Coronavirus LIVE Updates: As many as 195 people have died and 3,900 infections have been reported in the last 24 hours.
Coronavirus India LIVE Updates: As many as 3,900 new COVID-19 cases and 195 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, the biggest spike in a single day, the health ministry said on Tuesday and asserted that some states were not reporting cases in a timely manner, which is now being addressed. Addressing the daily briefing on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Lav Agarwal said the total number of cases stand at 46,433 and the death toll at 1,568. The ministry said 1,020 COVID-19 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of those cured to 12,726, a recovery rate of 27.41 per cent.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held a video chat with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee and discussed ways to deal with the economic fall out of the COVID-19 crisis. Banerjee told Rahul that direct benefit transfers should go beyond the poorest people. “To give cash to people, we really need some machinery. Migrants may not have access to that. We should give a bunch of money available to the state government for them to try out new strategies.”
If the scenes on the first day of the third phase of lockdown are any indication, the number of Coronavirus infections are likely to rise sharply in the coming days. Large crowds were seen at many places, not just in front of liquor shops, and physical distancing norms were largely ignored. In many states, the movement of migrant workers is also resulting in similar situations.
On the global front, the number of cases has now surpassed 3.5 million with 2,51, 510 deaths, although the rate of fatalities and new cases has slowed from peaks reached last month. The Donald Trump-led United States continues to be the worst-affected with 11,66,083 cases and 67,913 deaths.
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: Outside a liquor store in New Delhi.
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: The total number of Covid-19 cases jumped to 42,835 with nearly1,400 deaths.
Despite the imposition of a 70 per cent “special corona fee” on liquor, hundreds of tipplers queued up outside liquor vends in Delhi for the second consecutive day on Tuesday, keeping the police on their toes. At some places, like the Gole Market in central Delhi, although the liquor shops were shut, baton-wielding paramilitary personnel were deployed to keep the crowd at bay. Over 150 government-run outlets were opened up across the city on Monday for the first time since the lockdown was announced by the Delhi government on March 23.
As people made a beeline to liquor shops, throwing social distancing caution to the winds, the police had a hard time in controlling the situation. Hundreds lined up in queues, which in some places stretched beyond a kilometre in Delhi, and police had to resort to lathicharge to force shops to shut.
As medical practitioners around the world are busy treating people for Covid-19, many have reported a condition called ‘silent’ or ‘happy’ hypoxia, in which patients have extremely low blood oxygen levels, yet do not show signs of breathlessness. The condition has puzzled medical practitioners, and many are now advocating for its early detection as a means to avoid a fatal illness called Covid pneumonia.
What is hypoxia?
Hypoxia is a condition wherein there is not enough oxygen available to the blood and body tissues. Hypoxia can either be generalised, affecting the whole body, or local, affecting a region of the body. Read more here
In a grim development, nearly 40 people, mostly from a wholesale market area in Meerut, have tested positive for coronavirus in the last two days, forcing the administration not to ease restrictions in the district.
With this the number of coronavirus cases in Meerut, already a red zone district, reached 155 on Monday.
According to Chief Medical Officer, Dr Rajkumar, nearly all the new cases are being reported from Naveen Mandi area, the wholesale market for fruits and vegetables, thereby posing a challenge to track their contacts. Read more here
The number of coronavirus deaths in the US will jump to over 3,000 and new cases to about 200,000 per day by June 1, an internal draft report has said, even as more than two dozen American states announced to open up their economy amid the health crisis.
The US is the worst-hit country from the pandemic. By Monday, more than 1.2 million Americans tested positive for the COVID-19 and the total number of fatalities increased to more than 69,000.
The country’s economy has come to a standstill and over 30 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits.
In a bid to enhance testing facilities to identify COVID-19 cases in the state, the Karnataka government Tuesday decided to establish testing laboratories in all private and Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) medical colleges.
Confirming this, Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar K tweeted, "We are further increasing our #COVID19 testing capacity. Our Govt has decided to establish RT-PCR labs in all private & ESIC medical colleges in state. By May 30th, number of labs will rise to 60 from current 29 with a capacity to conduct 10,000 tests per day."
According to statistics shared by the Department of Health and Family Welfare Services, as many 3,666 samples were tested on Monday. To date, 74,664 samples have been tested in the state.
As the third phase of the lockdown kicked in from Monday with several relaxations, people made a beeline to liquor shops, throwing social distancing caution to the winds as police had a hard time in controlling the situation. Hundreds lined up in queues, which in some places stretched beyond a kilometre in Delhi, and police had to resort to lathicharge to force shops to shut.
Following the chaos, the Delhi government imposed a “special corona fee” on alcohol. The tax would hike the price of the liquor, across all categories, up to 70 per cent in the national capital from Tuesday onwards. The move to tax liquor has prompted led to a flurry of memes and jokes online.
Reiterating his appeal to migrant labourers to avoid travel outside the state, Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa Tuesday requested them to stay back in the state. "The COVID-19 situation is in control in Karnataka when compared to other states. Industrial, construction, and trade activities need to be resumed outside areas marked as red zones. Hence, labourers may avoid unnecessary travel back to their natives," Yediyurappa said.
"Barring the red zones, business, construction work and industrial activities have to be resumed. In this background it was explained that unnecessary travel of the migrant workers has to be controlled," he stated.
Soon after meeting representatives of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), Yediyurappa added that migrant labourers fell for rumours that resulted in them rushing back to their natives as the third phase of the nationwide lockdown began.
The CM further asked builders and real estate owners to ensure all workers are provided with necessary facilities to ensure a smooth restart for all construction and related activities in the state. Issues related to weavers in the state were also discussed on Tuesday. The CM promised that relief measures for them would be taken after discussing with officers of the Finance Department.
The Noida administration has identified 34 containment zones to cope with the rising coronavirus cases in the third phase of the lockdown. Restrictions in the containment zones will be as per the Union Home Ministry’s guidelines. It has termed Gautam Buddh Nagar a red hotspot district. Till Monday evening, Noida reported 179 positive coronavirus cases with 102 recoveries.
The containment zones have been divided into two parts. Category 1 zones are those with one positive case and within a 400-metre perimeter. The boundary of Category 2 zones has been extended to 1 km with multiple cases.
"We persuaded certain states as we were not receiving reports of cases/deaths on time from them, after which the cases have been reported and we have seen a spike in death cases today," said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.
In today's evening briefing, Health Ministry's Luv Aggarwal said that community participation is the need of the hour so that every person contributes in breaking the chain of command.
To maintain social distancing, gathering of not more than 50 persons are allowed at wedding functions and not more than 20 persons at last rites of deceased persons, said Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.
In the last 24 hours, 3,900 cases were reported bringing total cases to 46,433. There have been 195 deaths so far taking total to 1,568. 'Highest single-day spike in both deaths and number of cases,' said Luv Aggarwal, Health Ministry's Joint Secretary.
Some important points from the presser
Amid the steady increase in the number of coronavirus cases in UP, Union Health Ministry will be sending its team of experts to review the situation in the hotspot districts of the state. Officials here said that the team comprising experts from AIIMS, JIPMER, National Centre for Disease Control among others will visit Agra, the biggest hotspot with 628 cases till Monday, and Lucknow, which has so far reported 226 cases.
“The experts will be looking at the ways we are handling the situation and suggest on improving it,” said Agra District Magistrate Prabhu Narain Singh. He, however, could not confirm the date of their arrival.
While Agra has been hit by the pandemic most with most number of deaths (14), Kanpur City has become the second-most infected district in the state with 266 cases and five deaths. However, the central team is not planning to visit Kanpur.
Twenty-four people, including serving and retired armed forces personnel, have tested positive for coronavirus in Delhi’s Army’s Research and Referral hospital on Tuesday. All of them have been shifted to the Army’s Base Hospital in Delhi Cantonment.
The World Health Organization’s emergencies chief said Monday that it has received no evidence from the US government to back up allegations by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the coronavirus could have originated at a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
“From our perspective, this remains speculative,”Michael Ryan told reporters in Geneva.”We have not received any data or specific evidence from the US government relating to the purported origin of the virus.”He said WHO would be “very willing” to receive any such information the US has.
The comments come as the Trump administration has denounced both China and the UN health agency for alleged missteps in handling the outbreak that first emerged in the city of Wuhan and has now infected millions and killed at least 239,000 people.
Not having the Aarogya Setu application on your smartphone in Noida and Greater Noida has been made a punishable offence by the Noida police.
“All those with smartphones who do not have the application can be booked under Section 188 of the IPC. After that, a judicial magistrate will either decide if the person will be tried, fined or left with a warning,” said Akhilesh Kumar, DCP Law and Order.
Section 188 of IPC deals with disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant. A person can be imprisoned up to 6 months or fined up to Rs 1000.
Over 1,100 labourers and pilgrims were greeted with flowers on Tuesday as they reached Dankuni in West Bengal’s Howrah district in a train from Rajasthan. The 24-coach train, which left Ajmer in the western state on Monday morning, reached Dankuni station at 10.40 am, official sources said. Flower petals were showered on the train as it chugged into the platform, with state ministers Moloy Ghatak and Tapan Dasgupta waiting at the station to receive the passengers.
All 1,186 passengers, including women and children, were subjected to medical examination for any COVID-19 symptom at a camp set up by the Health Department outside the station. Read more here
The global economic slump triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic could change the entire sports industry in ways thought unthinkable till now. Some sports will be hit harder than others. The economic structure of international cricket is likely to change and lower-ranked nations will face a crunch in funds. Sports like hockey stare at an uncertain future.
“The key revenue generation for sports bodies is through licensing of television broadcast rights. With the stoppage in sporting events, it is likely that most sporting bodies will face financial hits. Indian cricket could be relatively better placed. Smaller countries like West Indies, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka could face challenges if their respective media contracts are not renewed,” said Manish Desai, partner in Deloitte India. Desai said sports other than cricket might find it harder to return to normal in India, because they do not have as deep financial pockets. Here’s how various sports have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic and resultant global lockdowns:
Several drugs approved for the treatment of hepatitis C viral infection have been identified as potential candidates against COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, according to a study based on extensive calculations using supercomputer simulations. Researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany simulated the way that about 42,000 different substances listed in open databases bind to certain proteins of SARS-CoV-2, and thereby inhibit the penetration of the virus into the human body or its multiplication.