier.
There were 34 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 43 on Saturday. The total number of intensive care patients stood at 416, up from a previous 409.
Some 326,211 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 421,533, the health ministry said. (Reuters)
Nayati Healthcare chairperson Niira Radia and seven others have been booked for alleged negligence in treating a Covid-19 patient who died after being discharged from the hospital here, police said on Sunday.
The FIR was registered after Bhagwati Verma, a resident of Krishnanagar area, accused the Neyati Medicity hospital management of negligence in the treatment of her husband and not following Covid guidelines.
According to a complaint filed by the woman at the Jaint police station, the hospital discharged the patient without any prior information.
She further alleged that her husband contracted the coronavirus infection last year and was admitted to Nayati Hospital on May 10, 2021. She said her husband was discharged on May 15 and later died.
The woman also claimed that the hospital fraudulently took more than Rs 1.90 lakh from them as treatment expense. (PTI)
The Serum Institute of India has urged the Centre to use the available 10 crore doses of Covishield offered free of cost by GAVI under COVAX facility in view of rising Covid-19 cases in the country, an official source said.
The Pune-based firm has written to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHF) that if these 10 crore free doses of Covishield are not taken by the Indian government timely, it will lead to wastage of the life saving vaccines amid the pandemic outbreak.
In a letter to the ministry, Prakash Kumar Singh, Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at SII, is learnt to have stated that the firm has already supplied 14 crore doses of Covishield to the Government of India (GoI) through UNICEF under "COVAX" facility of GAVI free of cost.
Apart from these 14 crore doses, GAVI has also offered 10 crore doses of Covishield free of cost to Gol under COVAX facility, the source said. (PTI)
The total number of Covid-19 cases at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), touched 60 on Sunday as against 55 a day earlier and the Health Department has urged the district authorities to be "prudent" and not let the guard down in controlling the spread of the virus.
With Tamil Nadu continuing to see an uptick in the daily cases, Chief Minister M K Stalin is scheduled to chair a meeting with Collectors and district health officials on Monday to discuss the prevalence of Covid-19 in the State, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said here on Sunday.
Principal Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, in his letter to the Collectors, called for effective administration of vaccines to eligible people, including administering of booster doses.
The Health Minister, along with Radhakrishnan and senior department officials, inspected the IIT-M campus today to take stock of the situation.
"New infections at IIT-Madras have gone up to 60 till date. As many as 2,015 people were tested of the total 7,300 at the institution," Subramanian told reporters on the campus. (PTI)
An experimental treatment from Shionogi & Co Ltd has shown rapid clearance of the virus that causes Covid-19, according to new data, the Japanese drug maker said on Sunday.
The pill, S-217622, "demonstrated rapid clearance of the infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus", Shionogi said in a statement, citing Phase-2b results from the Phase II/III clinical trial of the drug.
The company has global aspirations for the antiviral pill, which is now being evaluated by Japanese regulators.
The findings released on Sunday also showed "there was no significant difference in total score of 12 Covid-19 symptoms between treatment arms" although the drug showed improvement in a composite score of five "respiratory and feverish" symptoms, Shionogi said.
The drugmaker said in March it would launch a global Phase III trial worldwide for the drug with US government support, and Chief Executive Isao Teshirogi has said production could reach 10 million doses a year.
Shionogi's shares have been on a rollercoaster on speculation about success of the treatment. The stock climbed on Friday after a report the US government is in talks to acquire supplies of the drug. (Reuters)
South Africa has seen "worrying signs" of a daily spike in Covid-19 infections over the last week, Health Minister Joe Phaahla has said, as he expressed hope that an increase in the number of cases won't be disruptive enough to divert the country's vaccination programme.
Updating the parliamentary portfolio committee on health on Friday, Phaahla said the government will first monitor the surge more closely before taking any steps to address it.
"Over the past few days, we have seen worrying signs of a rise in the level of Covid-19 infections. We hope this will not go higher. We are monitoring the situation and will report back to the committee and the public once we have seen the trend. We need to give it a little more time to see how it is going to behave,” he said.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported over 4,000 new daily infections for the two consecutive days, twice the number of cases reported a day before. (PTI)
Volunteers and low-level government workers in Shanghai have erected metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes, as China hardens its strict "zero-COVID" approach in the metropolis. In the city's financial district, Pudong, the barriers either thin metal sheets or mesh fences were put up in several neighbourhoods under a local government directive, according to Caixin, a Chinese business media outlet.
Buildings where positive cases have been found sealed up their main entrances, with a small opening for pandemic prevention workers to pass through. China reported 21,796 new community-transmitted COVID-19 infections on Sunday, with the vast majority being asymptomatic cases in Shanghai. Across the country, many cities and provinces have enforced some version of a lockdown in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. (AP)
China's capital Beijing has gone on high alert as the situation turned "grim" following the emergence of clusters of COVID-19, while the country's financial hub Shanghai reported 39 more deaths due to the virus, the highest in a day so far during the current outbreak since last month. The Chinese mainland on Saturday reported 21,796 cases, including 1,566 positive cases and the rest asymptomatic cases mostly in Shanghai, China's National Health Commission reported on Sunday.
Beijing, the seat of China's top leadership, went on high Covid-19 alert as the city braced to test some sections of the population after the city recorded 22 new community cases on Saturday. The city went on high alert after 10 middle school students tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday following which city officials suspended classes in the school for a week. (PTI)
Israel has lifted an indoor mask mandate in place for nearly a year as the country's new cases of coronavirus continue to drop. The end of the masking requirement took effect Saturday night. Masks remain mandatory in hospitals, elderly care facilities and on international flights.
Israel has seen new cases of Covid-19 drop since the peak of the latest wave of infections in January. Serious cases of coronavirus have plummeted from a high of over 1,200 during the omicron variant outbreak to around 200. Since the start of the pandemic two years ago, Israel has recorded over 4 million cases of coronavirus and at least 10,658 deaths over one-fifth of them since January, according to the Health Ministry. (PTI)
Italy reported 70,520 Covid-19 related cases on Saturday, against 73,212 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily number of deaths fell to 143 from 202. Italy has registered 162,609 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February 2020, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth highest in the world. The country has reported 16.1 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 9,914 on Saturday, down from 10,076 a day earlier.There were 43 new admissions to intensive care units, decreasing from 46 on Friday. The total number of intensive care patients stood at 409, edging down from a previous 411.Some 421,533 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 437,193, the health ministry said. (Reuters)
With the addition of 12 new cases of coronavirus, the infection tally in Maharashtra's Thane district has gone up to 7,08,965, an official said on Sunday. These new cases were reported on Saturday, he said. The death toll in the district remained unchanged at 11,889, he said, adding that the COVID-19 mortality rate in Thane is 1.67 per cent. (PTI)
China's capital Beijing recorded 22 new Covid-19 cases on April 23, the local government said on Sunday. All 22 cases were locally transmitted and compared to 6 infections reported on the day before. (Reuters)
As Covid-19 cases once again rise in Delhi, some teachers have been put on Covid-19 duty despite schools operating in full swing now. For instance, 30 teachers, including 5 post-graduate-trained (PGT) teachers who teach senior secondary classes, have been requisitioned for Covid duties in Shahdara district, according to officials.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, school teachers have been deputed to various Covid-related duties and during the second wave, most teachers were involved in some form of these works or the other like contact tracing or shifts at places like airports, vaccination centres, oxygen centres. Read more
In other news, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with chief ministers on the emerging Covid-19 situation in the country on Wednesday through video conference, official sources said on Saturday. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan will make a presentation on the matter, they said.
Shanghai authorities battling an outbreak of Covid-19 have erected mesh barriers outside some residential buildings, sparking fresh public outcry over a lockdown that has forced much of the city's 25 million people to stay home. Images of white hazmat suit-clad workers sealing entrances of housing blocks and even closing off entire streets with roughly two metre-tall green fencing went viral on social media on Saturday, prompting questions and complaints from residents.
"Isn't this a fire hazard?," said one user on social media platform Weibo. "This is so disrespectful of the rights of the people inside, using metal barriers to enclose them like domestic animals," said another. The Shanghai government did not respond to a request for comment. (Reuters)
West Bengal on Saturday registered a Covid-19 death after a gap of 19 days, raising the toll to 21,201, the health department said in its bulletin. At least 31 fresh cases were recorded, which pushed the tally to 20,17,971, it said.
Thirty-five more people have recuperated from the disease since Friday, taking the total number of recoveries to 19,96,524. Bengal currently has 246 active cases, down from 251 on Friday. (PTI)
As many as 44 deaths were reported in India Sunday, taking the death toll to 5,22,193.
With 1,755 patients recovering from the infection, 794 active cases have been recorded across the country in the last 24 hours. The total number of active cases of the country now stands at 15,873.
India reported 2,593 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am Sunday, marginally higher than 2,527 infections recorded a day before, the Union Health Ministry’s data showed.
In the middle of last year, the World Health Organization began promoting an ambitious goal, one it said was essential for ending the pandemic: fully vaccinate 70% of the population in every country against COVID-19 by June 2022.
Now, it is clear that the world will fall far short of that target by the deadline. And there is a growing sense of resignation among public health experts that high COVID vaccination coverage may never be achieved in most lower-income countries, as badly needed funding from the United States dries up and both governments and donors turn to other priorities.
“The reality is that there is a loss of momentum,” said Dr. Isaac Adewole, a former health minister of Nigeria who now serves as a consultant for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read the New York Times report here
Hello and welcome to today's live blog. We bring to you the latest news updates related to the Covid-19 situation across India and the world. Stay tuned!
The number of new COVID-19 cases at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, here, climbed to 55 as 25 more people tested positive, the Tamil Nadu government said on Saturday. According to Principal Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, as of Friday, the total positives at the premier research institution stood at 30. "The cases have increased to 55. The samples have been sent to genomic sequencing analysis (to identify the variant of the virus)... we expect the result to be out in two-three weeks...," he said. --PTI
Delhi witnessed 1,094 new Covid-19 infections and two Covid-related deaths. This pushed the positivity rate in the national capital to 4.82 per cent.
In the middle of last year, the World Health Organization began promoting an ambitious goal, one it said was essential for ending the pandemic: fully vaccinate 70% of the population in every country against COVID-19 by June 2022.
Now, it is clear that the world will fall far short of that target by the deadline. And there is a growing sense of resignation among public health experts that high COVID vaccination coverage may never be achieved in most lower-income countries, as badly needed funding from the United States dries up and both governments and donors turn to other priorities.
“The reality is that there is a loss of momentum,” said Dr. Isaac Adewole, a former health minister of Nigeria who now serves as a consultant for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more
Mizoram reported 112 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the tally to 2,26,702, a health department official said on Saturday. The state did not report any new COVID-19 death for the third consecutive day on Saturday and the toll remained at 694, he said.
The fresh cases were detected out of 858 samples tested with a single-day positivity rate of 13 per cent. Mizoram currently has 672 active COVID-19 cases, while 2,25,336 people have recovered from the disease so far, the official said. (PTI)
Beijing is on alert after 10 middle school students tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, in what city officials said was an initial round of testing. City officials suspended classes in the school for a week following the positive test results. The Chinese capital also reported four other confirmed cases on Friday that were counted separately.
Mainland China reported 24,326 new community-transmitted infections on Saturday, with the vast majority of them asymptomatic cases in Shanghai, where enforcement of a strict "zero-COVID" strategy has drawn global attention. China has doubled down on the approach even in face of the highly transmissible omicron variant. The zero-COVID policy warded off many deaths and widespread outbreaks when faced with less transmissible variants through mass testing and strict lockdowns where people could not leave their homes. (PTI)
West Bengal logged 40 coronavirus cases on Friday while 34 persons recovered from the infection, a state health department bulletin said. The cumulative Covid caseload has gone went upto 20,17,940, while 19,96,489 people have recovered from the contagion so far, the bulletin said.
The number of fresh Covid-19 positive cases was 26 on Thursday. With no fresh fatality recorded like in the past several days, the overall toll in the disease remained at 21,200, it said. The recovery rate was 98.94 per cent. (PTI)
Thane district of Maharashtra recorded 11 new coronavirus positive cases, which took its infection count to 7,08,953, an official said on Saturday. These cases were reported on Friday, he said.
As no fresh fatality linked to the infection was recorded in the district during the day, its death toll remained unchanged at 11,889. The Covid-19 mortality rate of the district is 1.67 per cent, he added. (PTI)
All vaccinated travellers arriving in Singapore via air or sea checkpoints will no longer need to take a pre-departure COVID-19 test as restrictions for controlling the spread of the coronavirus are eased. The Ministry of Health (MOH) also announced that from July 1, all long-term pass holders aged 13 and above travelling to Singapore will have to be fully vaccinated before entering the country, unless they are medically ineligible for vaccines.
This is a change from the present rule, which states that long-term pass holders aged between 13 and 17 can travel into Singapore even if they are not fully vaccinated. The ministry said in a statement on Friday that it is now requiring vaccinations for this group "given the increased availability of vaccines globally for those aged between 13 and 17". (PTI)
Delhi's R-value, which indicates the spread of Covid-19, was recorded at 2.1 this week, implying that every infected person is infecting two others in the national capital, according to an analysis by IIT-Madras. The 'R' or reproductive value indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to, and a pandemic is considered to end if this value goes below one.
The preliminary analysis by computational modelling was done by IIT-Madras' Department of Mathematics and Centre of Excellence for Computational Mathematics and Data Science headed by Prof Neelesh S Upadhye and Prof S Sundar. This was shared with PTI and according to it, Delhi's R-value this week was recorded at 2.1. India's R-value, at present, stands at 1.3, the analysis found. (PTI)
Punjab reported 31 fresh cases of Covid-19 on Friday, pushing the state's infection tally to 7,59,386, according to a medical bulletin issued here. No new Covid-related death was reported in the state, and the toll stands at 17,744, the bulletin showed.
Punjab has reported 293 cases of the coronavirus and two deaths due to the disease in April so far, it said. The number of active cases in the state is 145, the bulletin stated. Of the fresh cases, Mohali reported nine, and Hoshiarpur and Patiala five each. (PTI)
A common anti-inflammatory drug has been found to be an effective antiviral agent in the treatment of mild and moderate Covid-19 patients. The drug, indomethacin, is widely used to treat various types of inflammation-related conditions. The study on Covid patients, by IIT Madras, has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.
The drug: Indomethacin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug available as capsules and a liquid suspension, to be taken orally. According to the US National Library of Medicine, indomethacin works by stopping the body’s production of a substance that causes pain, fever, and inflammation. It is used to relieve moderate to severe pain, tenderness, swelling, and stiffness caused by various kinds of arthritis, and pain in the shoulder caused by inflammation. Read the full explainer here
Twenty five more students of IIT Madras tested positive for Covid-19 Saturday morning taking the tally to 55 till now. Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, who termed the spread as a small cluster, visited the campus alongside other health department officials to oversee the RT-PCR tests being carried out for those residing on the campus.
Gujarat added 11 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, taking the overall tally to 12,24,216, while no fresh death linked to the infection was reported in the state, the health department said. The death toll remained unchanged at 10,943. A release by the health department said 11 coronavirus patients recovered during the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative count of recoveries to 12,13,184.
Gujarat now has 98 active cases, it said. Gujarat COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 12,24,216; new cases 11, deaths 10,943, discharged 12,13,184; active cases 98; people tested so far - figures not released. (PTI)
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday cited rising Covid-19 cases in Delhi and said people can continue wearing masks like him voluntarily though the state government had now made it optional. During the day, Delhi logged 1,042 COVID-19 cases at a positivity rate of 4.64 per cent, while two people died of the infection, taking the tally there to 18,72,699 and toll to 26,164.
This was a rise from the 965 cases and one death recorded a day earlier there. 'The danger of COVID-19 is not over completely. The situation in Delhi is changing. And once the virus spreads in one state, it won't take much time for it to spread in other states,' Pawar told reporters here. (PTI)
Unvaccinated children aged five to 11 travelling with a fully vaccinated adult will no longer need a COVID-19 test to enter Canada beginning Monday, the federal government said. Pre-entry tests will still be needed for partially vaccinated or unvaccinated travellers over the age of 12 who are eligible to travel to Canada.
Children under five years of age don't currently require a COVID-19 test to enter Canada.Government officials announced several other small changes to ease restrictions for international travellers taking effect on Monday. Fully vaccinated travellers, and children under 12 accompanying them, will no longer need to provide their quarantine plans when they enter the country. (AP)
With 1,656 patients recovering from the infection, 838 active cases have been recorded across the country in the last 24 hours
India reported 2,527 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said. With 1,656 patients recovering from the infection, 838 active cases have been recorded across the country in the last 24 hours.
A UK patient with a severely weakened immune system had Covid-19 for almost a year and a half, scientists reported, underscoring the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus. There’s no way to know for sure whether it was the longest-lasting Covid-19 infection because not everyone gets tested, especially on a regular basis like this case.
But at 505 days, “it certainly seems to be the longest reported infection,” said Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, an infectious disease expert at the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Read more
Hello and welcome to today's live blog. We bring to you the latest news updates related to the Covid-19 situation across India and the world. Stay tuned!