Coronavirus India News Highlights: India reports 2,487 fresh Covid-19 cases, slightly lower than yesterday; active cases at 17,692

Chhattisgarh on Sunday had a Covid-19 clean slate day as no case or death was reported in the state, the feat being achieved for the fifth time since April, an official said. There was no addition to the tally or toll similarly on April 10, 14, 16 and 17, he said.

The active caseload in the state is 20, while 20 districts have no Covid-19 patient at present, he added. (PTI)

Karnataka on Sunday reported 126 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the total infections to 39,49,675 so far, while there were zero fatalities, the Health Department said.In its bulletin, the department said there were 1,891 active cases while 103 people were discharged.

The majority of cases came from Bengaluru urban district which reported 118 infections today. The city had 1,810 active cases. There were infections in six other districts, including two each in Hassan and Ballari.

As many as 6,604 inoculations were done in the State, taking the total vaccinated to 10.72 crore till date. (PTI)

Telangana on Sunday recorded 28 new Covid-19 cases, taking the total number of cases to 7,92,599 so far, said a bulletin from the Health Department. No fresh fatality due to the infection was reported today and the death toll continued to be 4,111, it said.

Hyderabad recorded the highest number of 25 cases. The active cases stood at 408, the bulletin said. (PTI)

The Covid-19 tally in Madhya Pradesh reached 10,41,945 on Sunday after the detection of 42 cases at a positivity rate of 0.5 per cent, while the death toll remained unchanged at 10,735. The recovery count increased by 24, leaving the state with 262 active cases.

A government release said 11,82,94,228 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far in the state, including 1,180 on Sunday. (PTI)

Gujarat on Sunday reported 33 Covid-19 cases, taking the tally in the state to 12,24,721, while the death toll remained unchanged at 10,944, a health department official said.

So far, 12,13,563 persons have been discharged post recovery, including 37 during the day, leaving Gujarat with an active caseload of 214, he said. Ahmedabad reported 15 cases, followed by 10 in Vadodara, six in Gandhinagar and one each in Surat and Anand, he said.

A government release said 4,516 people received Covid-19 vaccination shots on Sunday, which took the total number of doses administered to 10.83 crore. (PTI)

Tamil Nadu on Sunday logged 30 new Covid-19 infections with zero fatalities recorded in the last 24 hours. Chennai accounted for 16 new infections, Chengalpet recorded seven, Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli recorded two each while Cuddalore, Sivagangai and Tiruvallur saw one case each.

The number of people who recovered from the disease rose to 34,16,237 with 79 more getting discharged in the last 24 hours. Tamil Nadu currently has 359 active cases. (PTI)

Mumbai on Sunday reported 151 Covid-19 cases and one death, taking the tally here to 10,61,614 and the toll to 19,566, a civic official said. The recovery count increased by 122, leaving the metropolis with 885 cases, he added. (PTI)

India witnessed slight dip in the Covid-19 cases on Sunday as it logged 2,487 fresh infections in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed. On Saturday, 2,858 Covid-19 cases were reported.

With this the active caseload in the country stands at 17,692. The daily positivity rate is at 0.61 %, while the weekly positivity rate of Covid in India is at 0.62%. (ANI)

In order to help the neighbouring country curb the spread of the disease, South Korea intends to hold talks with North Korea next week to discuss Covid-19 relief measures, Sputnik news agency reported.

On Thursday, Pyongyang announced the first wave of Covid-19 cases in the country, as several citizens tested positive for the Omicron BA.2 variant, South Korean agency Yonhap reported on Sunday.

Chinese mainland reported 226 “ locally transmitted” confirmed Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, out of which 166 were in Shanghai, according to the National Health Commission’s report on Sunday.

Apart from Shanghai, 10 other provincial-level regions on the mainland saw new local Covid-19 cases, including 33 in Beijing, Xinhua News Agency reported. (ANI)

North Korea has confirmed 15 more deaths and hundreds of thousands of additional patients with fevers as it mobilises more than a million health and other workers to try to suppress the country’s first Covid-19 outbreak, state media reported on Sunday.

Odisha recorded 14 more coronavirus cases on Sunday, while there was no new fatality for the 12th consecutive day, the health department said.

There are 138 active Covid-19 cases and seven more patients have recuperated from the disease, according to a bulletin. The daily positivity rate was 0.10 per cent and four children were among the newly infected. (PTI)

Puducherry reported three fresh cases of COVID-19 on Sunday taking the overall tally in the Union Territory to 1,65,812, a senior government official said. In a press release, Director of Health G Sriramulu said the number of active cases in the UT went up to 15. There was no recovery of patients in the last 24 hours and overall recoveries remained the same at 1,63,835, the Director said. No fresh fatality due to the virus was reported in the UT and the death toll stood unchanged at 1,962. (PTI)

Supermarkets, malls and restaurants in Shanghai will be allowed to open in a limited capacity starting Monday, officials said, even while it remained unclear whether residents would be let out from their homes. The city's Vice Mayor Chen Tong said Sunday at a daily press briefing that grocery stores, malls, convenience stores and pharmacies will be allowed to reopen while implementing measures that “reduce the flow of people".

Agriculture markets will also be allowed to reopen while ensuring “no contact” transactions. Restaurants will be allowed to serve takeout. However, Shanghai's transportation department said Sunday that all subway lines in the city had stopped operating. It was unclear when those services would restart. (AP)

North Korea said on Sunday a total of 42 people had died as the country began its fourth day under a nationwide lockdown aimed at stopping the impoverished country's first confirmed Covid-19 outbreak. North Korea's admission on Thursday that it is battling an "explosive" Covid-19 outbreak has raised concerns that the virus could devastate a country with an under-resourced health system, limited testing capabilities and no vaccine programme.

State news agency KCNA said the country was taking "swift state emergency measures" to control the epidemic, but there is no sign that Pyongyang was moving to accept international offers of vaccines. "All provinces, cities and counties of the country have been totally locked down and working units, production units and residential units closed from each other since the morning of May 12 and strict and intensive examination of all the people is being conducted," KCNA reported on Sunday. (PTI)

With the addition of 25 new Covid-19 cases, the infection count in Maharashtra's Thane district has gone up to 7,09,337, an official said on Sunday. These new cases were reported on Saturday, he said. The death toll remained unchanged at 11,895, he said, adding that the Covid-19 mortality rate in Thane stood at 1.67 per cent.

In neighbouring Palghar district, the Covid-19 case count stood at 1,63,612 and the death toll at 3,407, another official said.  (PTI)

The Chinese financial and manufacturing hub of Shanghai will gradually begin reopening businesses such as shopping malls and hair salons from Monday after weeks in a strict Covid-19 lockdown, the city's vice mayor told a media briefing on Sunday. Shanghai, which has been locked-down for more than six weeks, is in the midst of a recent tightening in some areas that it hopes marks a final push in its battle with the virus.

Shopping malls, department stores, and supermarkets will begin resuming in-store operations and allow customers to shop in "an orderly way", while hair salons and vegetable markets will reopen with limited capacity, Vice Mayor Chen Tong said, but gave no specifics on the pace or extent of such reopenings. During Shanghai's lockdown, residents have been mainly limited to purchasing necessities, with normal shopping on online platforms largely suspended. (Reuters)

With 2,487 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day India's tally of Covid-19 cases rose to 4,31,21,599, while the active cases dipped to 17,692, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday. The death toll climbed to 5,24,214 with 13 fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.74 per cent, the ministry said. A decrease of 404 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.61 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 0.62 per cent, according to the ministry. (PTI)

North Korea has confirmed 15 more deaths and hundreds of thousands of additional patients with fevers as it mobilises more than a million health and other workers to try to suppress the country's first COVID-19 outbreak, state media reported on Sunday. After maintaining a widely disputed claim to be coronavirus-free for more than two years, North Korea announced Thursday that it had found its first Covid-19 patients since the pandemic began.

It has since said a fever has spread across the country “explosively” since late April but hasn't disclosed exactly how many COVID-19 cases it has found. Some experts say North Korea lacks the diagnostic kits needed to test a large number of suspected COVID-19 patients. The additional deaths reported Sunday took the country's reported fever-related fatalities to 42. The official Korean Central News Agency also reported that another 296,180 people with fevers had been tallied, taking the reported total to 820,620. (AP)

India reported 13 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said. This took the total death toll to 5,24,214.

India reported 2,487 new Covid-19 cases and 13 deaths in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am Sunday, the Union health ministry said. This is slightly lower than the 2,858 Covid-19 cases reported on Saturday.

Hello and welcome to today's live blog. We bring to you the latest news updates related to the Coronavirus cases across India and the world. Stay tuned!

Akshay Kumar on Saturday shared on social media that he will not be attending Cannes Film Festival 2022 as he has tested positive for Covid-19. A disappointed Akshay tweeted, “Was really looking forward to rooting for our cinema at the India Pavilion at #Cannes2022, but have sadly tested positive for Covid. Will rest it out. Loads of best wishes to you and your entire team, @ianuragthakur. Will really miss being there.” Read More

Nagaland on Saturday reported one fresh Covid-19 case, pushing the tally to 35,493, a health department official said. The new case was detected in Dimapur district.

The Covid-19 death toll remained at 760 as no fresh fatality was reported, the official said. Nagaland now has two active COVID-19 cases, while 33,245 people have recovered from the disease and 1,486 patients have migrated to other states, he said. (PTI)

Delhi on Saturday recorded 673 new Covid cases and four more deaths, while the positivity rate stood at 2.77 per cent, according to data shared by the health department. The city on Friday had also reported four deaths, the highest single-day fatality count in over two months.

The number of patients under home isolation was 3,122 on Saturday, the bulletin said, adding, that there were 3,936 active cases. There are 9,581 beds for Covid-19 patients in Delhi hospitals and 154 (1.6 per cent) of them are occupied, it said. (PTI)

Gujarat on Saturday recorded 31 new cases of Covid-19 that raised the tally of infections to 12,24,688, an official from the state health department said.

While the toll remained steady at 10,944 with no fresh casualties, the count of recoveries reached 12,13,526 after 24 patients were discharged from hospitals during the day, the official said. With this, the number of active cases has reached 218, of which two patients are on ventilator support.

District-wise, Ahmedabad reported 20 new cases, followed by Vadodara with six, Rajkot with three, and Bhavnagar and Surat one case each, it was stated. As many as 23,786 people received their Covid-19 jab on Saturday, increasing the total number of doses administered so far to 10.83 crore. (PTI)

Tamil Nadu on Saturday added 35 more Covid-19 infections, including two returnees from the United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom, pushing the statewide tally to 34,54,591, the health department said. Chennai accounted for the majority of new cases with 21. 

The overall death toll remained unchanged at 38,025 with zero fatalities recorded in the last 24 hours. Presently, there are 408 active cases in the state. (PTI)

Mumbai reported 131 new cases of Covid-19 and one pandemic related death on Saturday. The new cases take the total tally to 10,61,463 and the toll to 19,565, a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official said.

The recovery count increased by 171. As per BMC data, Mumbai's recovery rate is 98 per cent. (Inputs from PTI)

Maharashtra recorded 248 new cases of Covid-19 and one pandemic-related death, according to the state health department. The lone death was reported in Mumbai. On Friday, the state had reported 263 cases and one fatality. (PTI)

Over 32 crore Covid vaccine doses have been administered in Uttar Pradesh, making it the first state to achieve the fete, a spokesperson claimed on Saturday.

Uttar Pradesh is followed by Maharashtra with 16.60 crore Covid vaccine doses administered so far. According to data on the CoWin portal updated till 12 pm on Saturday, around 32.01 crore of the total 189 crore vaccine doses administered in the country are from Uttar Pradesh, he said. (PTI)

There is a surge in the Covid-19 cases driven by two omicron sub-variants in South Africa according to health experts.  

For about three weeks the country has seen increasing numbers of new cases and somewhat higher hospitalisations, but not increases in severe cases and deaths, said Professor Marta Nunes, a researcher at Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Analytics at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.

The new surge in South Africa comes from two variants of Omicron - BA.4 and BA.5. These variants appear to be much like the original strain of omicron that was first identified in South Africa and Botswana late last year and swept around the globe. (Inputs from PTI)

China withdrew as host of soccer’s 2023 Asian Cup on Saturday in the latest cancellation of the country’s sports hosting duties during the COVID-19 pandemic.

North Korea’s admission that it is battling an “explosive” COVID-19 outbreak has raised concerns that the virus could devastate a country with an under-resourced health system, limited testing capabilities, and no vaccine programme.

The isolated North confirmed on Thursday its first COVID-19 infections since the pandemic emerged more than two years ago, shifting to the “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system” and imposing a national lockdown. On Friday it reported its first COVID-related death. Read More

The CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, which leads the development of mRNA vaccine technology in India, has now announced the development of a potential mRNA vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2. The mRNA vaccine technology so developed is indigenous and devoid of technology contributions from elsewhere.

Unable to sell its huge stock of Covid vaccine Sputnik Light amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Bengaluru-based Stelis Biopharma has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting for procurement of the jabs for inoculating citizens here or supplying to other countries under the Vaccine Maitri programme.

Stelis Biopharma, the biopharmaceutical arm of Strides Pharma Science, said it could not sell 2.5 crore units of the single-dose vaccine manufactured by it due to several constraints following the Russian-Ukraine war.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had granted emergency use permission to Sputnik Light, subject to certain regulatory provisions, in February this year. However, it is currently not being administered in the country.

In the letter written on May 13, Arun Kumar, Founder and Director of Stelis Biopharma Limited, said that after the prime minister had requested the industry to gear up to tackle the pandemic, the firm invested over Rs 700 crore to set up a state-of the-art vaccine manufacturing facility within six months despite the Covid-19-induced restrictions and quickly commenced the production of Sputnik Light.

The company also received government approvals to produce and export the jabs. (PTI)

Odisha recorded 18 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, the Health Department said. The toll remained at 9,126 as no new fatality was recorded for the 11th successive day, it said. There are 131 active cases, while eight more patients have recovered from the disease, it added. (PTI)

Three more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Ladakh, increasing the total caseload to 28,266. Of the fresh cases, two were detected in Leh and one in Kargil. The death toll remains unchanged at 228. At present there are nine active cases in Ladakh. (Inputs from PTI)

With about 30 per cent of students not returning to schools as classroom teaching resumed after a gap of two years due to the pandemic, the Odisha government has asked the district collectors to work for bringing them back. Analysing the daily attendance data from the schools as provided by the District Education Officers (DEOs), it was seen that around 70 per cent of students are attending the classes, School and Mass Education Department secretary BP Sethi said in a letter to the districts.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tested positive for Covid-19 with moderate symptoms, her office said in a statement on Saturday. She will not be in parliament for the government’s emissions reduction plan on Monday and the budget on Thursday, but “travel arrangements for her trade mission to the United States are unaffected at this stage,” the statement said.

Across the world, there is a desperate attempt to measure the cost of the Covid-19 pandemic, and one such measure is the excess deaths. In countries where robust infrastructure exists to register every death promptly, reliable and verifiable estimates of excess deaths are publicly available. However, in many countries with inadequate birth and death registration infrastructure, estimates of excess deaths are subjected to uncertainty and shrill politicking. Even with sophisticated statistical methodology, unreliable data would lead to imprecise and speculative estimates. Unfortunately, social and news media’s overzealousness has led to the politicisation of excess deaths under these circumstances. The latest to join this fray is the World Health Organisation (WHO).

North Korea on Saturday reported 21 new deaths and 174,440 more people with fever symptoms as the country scrambles to slow the spread of COVID-19 across its unvaccinated population. The new deaths and cases since Friday increased total numbers to 27 deaths and 524,440 illnesses amid a rapid spread of fever since late April.

North Korea said 243,630 people had recovered and 280,810 remained in quarantine. State media didn't specify how many of the fever cases and deaths were confirmed as COVID-19 infections.

India records 2,858 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours ending 8 am Saturday, taking the country’s tally to over 4.31 crore, according to Union Ministry data. The death toll climbed to 5,24, 201 with 11 new fatalities, the date showed. Active cases further dipped to 18,096 while the daily positivity rate 0.59 per cent.

The national capital on Friday recorded 899 new Covid-19 cases and four deaths, the highest single-day fatality count in over two months. Delhi had logged four deaths last on March 4. The city’s positivity rate rose to 3.34 per cent.