Delhi’s recovery rate among corona patients reached nearly 88 per cent on Sunday, with CM Arvind Kejriwal saying the national capital is now at the 10th rank among the states and union territories as the number of active cases are “steadily” declining. The number of active cases is 11,904 now, against 12,657 on Saturday, 13,681 on Friday, 14,554 on Thursday and 14,954 on Wednesday, according to health department bulletins. The recovery rate in Delhi has climbed to 87.95 per cent from Saturday’s figure of 87.29 per cent, while the positivity rate rose to 6.13 per cent from 5.56 per cent on Saturday, the department said in its latest bulletin.
No mass prayers in Eidgah for Bakrid: Karnataka govt
The Karnataka government has allowed Eid-ul-Azha prayers in the mosques only and that too with a maximum of 50 attendies at a time and said mass prayers at Eidgah and other places are prohibited in view of the coronavirus pandemic. People visiting the mosques for prayers will have to wear face masks and maintain the required social distancing, Minority Welfare and Wakf Department Secretary A B Ibrahim said in an order issued on Friday. It said the Hilal committee has decided that the Eid-ul-Azha, also known as Bakrid, would be celebrated on July 31 in Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu districts while it would be on August 1 in the rest of the state.
Gap between fresh cases, recoveries widens in West Bengal
On June 20, the number of fresh Covid-19 positive cases in one day in West Bengal stood at 441, while that of patients discharged was 562. The dedicated number of Covid-19 beds in both state-run and private hospitals stood at 10,340. A month later on July 20, the daily new positive cases stood at 2,282 and the daily discharge 1,535. The dedicated Covid beds increased to 11,239.
"After announcing state-wide complete lockdown dates in the state the government has been receiving request and appeal from different quarters not to observe state-wide lockdown on certain dates coinciding with festivals and important community occasions. Respecting the sentiments of the people we are withdrawing complete lockdown announcement for 2 August and 9 August," the government said.
Complete lockdown will be observed in the state on Aug 5, 8, 16, 17, 23, 24 and August 31 now.
Hospitals in Puducherry should soon be able to accommodate 10,000 coronavirus patients as steps were on to post additional doctors and other staff for them, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said on Tuesday.
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The government had already requested the centrally administered JIPMER to augment the number of beds and also the daily testing of samples, he said adding seven private medical hospitals should also ramp up their facilities.
"Our initiative is to ensure that10,000 beds are totally available in government-run hospitals and also in private medical college hospitals in the Union Territory," the chief minister said in a video interaction with media persons. (PTI)
A sero-survey conducted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on 6,936 people from three wards found that 57 per cent respondents in slums had been exposed to and developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 virus, as opposed to 16 per cent in residential societies.
Those who were associated with the survey said that shared facilities like toilets, high population density and lack of physical distancing may be the reasons why those living in slums were 3.5 times more exposed to the virus than people living in housing societies.
Overall, the survey found that 40 per cent had an infection. A surprise finding is that more women had been infected than men. Click here to read our report.
France on Tuesday handed over to India ventilators, test kits and other medical equipment as part of its assistance in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The medical equipment was handed over to the Indian Red Cross Society by French Ambassador to India Emmanuel Lenain at the Palam Air Force Station after the assistance material was flown to New Delhi onboard a French Air Force aircraft, news agency PTI reported.
"Delighted to hand over COVID-19 medical equipment from France to Shri RK Jain, Secy General @IndianRedCross," Lenain tweeted along with pictures of the handover.
"France earlier granted 200 million euros in financial aid to India through @AFD_en (French development agency). With @IFCCI1 CSR committee, French companies, too, have contributed to relief efforts in India," he said.
Former Karnataka Minister Raja Madangopal Naik has died of COVID-19 at a hospital in Kalaburagi, a health department official said on Tuesday.
He was 69 and is survived by his wife and two sons. "He was admitted to the ESIC hospital in Kalaburgi about a week ago and passed away on Monday," the official told PTI.
Naik, who had stints in Congress, BJP and the JD(S), was a minister in the Congress government headed by M Veerappa Moily. About a week ago, Naik developed health complications and tested positive for COVID-19, the official said
With 1,327 cases and six fatalities in four months, the trajectory of COVID-19 in the cold desert region of Ladakh validates the view that people living at altitudes of 3,000 metres and above are less likely to get infected compared to those in lowland areas, say experts here.
The recovery rate of the disease in the union territory is 82 per cent, substantially higher than the national average of 64.24 per cent. While 1,067 have recovered, there are 254 active cases, according to the Directorate of Health Services on Tuesday. All are under medical supervision in hospitals, corona care centres or in-home isolation and none are on a ventilator.
“The good news and the most surprising finding was the timely recovery of all infected patients despite the fact that majority of the patients belong to an area where environmental silicosis is prevalent which impairs lung defence mechanism,” said Tsering Norboo, retired physician and MD of the Ladakh Institute of Prevention. Click here to know more.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla Tuesday praised the Modi government for its “comprehensive steps” in the fight against the coronavirus and said their results in reducing the impact of the pandemic have been encouraging. Birla said he has great faith in the strength and resilience of the Indian people, and added that the path to victory can be difficult but never impossible, news agency PTI reported.
The Lok Sabha speaker made these remarks while chairing the Empathy Conclave 2020 on World Hepatitis Day in Parliament House.
In a bid to arrest the rising Covid-19 cases in the state, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday announced an extension of the biweekly lockdown till August 31. Besides, the lockdown in containment zones has also been extended till August 31.
Complete lockdown will be observed in the state on 2nd, 5th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th and 31st August, the government said.
“We are extending the two-day lockdown every week in the state, which was in force till July 31, till August 31,” Mamata Banerjee said. According to the Union Health Ministry, West Bengal has reported 1,411 deaths and over 60,000 cases.
However, exceptions have been made for religious festivals and national holidays such as Bakri Eid, Rakhshabandhan, and Independence Day. “We will not do any lockdown this week because of Bakri Eid. We want the minorities to cooperate and avoid any gatherings. I request them all to celebrate indoors,” Mamata Banerjee said. Click here to read more.
Complete lockdown will be observed in the state on 2nd, 5th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th and 31st August, the West Bengal government said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday announced that the Bi-weekly statewide lockdown in the state will be extended till August 31. However, exceptions have only been made for religious festivals including Eid, Rakshabandhan and Independence Day.
Tripura’s week-long door-to-door survey for COVID-19, which started on Monday, ran into severe resistance among villagers at Khowai district, who feel coronavirus afflicts urban people alone and not villagers. On Monday, when the medical teams tried to enter tribal hamlets like Twimadhu, Mungiakami, Jumbari, Tulashikhar and few other villages in the vicinity, the villagers cut off all entry and exit points in these areas and demanded the local administration to exclude them from the survey process.
Speaking to indianexpress.com, Khowai District Magistrate Smriti Mol said: “The villagers have expressed their conviction that coronavirus afflicts only urban people and doesn’t affect villagers. They set up a road blockade on all major roads in and out of their village, preventing medical teams to access their areas.”
The official stated that since the door-to-door COVID-19 survey is a voluntary process, the agitators were not coerced. Click here to read our dispatch from Agartala.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Tuesday directed officials to test children, pregnant women and elderly for Covid-19 on priority.
He stressed on enhancing the testing capacity and ordered the officials to everyday conduct one lakh rapid antigen tests, 40,000-45000 RT-PCR and 2,500 to 3,000 tests through truenat machines, news agency PTI reported.
The chief minister asked doctors and researches to study the case history of fully recovered patients to develop an effective treatment for the infected persons. He said the skill mapping of the labourers and workers, who have returned to the state due to a nationwide lockdown, has been done. He stressed on providing them employment according to their skills.
The government has at least five sites ready across four states for late-stage human clinical trials expected by the end of this year for several Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including those developed by the University of Oxford, Zydus Cadila and Bharat Biotech. An additional six sites are being set up to ensure ready availability of healthy participants.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Department of Biotechnology Secretary Dr Renu Swarup said that with trial sites ready, companies would have a handy and large database of volunteers, “a couple of thousands” at each site, as well as trained personnel, at a time when efforts are being fast-tracked to find a vaccine against rising cases.
Locating the right volunteers — who have not been infected with Covid-19 earlier, are not asymptomatic and are healthy — has been a problem in conducting clinical trials. Click here to read more.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minsiter Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who tested positive for Covid last week, said he prepares tea and does his own laundry during his stay at a Covid dedicated hospital in Bhopal. Chouhan shared this while interacting with his ministers over video conference from his hospital bed on Tuesday.
Chouhan said washing clothes has benefited him other ways, too. “In the hospital, I make my own tea and wash my clothes on my own because one cannot give clothes for laundry when they are Covid positive. Washing clothes myself has benefited me in another way. My hand was operated and despite of physiotherapy it did not work properly. Now, because of washing clothes using my hands it works just fine”, Chouhan said during virual cabinet meet.
Chouhan, who is 61 and a diabetic, is seen wearing a blue gown and a face mask in a video of the meeting.
About 200 nurses at the Jehangir Hospital have not been attending work since Sunday, complaining of low salaries and excessive workload. Negotiations to bring about a compromise remained unsuccessful, and by the end of the day, the stands seemed to have hardened. The hospital admitted that some nurses who were not part of the original agitation on Sunday had also joined the strike.
Telangana has 1,057 containment zones as of date. Nearly five months after the first SARS-COV-2 positive case was reported in Hyderabad, the state health department has officially issued a list of containment zones across the state Tuesday morning.
This comes after repeated criticism from the Telangana High Court that has been directing the state to reveal all necessary information about the COVID-19 situation.
According to the list, Mahabubnagar district tops the list with 192 containment zones, followed by Rangareddy with 164 containment zones. The jurisdiction of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is third in the list of maximum containment zones with 92 areas.
Scientists have found neutralising antibodies to the SARS CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19, in a small proportion of household cats and dogs sampled in Italy, suggesting that the pets may be susceptible to the disease.
The researchers, including those from the University of Liverpool in the UK, tested samples from over 500 pets collected during visits to vets in Northern Italy.
While no animals tested PCR positive for the virus itself, 3.4 per cent of dogs and 3.9 per cent of cats had measurable SARS-CoV-2 neutralising antibodies, the researchers said.
Beijing reported one new coronavirus case on Tuesday, its first in 21 days, reflecting the fragility of the Chinese capital’s success at stamping out infections earlier this month.
The new case is linked to the outbreak in the northeastern port city of Dalian, where more than 40 people have become infected. The cluster, which first started from a man working at a seafood processing plant, has also spread to other northeastern provinces as well as China’s southern Fujian province.
The infection threatens to undercut Beijing’s efforts that brought new cases to zero after a local outbreak that started last month infected over 300 people. Authorities had started to relax restrictions in the capital after aggressive testing and targeted lockdown measures, but resurgences elsewhere in China may now pose a threat to normalization.
Levels of nitrogen dioxide fell by more than 70 per cent during the lockdown in New Delhi, a UN policy brief said on Tuesday, warning that the environmental gains could be temporary if the cities re-open without policies to prevent air pollution and promote de-carbonisation.
The UN Secretary-General’s Policy Brief on ‘COVID-19 in an Urban World’ said that with an estimated 90 per cent of all reported COVID-19 cases, urban areas have become the epicentre of the pandemic. It also pointed out that several new scientific studies suggest that poor air quality is correlated with higher COVID-19 mortality rates.
The Gujarat government Tuesday increased the penalty for not wearing masks and spitting in public from Rs 200 to Rs 500. The hiked fine to be implemented from August 1. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani declared that the existing penalty for both these violations will be implemented in the entire state. Also, for easy availability of masks, these would be sold at Rs 2 at the Amul milk parlors.
There were already demands being raised for some time now for raising this fine as blatant violations were reported from across the state.
Before the state government decided to hike this fine, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had already increased it from Rs 200 to Rs 500 on July 13. The fine has been hiked after it was brought to the notice of the civic body that many residents were not wearing masks in public which stated that the practice of people stepping out of their homes without masks is noted in abundance posing a risk to public health. Thus, after deliberations, the fine of Rs 200 imposed on the violation of wearing masks and spitting in public was increased to Rs 500. -- ENS
Pitching for further strengthening of relations, Israel on Monday said the supply of advanced medical equipment to India was the reciprocation of the help extended to it by the South Asian country to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
India had on April 7 sent to Israel medical equipment and five tonnes of medicines, including hydroxychloroquine, which was earlier dubbed as a game changer in the fight against coronavirus.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reached out to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi with a special request for the supplies.
The Odisha government has instructed all district collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and health officials to conduct the last rites of COVID-19 suspects without insisting on testing of swab or waiting for the report, an official said. The state government issued a letter on Monday after it was noticed that cremation of bodies were being delayed as officials waited for the corona test reports of the victim after his/her death, the official said.
In Ganjam district, the body of a policeman was allegedly abandoned at the hospital and nobody touched it because his corona test report was awaited. "It is clarified that as we are in the midst of a global pandemic, as a measure of abundant precaution, in all such cases the dead body may be disposed of as per COVID norms, in compassionate consultation with the family of the deceased," Additional Chief Secretary of Health Department PK Mohapatra said in the letter to all district collectors and municipal corporation commissioners.
President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic put his political fate in grave jeopardy. Now he’s hoping to get credit for his administration’s aggressive push for a vaccine and crossing his fingers that one gets approved before Election Day.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were both visiting vaccine development sites on Monday, marking the beginning of the largest vaccine research trial yet. Their trips to North Carolina and Florida, respectively, come as the White House is grappling with its most prominent virus case since the crisis begin and a nationwide spike in the virus.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought response of the AAP government on a plea challenging a provision which empowers police officers of sub-inspector rank or above to impose fines on anyone violating COVID-19 regulations. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan issued notice to the Delhi government seeking its stand on the plea by a lawyer, who has contended that imposing of a fine amounts to handing down a punishment which can only be awarded by a judge, not a police officer.
The bench, however, declined to pass any interim orders for now staying operation of the regulation as was sought by counsel for petitioner -- Sonia Rana. Advocate Dhananjay Singh Sehrawat, appearing for Rana, contended that in view of such a provision in the regulations, it was against the principles of natural justice. (PTI)
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday took off his mask in public as he greeted supporters in Brasilia, days after saying he had recovered from the coronavirus, which he said had not had a serious impact on his health.
The right-wing leader tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this month and went into quarantine at his residence, but said on Saturday that his latest test had come back negative.
“I didn’t have any problems,” Bolsonaro said on Monday. “For people who have prior health problems and are of a certain age, anything can be dangerous.”
Odisha's COVID-19 tally breached the 28,000-mark with 1,215 new cases, while the death toll climbed to 154 as seven more patients, including a five-year-old boy, succumbed to the infection, a Health Department official said on Tuesday. The state's virus caseload now stands at 28,107 as 1,215 positive cases were reported from 28 of the 30 districts of the state. Contact tracing and follow-up action is underway, said the Health and Family Welfare Department. The seven fatalities were reported from four districts. While Ganjam reported three deaths, two deaths were reported from Rayagada district and one each from Khurda and Cuttack, the official said. --PTI
Uttar Pradesh, on Monday, became the first state to test more than one lakh samples a day for novel Coronavirus infection. In the process, it also overtook Maharashtra in terms of the total number of samples tested so far.
Uttar Pradesh has now tested 19.41 lakh samples till now, while Maharashtra has tested 19.25 lakh. Tamil Nadu still leads the testing figures by a comfortable margin, having tested more than 24.14 lakh samples till now.
The actual number of people who have been tested would be lower than these numbers because many people are tested multiple times. During the early days of the epidemic, everyone was being tested before being discharged as well. In Tamil Nadu, for example, 23.24 lakh persons have been tested so far. Most of the states provide information only about the total number of samples tested, and not the number of people.
A Georgia judge is scheduled on Tuesday to hear arguments in an emergency motion brought by Governor Brian Kemp to stop the city of Atlanta from enforcing a mandate that people wear masks in public to help slow the spread of coronavirus.But in a late night legal move, the hearing that was set for 10 a.m. (1400 GMT) Tuesday was moved to 2 p.m. so the two parties can attempt binding mediation starting at 8:30 a.m., according to a filing in Fulton County Superior Court.
China Southern Airlines on Tuesday rolled out an 'all you can fly' pass, becoming the latest in a fleet of cash-strapped carriers to join a promotional craze that analysts say has helped revive a coronavirus-ravaged air travel market. At least eight of China's dozens of airlines have introduced similar deals since June, often priced around $500 for in some cases unlimited flights. Industry watchers say the packages have been a shot in the arm, with costs offset by otherwise empty seats being filled in a country where daily flights last month recovered to 80% of pre-coronavirus levels. The global aviation industry is keenly eyeing China as a pilot for air travel recovery trends, as the country reopened its economy months earlier than other places after managing to bring the pandemic mostly under control - at least for now.
Vietnam on Tuesday locked down its third-largest city for two weeks after 15 cases of COVID-19 were found in a hospital, the government said. Public transport into and out of the central city of Da Nang was cancelled. Over the weekend, thousands of mostly Vietnamese tourists had to end their summer holidays in the popular beach destination. The lockdown has dealt a hard blow to the city' tourism industry, which was just being revived after earlier coronavirus cases mostly subsided at the end of April.
Hotel guests prematurely ended their stays and cancelled upcoming trips upon the news of the first case, one hotelier said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. ``Our hotel is now empty,'' the hotelier said. ``But we had to help our guests to leave the city when they still had the opportunity yesterday.''
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday urged the Uttar Pradesh government to have a rethink on holding B Ed entrance examination on August 9 in wake of the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases. There have been coronavirus cases in different educational institutions and in such a situation, it does not seem appropriate to put 4.5 lakh students at risk without assessing their safety, she said.
"B Ed entrance examination is going to be held on August 9 in UP. The speed of coronavirus spread in the state is increasing rapidly," the Congress general secretary said in a Facebook post. "The UP government is requested that keeping in mind the prevailing circumstances, a rethink should be done over the schedule of the examination," Priyanka Gandhi said.
India’s Grand Festival Season takes off next month, starting with Rakshabandhan (August 3), Janmashtami (August 12), Ganesh Chaturthi (August 22) and Onam (August 31), followed by the nine-day Navaratri culminating in Dussehra (October 25), Diwali (November 14) and Chhath Puja (November 20). It is also the season for the calving of buffaloes, whose high-fat milk provides the base ingredients – ghee, khoa, chenna and paneer – in most indigenous sweets consumed during this period.
But for Sanjeev Kumar Cheema, the upcoming festivals don’t promise hope.
“I saw milk prices fall for the first time this summer, when buffaloes produce less. From August, their biyana (calvings) would begin and production will go up, peaking in the winter and remaining high till March-April. When will happen then, especially if festival demand isn’t also going to be good?,” asks this farmer from Sirsa Mohan in Amroha district of western Uttar Pradesh. Read More
With India reporting 47,704 Covid-19 cases and 654 deaths in the last 24 hours, the total number of infections on Tuesday rose to 14,83,157 including 33,425 casualties, 4,96,988 active cases, and 9,52,744 recoveries. The government has conducted over 10 lakh Covid-19 tests in the past two days, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals is planning to start testing its candidate vaccine on human beings by October. Right now it is carrying out pre-clinical trials. Two Indian candidates have just begun phase-I clinical trials earlier this month. One of them is being developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, in collaboration with Pune-based National Institute of Virology, which is part of the network of laboratories of the Indian Council of Medical Research. The other one is being developed by Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila.
Unlike the other two, Gennova is trying an mRNA vaccine, which is just one of the several ways in which vaccines trigger immune response in human beings against a virus. It involves injecting a messenger RNA that is coded to tell the cells to recreate a crucial part of the virus that the body needs to build immunity against.
As many of you might already be aware, more than 160 vaccines for novel Coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV2, are currently being developed across the world. According to latest information from World Health Organisation, 25 candidate vaccines are in one of the three stages of human trials. These include the two being developed by Indian companies, Zydus and Bharat Biotech. As of today, another 139 are in pre-clinical evaluation, meaning that they are still being tried out on animals.
Some of these have excited the scientific world more than the others, for the promise that they have shown so far. The one being developed by US-based Moderna Therapeutics was the earliest mover, its phase-I human trials having started as early as middle of March. It has now completed phase-I and phase-II trials and, on Monday, entered phase-III trials, for which 30,000 volunteers have been roped in. Not all of them would be administered the vaccine. In phase-III trials, some of the volunteers are injected with the vaccine while the others are given a dummy. The volunteers do not know. They go about their normal lives, and after a few weeks, they are checked to see if they have been infected.
Irrespective of how the vaccine candidates developed by Indian companies eventually perform, India would remain a central player, both as one of the biggest manufacturers of vaccines in the world, and also one of the biggest markets. As pointed out by the Dr Balram Bhargava, director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the other day, India controls nearly 60 per cent of the global supply of all kinds of vaccines.
Besides, as the second-most populous country in the world, India also happens to be one of the biggest markets for vaccines.
Dear Readers,
As part of our continuing efforts to make sense of this life-altering pandemic, we are, beginning today, starting this new column to keep you informed about all the latest on the Covid vaccine front. This column will track laboratory research to field trials, publications and regulatory approvals, and also the logistical exercises of production and distribution of these vaccines. All, in an explanatory fashion that you, as an Express reader, are now familiar with, and have come to expect from us. A lot of these activities will happen in India as well. Two vaccine candidates in India are currently being tested on humans, and more are in the pipeline. India is also key to the global vaccine supply chain. Today we explain why that’s so — and bring you the latest vaccine updates from the field.
BE IT the battlefields of Yemen or the trap he fell into in India, Muhammad Gibran Saleh Gibran has only one name for those responsible: “Bad men”. One of them fired the bullet that shattered a part of his face two years ago, and two others “ran away” with his passport and money in Mumbai.
The 26-year-old is among several soldiers who were flown over in January for specialised treatment by Yemen’s exiled government after they were injured in the civil war that erupted in 2015 between a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Read More
Locating the right volunteers — who have not been infected with Covid-19 earlier, are not asymptomatic and are healthy — has been a problem in conducting clinical trials.
The government has at least five sites ready across four states for late-stage human clinical trials expected by the end of this year for several Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including those developed by the University of Oxford, Zydus Cadila and Bharat Biotech. An additional six sites are being set up to ensure ready availability of healthy participants.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Department of Biotechnology Secretary Dr Renu Swarup said that with trial sites ready, companies would have a handy and large database of volunteers, “a couple of thousands” at each site, as well as trained personnel, at a time when efforts are being fast-tracked to find a vaccine against rising cases.
IndiGo on Monday said it is implementing “deeper” pay cuts of up to 35 per cent for its senior employees in order to reduce its cash outflow amid the coronavirus pandemic. From May onwards, IndiGo had implemented pay cuts of up to 25 per cent for its senior employees. The “deeper” pay cuts came after the airline’s announcement on July 20 that it would lay off 10 per cent of its workforce due to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
In an e-mail on Monday, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta told employees, “I will increase my personal pay cut percentage to 35 per cent. I am asking all senior vice presidents and above to take a 30 per cent pay cut, all pilots will see their pay cut percentages increased to 28 per cent, all vice presidents will take a 25 per cent pay cut and associate vice presidents will take a 15 per cent pay cut.” These increased pay cuts will come into effect from September 1, he added. Read more
On Sunday, Amitabha Bhowmik witnessed his 76-year-old father die gasping for breath on a wheelchair at Tripurasundari District Hospital, waiting for oxygen support. Shyamalendu Bhowmik, who had been running a temperature for a few days, had tested positive for Covid-19 just minutes before.
Shyamalendu, who used to frequent hospitals for the treatment of kidney and cardiac problems, had developed a temperature a few days back. The family continued medication at home for a couple of days till the patient started experiencing serious respiratory problems. Amitabha took his fatter to the district hospital on Sunday morning, where the two underwent mandatory rapid antigen tests.
After test results came positive for both, the authorities allegedly kept the two waiting on a wheelchair for over an hour while arranging for an oxygen cylinder and the ambulance to take them to Agartala. By then, Shyamalendu had died on the wheelchair.
Amitabha, now admitted at a Covid Care Centre in Chandrapur area of Gomati district, claimed his father died because of the utter negligence of the hospital. “We took him to the hospital just for oxygen support this time, around 10:30 in the morning since he was having trouble breathing. They kept us waiting for over an hour on a wheelchair and he died,” alleged Bhowmik, who claims both of them did not have Covid-19 and the reports were false. Read more
Moderna Inc said on Monday it had started a late-stage trial to test the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the first such study under the Trump administration’s program to speed development of measures against the novel coronavirus.
News of the study, which will test the response to the vaccine in 30,000 adults who do not have the respiratory illness, pushed shares in Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna up more than 8% before the bell.
The federal government is supporting Moderna’s vaccine project with its Operation Warp Speed program. Moderna has received nearly $1 billion from the U.S. government, which has chosen it as one of the first to enter large-scale human trials. Read more
Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar recorded 44 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday as the number of active cases in the district plummeted below 700-mark, official data showed. A total of 125 patients were discharged after treatment on Monday, it said. So far, 4,792 people have tested positive for the infection in the district while the number of active cases came down to 692 from 773 on Sunday, according to the data released by the UP Health Department for a 24-hour period. The district, adjoining Delhi, has so far recorded 40 deaths linked to COVID-19, with a mortality rate of 0.83 per cent among positive patients, it showed. (PTI)
Jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, currently undergoing treatment at a Ranchi hospital for multiple ailments, has tested negative for COVID-19, a senior doctor at the facility said on Monday. Three of his attendants, however, have been diagnosed with the disease, he said. The report of his swab sample test that came late on Sunday showed that Prasad did not contract the infection, Dr Umesh Prasad, who is attending to the ailing RJD supremo at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), told PTI. His samples, along with those of his attendants, were sent for examination on Saturday as a precautionary measure. The state-run RIMS is one of the designated Covid-19 hospitals in the Jharkhand capital.
Reporting 5000 cases daily for the fifth consecutive day, the total tally of the novel coronavirus cases in Karnataka crossed the one-lakh mark on Monday. While the state reported 5,324 new cases in the last 24 hours, 1,470 of those were from Bengaluru alone. The first case of COVID was confirmed in Bengaluru on March 8.
Human clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccine 'Covaxin' commenced at Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM hospital in Bhubaneswar, PTI reported. The Post-Graduate Institute (PGI) of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, AIIMS Delhi and Patna are among the 12 sites that have already started human trials. Rohtak PGIMS, which had commenced the first part of Phase-1 trials of Covaxin on July 17 on 50 volunteers, reported “encouraging” results, according to ANI. READ FULL STORY HERE
In a bid to further ramp up Covid-19 testing capacity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday launched “high throughput” testing facilities in Noida, Mumbai and Kolkata and said India was in a much better position than other countries in fight against the pandemic. Prime Minister Modi said the labs would not only be restricted to Covid-19 testing but would be expanded for testing of other diseases like Hepatitis B & C, HIV, and Dengue in the future.
“Today, there are more than 11,000 COVID-19 facilities and more than 11 lakh isolation beds in the country. We also have nearly 1,300 testing labs in the country and more than 5 lakh tests are being conducted daily,” Modi said during the launch. “Due to right decisions taken at right time, India is in much better position than other countries in fight. The new testing facilities will give West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh more strength to fight Covid-19,” PM Modi further said.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday asked officials to set up three "jumbo" COVID-19 treatment facilities in Pune amid spike in cases. During a visit to review the COVID-19 situation here, Pawar also said there were complaints of overcharging against some private hospitals, adding these bills will be examined by independent accountants. He asked district and civic officials to ramp up health infrastructure in and around Pune keeping in mind the August-end scenario. Pune officials had said an 800-bed mega facility would be set up to treat coronavirus positive patients. (PTI)
Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai and daughter Aaradhya Bachchan have been discharged from Mumbai’s Nanavati Hospital after testing negative for coronavirus. Abhishek Bachchan took to Twitter to share the news. He tweeted, “Thank you all for your continued prayers and good wishes. Indebted forever. ?? Aishwarya and Aaradhya have thankfully tested negative and have been discharged from the hospital. They will now be at home. My father and I remain in hospital under the care of the medical staff.”
Abhishek Bachchan also said that he and his father Amitabh Bachchan are still recovering from the disease in Nanavati Hospital. Sources said the father-son duo are likely to be discharged this week.
While Amitabh and Abhishek had tested positive for COVID-19 on July 11, Aishwarya and Aaradhya had tested positive for coronavirus a day later. While Aishwarya and Aaradhya were initially advised home quarantine, they had to be admitted to Nanavati Hospital on July 17. Read more
The Vadodara administration has decided to set up a COVID care facility at the Central Jail this week. The move comes after several inmates of the jail tested positive for the infection. The facility, which will be set up at the Health Centre of the jail, will have 80 beds as of now. OSD Vinod Rao, who visited the jail premises on Monday, confirmed that civic-run SSG hospital will oversee the facility.
The government on Monday said that the country's fatality rate due to the novel coronavirus infection has been progressively falling and currently stands at 2.28 per cent which is among the lowest in the world. "With effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standardised clinical management protocols based on holistic standard of care approach, the case fatality rate has significantly dipped," the Health Ministry said in a statement. The case fatality rate is progressively falling and currently is at 2.28 per cent, it said, adding that India has one of the lowest fatality rates in the world.
An FIR has been registered against 26 people in Bihar for violating social distancing norms while protesting against cremation of COVID-19 victims at Bansghat crematorium here. The people who took out a procession on Sunday had also not taken permission from the authorities concerned, a release from the district administration said. The group failed to produce valid documents when asked to do so by Magistrate Chandan Prasad, who is deputed at Bansghat. Crowding is illegal during lockdown which in force in the state from July 16-31. The FIR has been lodged against the persons, including 20 unnamed ones, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 at Buddha Colony police station of the capital city. (PTI)
The Supreme Court reserved its order on Monday on a plea, which has said all the money collected under the PM CARES Fund for the COVID-19 pandemic should be transferred to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF). Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan that the PM CARES Fund is a “voluntary fund” while funds to the NDRF and SDRF are made available through budgetary allocations.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for petitioner NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), said they are not doubting the bona fide of anyone but the creation of the PM CARES Fund is allegedly in contravention of provisions of the Disaster Management Act. He claimed that an audit of the NDRF is being conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) but the government has said the audit of the PM CARES Fund will be done by private auditors. Read more
Meghalaya's capital Shillong went into a 72-hour lockdown starting Monday, amid the rising cases of the novel coronavirus infection in the state, news agency PTI reported. "The lockdown reimposed in the entire Shillong city agglomeration will continue till Wednesday midnight," the district's Deputy Commissioner Matsiewdor W Nongbri said. Around 30 localities, mostly in the worst-hit East Khasi Hills district, have already been declared containment zones. Meghalaya has 543 active COVID-19 cases, while 173 people have recovered from the disease. Five coronavirus deaths have been reported in the state so far.
East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, with the coastal town of Kakinada and Rajamundhry as its main urban centres, is now home to possibly the highest number of novel Coronavirus infected people outside of the big metropolitan and tier-I cities. More than 13,000 people in the district have so far been found infected, with half of them having been detected just in the last one week, during which Andhra Pradesh has seen an explosive growth of cases.
With more than 7,500 new cases on Sunday, Andhra Pradesh has now overtaken Karnataka to become the state with the fourth-largest caseload in the country, after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi. It has over 96,000 confirmed infections now. In Andhra Pradesh, however, the worst affected districts are Kurnool, Guntur and Anantpur, besides East Godavari. Each of these districts have around 10,000 cases. Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada are relatively less affected.
BJP president J P Nadda on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi took bold decisions to help people amid the COVID-19 situation in the country. Addressing Maharashtra BJP unit functionaries via video link, Nadda also said the Modi-led government has increased production of PPE kits and set up additional test facilities. "Our prime minister took bold decisions in healthcare and economy to help people," Nadda said. "The countries known for their strong economy and healthcare network, like the US and EU countries, spent more time debating on economy and health. It worsened the coronavirus crisis," he said. These countries failed to take the right decision at the right time, Nadda said. "Had there been no powerful leader like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India could not have fared well in the current (coronavirus) crisis," he said
Office vacancies in China’s biggest cities are at the highest in more than a decade even as the nation’s economy has largely swung back into action after the coronavirus outbreak. Vacancy rates for prime office buildings in Shanghai climbed to 20% in the second quarter and 21% in the tech hub of Shenzhen, both the highest since at least the financial crisis in 2008, CBRE Group Inc. data show. Beijing’s 15.5% rate was the most since 2009.
China was the first country in the world to go into lockdown in the first quarter to arrest Covid-19’s spread. Harsh measures taken early on have allowed the nation to claim relative success and reopen many businesses. But a conservative stimulus approach, teamed with the fear of a second wave, has produced only a modest domestic recovery, making corporate tenants cautious
Scientists in Singapore have developed a method to improve the speed of obtaining COVID-19 laboratory test results in 36 minutes or by up to four times. The current testing method requires highly trained technical staff and can take a few hours before results are finalised. The new method, developed by scientists at the Nanyang Technological University’s (NTC) Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, has demonstrated a way to improve “the speed, handling time and cost of COVID-19 laboratory tests”, the university said on Monday. The test, which can be done with portable equipment, could also be deployed in the community as a screening tool, it said. The new method can improve the speed of obtaining COVID-19 laboratory test results in 36 minutes or by up to four times, it said.
The lockdown in Ballia and Rasra cities of Uttar Pradesh has been extended till July 31 due to the rising novel coronavirus cases, an official said on Monday. The lockdown in city and its adjoining areas in Ballia district was initially imposed on July 2, but was extended later. It was first announced in Rasra on July 18. District Magistrate Hari Pratap Shahi said the COVID-19 cases were continuously being reported from Ballia and Rasra area, following which the lockdown has been extended till Friday. There are over 50 containment zones in Ballia and its adjoining areas. Coronavirus cases are being reported on a regular basis in six wards of Rasra and nearby villages, Shahi said. As many as 1,294 cases have been registered in the district, while 16 people have died from the pathogen so far. The district jail has reported 228 infections, according to the health bulletin on Sunday
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday said that a “weekend lockdown” serves no purpose in the fight against covid-19 and ruled out the possibility of re-imposing a lockdown in any part of Haryana. “A lockdown will not serve any purpose unless it is imposed for a 14-day period. Imposing a lockdown over the weekend or for two days merely gives the impression that something is being done,” the Chief Minister told The Indian Express.