Rupsa Chakraborty

Soon, rejected applicants will have the option to apply for a physical appeal on the portal mahacovid19relief.in, which was created to invite applications and pay the compensation.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved Covaxin for emergency use in children above the age of 12. It is presently the only vaccine available in India to inoculate children.

🔴 In the last 10 days, active cases in the city have increased by 128%. On December 18, the city had 2,081 active cases, which surged to 4,765 on December 27.

🔴 In Maharashtra, over 86% of the population is partially vaccinated and 56% fully vaccinated against Covid.

This again highlights the fact that Omicron, with 37 mutations in its spike protein, can evade vaccines leading to more reinfections and breakthrough infections, where a patient contracts Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated against SARS-Cov-2.

Apart from the prohibitory orders imposed in the night, the order stated that in cases of marriages, the total attendees at any moment shall not exceed 100 for enclosed spaces, and 250 for open to sky or 25 per cent of total capacity of hall, whichever is less.

Data shows that the total number of genome tests conducted in November in Maharashtra was nearly 58.6 per cent less than that conducted in May. As per the protocol, genome sequencing tests should be conducted on 5 per cent of total samples that have tested positive for Covid-19.

On Thursday, of the 39,423 tests conducted, 602 individuals tested positive, which counts as 1.52 per cent positivity rate.

🔴 On Monday, Sugat Bharat Padghan, 24, along with a few social workers, filed a complaint with the panel over the alleged discrimination. He also accused the hospital of trying to protect the students by providing them clearance in their in-house investigation.

The test detects the absence of the S-gene, which is an indicator of the presence of Omicron variant in a Covid-19 patient.

After strictures were passed by the Supreme Court, the Maharashtra government started disbursing the ex-gratia to the kin of Covid-19 deceased patients on December 9.

As against the pre-pandemic years, when nearly 300 traders from Tibet would visit the Maharashtra capital to sell their winter wear, barely 50 people have set up their stalls this year.

🔴 With an estimated 2 crore population, India's financial capital has recorded an average of 1.5 lakh live births annually since 2016, the year from which The Indian Express has accessed data.

🔴 The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) reasoned that as the daily testing has been increased to 45,000 due to rising cases of Omicron, the number of daily cases has increased.

The parents, along with social activists, claimed that the government wants to shut down 3,073 schools that have fewer than 20 students each. Most of these schools are situated in the tribal and rural areas of Palghar, Thane, Raigad and Nashik, where the mode of transportation is limited.

🔴 Data accessed by The Indian Express showed that in the four district mental hospitals in Pune, Thane, Nagpur and Ratnagiri, 883 patients living with mental ailments contracted novel coronavirus between March 2020 and September 2021, with 6.3% positivity rate.

On August 25, the women and child development department had announced the scheme for Covid widows, especially for rural districts, to provide 25 services under one roof.

🔴 In an order passed on December 9, Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari appointed retired Bombay High Court judge Kamalkishor Kapoorchandji Tated as the chairperson of MSHRC.

The diagnosis of the third patient, a man from the densely populated Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia, became a cause of concern on Friday. However, health officers from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that the patient was isolated within minutes of reaching Dharavi, limiting his exposure to close contacts.

🔴 Four of the seven patients with Omicron are fully vaccinated, said state Health Department officials.

Of the 1,41,204 deaths due to Covid-19 that had occurred till December 9, 66,000 applications from families of victims have been received on the portal -- mahacovid19relief.in, created to invite such applications.

🔴 To boost the capacity of genome sequencing, Tope said that two more laboratories will be set up in Nagpur and Aurangabad. It will cost over Rs 15 crore to set up the labs, he added.

🔴 A close contact is defined as a person who has been within 2 m or 6 ft from a person infected with Covid-19. Even being coughed upon by a person with Covid-19 infection can qualify one as a close contact.

With all eyes on the new variant, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday asked officials to ramp up vaccination efforts.