Passengers outside the Mumbai airport on Monday. Domestic flight operations resumed in India after two months. (Express Photo: Nirmal Harindran)
Coronavirus India News Live update: India registered 6,535 new cases in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s Covid-19 tally to 1,45,380 on Tuesday. This includes 80,722 patients with the disease and 60,490 who have been treated and discharged and 4,167 deaths.
The first day of flight resumption after a hiatus of two months was marred by a large number of cancellations at major airports including Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi. At least 82 flights, including arrivals and departures, were cancelled at the Delhi airport as some of the states requested the Centre to curtail services to meet their own guidelines. More than 20 flights were also called off in Bengaluru.
In other news, offering a glimmer of hope, Novavax Inc commenced Phase 1 of its clinical trials for the NVX-CoV2373 vaccine. The preliminary results of the tests are expected in July. The Japanese government, meanwhile, lost hope in approving Fujifilm Holdings Corp’s Avigan drug this month after a study showed no clear evidence of its efficacy.
Globally, over 5.4 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus so far, including 3.4 lakh deaths.
Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) Swargate set to start its services in Pimpri-Chinchwad and suburban areas outside Pune city limits with 50 per cent capacity (Express Photo: Pavan Khengre)
A woman and her daughter at Guru Nanak Dev Stadium in Ludhiana for screening before boarding train from railway station.
Rahul Gandhi is interacting with reporters on the Covid-19 pandemic. He questions the Centre on its action plan as cases across the country increases. "In Congress states, we have a strategy. But we cannot function without the national government," he says.
On Monday, Assam detected 148 new cases to take its tally to 526. Almost all of the new cases are people returning from other places, or their direct contacts. The fresh wave of infections had begun immediately after the lockdown restrictions were eased on May 4, but there has been a major acceleration in the last one week. In this time, the number of positive cases in the state has jumped more than five times, making Assam one of the fastest growing states at the moment. Amitabh Sinha explains the numbers
There are 36 new coronavirus cases in China, including 29 asymptomatic infections, its National Health Commission (NHC) said. Most of these infections were reported from Wuhan, the city where Covid-19 originated. However, no deaths were reported across the country.
At least 115 Indian nationals boarded an Air India flight in Israel's Tel Aviv this morning to return to the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. The flight, AI 140, is scheduled to land in New Delhi, after which a connecting flight will depart to Kerala's Kochi. The flight was part of the government's Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate Indian nationals stranded in other countries amid the pandemic.
How frequent, and how severe, are strokes among Covid-19 patients? A series of papers in the journal Stroke, published by the American Heart Association, examines trends from four countries. Click here to read the broad findings.
Some BJP Chief Ministers seems to have turned the crisis into an opportunity not just for weakening their rivals inside and outside the party, but also consolidated their positions earning more political capital. But a few have failed despite having rich experience and strong political backing. Liz Mathew looks at the actions of B S Yeddyurappa (Karnataka), Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Jai Ram Thakur (Himachal Pradesh) and Biplab Kumar Deb (Tripura), who have earned kudos for their handling of the crisis.
Traffic builds up at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border at Ghaziabad on Tuesday morning, a day after the administration said it would block entry amid a sharp increase in cases. (Express Photos: Prem Nath Pandey)
India registered 6,535 new cases in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s Covid-19 tally to 1,45,380 on Tuesday. This includes 80,722 patients with the disease and 60,490 who have been treated and discharged and 4,167 deaths.
After weeks of negotiations, the German government Monday agreed to a $9.8 billion bailout package to help struggling Lufthansa stay in the air. According to details of the deal, Berlin gets 20% stake in Lufthansa and a veto in the event of a hostile big for the airline company.
A day after it announced travel restrictions for passengers flying into the country from Brazil, the United States Monday revised its statement bringing forward the travel ban by two days. The initial restrictions from May 28 have been moved up to May 26 without any reason provided. Brazil Monday recorded 374,898 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 23,473 deaths.
For the third time, Singapore Tuesday downgraded its 2020 GDP forecast to a contraction range of -7% to -4% from the prior range of -1% to -4%. The country's economy has taken a hit because of the lockdown imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. In case you didn't know, Singapore calls its lockdown a "circuit breaker".
"There continues to be a significant degree of uncertainty over the length and severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as the trajectory of the economic recovery," said Gabriel Lim, permanent secretary at the ministry of trade and industry.
The curfew imposed in Saudi Arabia will be lifted starting May 31, except in the holy city of Mecca. The Kingdom has imposed restrictions on domestic travel, holding prayers in mosques, and attending private and public offices. From June 21, prayers will be allowed in mosques, reported news agency Reuters.
Offering a glimmer of hope, Novavax Inc commenced Phase 1 of its clinical trials for the NVX-CoV2373 vaccine. The preliminary results of the tests are expected in July. In other news, the Japanese government has lost hope in approving Fujifilm Holdings Corp's Avigan drug by May end after a study showed no clear evidence of its efficacy. The drug remains contentious as it has shown birth defects in animal studies.
India Observatory, an open-source database, has come up with a GIS-enabled dashboard that includes an India map reflecting the movement of migrants in real time on their long journeys, often on foot, along with facilities and relief organisations on their routes. The map matches “time and spatial data, on administrative facilities in the area, transportation and healthcare facilities of an area and summaries, on the fly, in real time of people passing by,” said Jagdeesh Rao, CEO of FES.
In 2009-10, the National Sample Survey Office (now National Statistical Office or NSO) conducted a large sample survey of Household Consumer Expenditure (HCE). This survey, usually carried out once in five years, was repeated in 2011-12. The reason: 2009-10 saw India suffer both a severe drought and the aftereffects of the global financial crisis. 2011-12 was a “normal” year like 1999-2000 and 2004-05, “free” from any major economic downturn.
The 2020-21 survey is supposed to start from July, which looks unlikely given the novel coronavirus-induced situation. What else is uncertain? Read our explainer
Having more than trebled daily testing over a month, India is now gearing up to ramp it to 2 lakh a day. While the daily average has crossed 1 lakh tests, private laboratories, who fought long and hard to be allowed to test, have contributed to less than 20% of the total samples tested daily. This despite the fact that they make up almost 30% of the laboratory infrastructure.
An analysis of testing records between April 16 and May 23 reveals that while tests in government labs went up by almost 270 per cent from 23,932 to 88,947, for private labs the figure rose more sharply, just under four times, from 4408 to 21450. Read more here
Industrial clusters, including pharmaceutical companies, which were operational even during the lockdown, account for a good number of fresh cases of Covid-19 being reported in Ahmedabad district.
Two employees, one each from Intas Pharmaceuticals and Zydus Cadila tested positive for the virus, taking the number of positive cases to 170 in rural Ahmedabad, where 35 per cent of the infected are working in industrial clusters, including those belonging to pharmaceutical companies, according to officials. Read more here
District health authorities reported eight deaths due to coronavirus on Monday, with the toll now rising to 280. As many as 459 new cases were reported the same day, with the number rising to 6,153, District Health Officer Dr Bhagwan Pawar said. Read more here
With 2,436 new Covid-19 cases, Maharashtra now has 52,667 cases, of which at least 35,178 are actively infected. Mumbai recorded 1,430 cases, taking its total number to 31,972. The city also crossed 1,000 deaths with the toll at 1,026.
An analysis by the Medical Education department of 25,000 active cases in the state has shown that 1,166 were critically ill and another 5,899 had mild to moderate symptoms. While the state has over 15,000 intensive care units, it is still falling short of beds for critically ill patients, especially in Mumbai, as many of these beds are occupied by moderately or mildly ill persons. Read more here
A month after 57-year-old police constable Chandrakant Pendurkar died, his family is yet to receive the solatium of Rs 50 lakh announced by the state government in the first week of April. Pendurkar was the first policeman from the state to have succumbed to Covid-19. So far, 18 police personnel from the state have died due to the infection, while 1,809 have tested positive till May 24. Read more here