A week before the scheduled end date of the lockdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chief Ministers for the fourth time since the COVID-19 outbreak on the exit strategy from the lockdown, among other things.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in its April 29 update said that 31,332 have been tested positive and there have been 1,007 deaths. Reports from States, however, put the figure of persons tested positive at 31,500 and death toll at 1,009.
The Hindu has brought out a multi-language e-book on essential COVID-19 information, in addition to covering the developments related to the coronavirus pandemic as it unfolded. Here is a collection of our daily cartoons on COVID-19.
Here are answers from experts on your queries about the virus, a list of State Helpline numbers, a State-wise tracker for COVID-19 cases, deaths and testing, and a map of confirmed cases in India.
Here are the latest updates:
Fresh cases in Karnataka
Nine new cases have been detected in Karnataka on Wednesday morning taking the total number of cases to 532.
While eight of the new cases are from Kalaburgi, one is from Belagavi.
Two of the cases are aged 12 years and all are contacts of previous positive patients. - Afshan Yasmeen
Infant among 73 new COVID-19 cases in AP
An 11-month-old baby was among the 73 people who tested positive for coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh in the last 24 hours ending 9 am on Wednesday.
The state’s Covid-19 tally now crossed the 1300 mark and touched 1,332, the latest government bulletin said.
Scribe arrested in Andamans over corona tweet
A well-known journalist was arrested in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands over a tweet where he questioned the rationale of the authorities allegedly asking people to be home-quarantined after they had spoken to COVID-19 patients by phone, police said on Wednesday.
The charges under which Zubair Ahmed has been booked include one about circulating “rumour“.
Zubair Ahmed, the editor of ‘Light of Andaman, a popular weekly newspaper which is now published online, was summoned to the Bambooflat police station in South Andaman district on April 27 for questioning over his tweet and then arrested, police said on Tuesday. - PTI
70 buses leave from Maharashtra to bring back students stuck in Kota
At least 70 state transport buses left from Maharashtra on Wednesday morning to bring back students stranded at Kota in Rajasthan due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, an official said.
The vehicles left from Maharashtra’s Dhule district around 10.30 am and will reach Rajasthan by Wednesday night, he said.
“The buses will leave from Kota on Thursday morning,” the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) official said, adding that only 20 students will be allowed in each bus and the vehicles will halt at two to three places for food breaks.
Nineteen new COVID-19 positive cases detected in Rajasthan today, taking the State's tally to 2,383. Eleven of the new cases were found in Ajmer, 5 in Jaipur, and one each in Banswara, Jodhpur and Udaipur: Medical & Health Department.
(Mohammed Iqbal)
The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 1,007 and the number of cases climbed to 31,332 in the country on Wednesday, according to the Union Health Ministry.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 22,629, while 7,695 people have recovered, and one patient has migrated, the ministry said. The total number of cases include 111 foreign nationals.
(PTI)
A 77-year-old-man of Bhubaneswar, close relative of a COVID-19 patient, tests positive taking Odisha’s total to 119, State government said on Wednesday. The city reports a new case after a gap of two weeks taking its total to 47.
(Prafulla Das)
Failure to stop coronavirus at source led to 184 countries ‘going through hell,’ says Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on China for failing to tame the coronavirus at its very origin, saying it has led to 184 countries “going through hell”, as several American lawmakers demanded steps to reduce dependence on Beijing for manufacturing and minerals.
Trump has been publicly blaming China for the global spread of the “invisible enemy” and launched an investigation against it.
U.S. coronavirus death toll surpasses American deaths from the Vietnam War
The total number of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 have reached 58,351, passing the 58,220 which the National Archives records as U.S. losses from combat and other causes, including accidents, in the years-long Southeast Asian war.
Also Tuesday the United States recorded its one millionth case of new coronavirus, about one-third of the entire world's case load, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Death toll crosses 5,000 in Brazil
Brazil, the South American country worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, has registered more than 5,000 deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry announced on Tuesday.
A record of 474 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, with the number of infections rising to 71,886, the ministry said.
Global death toll crosses 2,10,000
The new coronavirus has killed at least 214,451 people since the outbreak first emerged in China in December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1900 GMT on Tuesday.
More than 3,068,330 cases were registered in 193 countries and territories. Of these cases, at least 840,300 are now considered recovered.
Maharashtra COVID-19 tally breaches 9,000 mark
With 729 new COVID-19 cases recorded on Tuesday, the third-highest single-day surge yet, Maharashtra’s tally has touched 9,318.
The State also reported its highest single-day death toll of 31, pushing the total to 400. A record 811 cases were reported on April 25 and the second-highest tally was 778 recorded on April 23.