People wait at a Mohalla clinic in Delhi to get medicines on Wednesday. (Express photo by Amit Mehra)
Coronavirus India LIVE news updates: The ICMR on Thursday said with Covid-19 prevalence as low as less than 1% in small districts in a large country like India, the nation is “definitely” not in the community transmission phase. Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal too put to rest questions on community transmission in Delhi saying, “If we get caught in grammar and let go of field action, we will suffer.”
With nearly 10,000 fresh cases registered within a span of 24 hours, the Covid-19 tally in India rose to 286,579 on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. India continued to remain the fifth worst-affected country after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK. Addressing the nation on the occasion of the 95th Annual Day of Indian Chamber of Commerce, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today the country must resolve to “turn this crisis into an opportunity“. “We have to make this a major turning point for this nation. What is that turning point? A self-reliant India,” he said.
Globally, as many as 7,357,794 people have been infected while 416,116 have died so far. The United States is by far the hardest-hit country, in terms of both confirmed infections and deaths. The total death toll in the country could hit the grim figure of 200,000 by September and expecting a dramatic decrease in positive cases will be a “wishful thinking”, an eminent Indian-American professor has warned.
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: A boy at Delhi's Sarojini market after the easing of lockdown restrictions (Express Photo by Amit Mehra)
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: Community transmission or spread is said to be taking place when the source of the contagion is not known. In pic: Cops get their temperature tested
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: A lab technician extracts portions of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate during testing at the Chula Vaccine Research Center, run by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. (AP)
A total of 83 people tested positive for COVID-19 today. The total number of cases in Kerala is now at 2,244, including 1,258 active cases. There are 133 hotspots in the state, said Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala Chief Minister.
Vadodara Covid-19 tally at 1,447
Four days after places of worship reponed in the Capital, the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid has decided that no congregational prayers will be held inside till June 30 due to the spike in #COVID19 numbers. At 8 pm today, it'll be shut down again.
A team of the National Humans Rights Commission (NHRC), led by its member Jyotika Kalra, is slated to visit the LNJP Hospital on Thursday for an on-spot inspection in the wake of allegations of mismanagement in handling the COVID-19 situation in Delhi. Lok Naik Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital is a dedicated COVID-19 facility under the Delhi government. Read more here
"We will not allow will of the virus in this nation," Dr V K Paul, member, NITI Aayog said. "If we get caught in grammar and let go of field action we will suffer," said Lav Agarwal JS, MoHFW on questions about community transmission in Delhi.
For such a large country, prevalence is so low, less than 1% in smaller districts slightly higher in cities and containment zones. So India is definitely not in community transmission stage, said ICMR. Prof Bhargava also said, "We have ramped up testing and we hve very calibrated guidelines. We hve capacity to do up to 2 lakh tests a day."
About serosurveillance, Professor Bhargava, DG, ICMR, said it gives scientific guidance, second part looked at infection spread in containment zone. Blood sample tested for IgG using Elisa test. "Serosurveillance shows 0.73% in these districts had evidence of past infection. Shows lockdown successful. Infection fatality very low 0.08%," he said.
In a press briefing, Lav agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said, at present the number of recovered cases is more than active cases of Covid-19. He added that countrywise comparisons unfair unless other countries have comparable population.
Two more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nagaland, taking the state's tally to 130 on Thursday, officials said. Both the new patients had recently returned to the state from other parts of the country and were placed under institutional quarantine in Kohima, they said. "Two new cases of COVID-19 have been reported out of 293 samples tested, both cases are from Kohima Quarantine Centre," state Minister for Health and Family Welfare, S Pangnyu Phom tweeted.
With nine new COVID-19 positive cases in Mizoram, the number of active cases has crossed the 100-mark in the northeastern state, an official of the health department told PTI. With this, the COVID-19 positive tally in the state has climbed from 1 to 102 in just 11 days. As many as 135 samples were tested of which nine tested positive at the Zoram Medical College (ZMC) on Wednesday night. Among the new positive positiv cases, five persons had returned from Delhi, three from Maharashtra and one from West Bengal, he said.
From counselling police personnel on social distancing to maintaining the law and order situation in a city that witnessed a communal flare-up just a few months ago, Delhi Police is fighting the battle against coronavirus for its own safety as well as for the safety of Delhiites, its chief SN Shrivastava said on Thursday. Shrivastava said the force has various Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in place for the personnel right from guiding them on taking precautions to their treatment in case they test positive. Over 800 Delhi police personnel have tested positive while five have so far lost their lives to coronavirus. (PTI)
The Philippines has intensified its family-planning programs on concern that the coronavirus outbreak could result in a population boom. “We saw in the past, during the lifetimes of our parents or grandparents, the significant increase in birth rates after a major adverse event. This is the reason why family planning is even more important,” amid the coronavirus crisis, Commission on Population Development chief Juan Antonio Perez said in a statement released by Bayer Philippines Inc., which is supporting the commission’s program. Read full Bloomberg story here
While most of the world was in lockdown to stop the coronavirus spread, Loten Zangmo arrived at Bhutan’s Paro International Airport on April 13. Although she was relieved to be in her country, she was also anxious about the future.
The 22-year-old student first heard about the pandemic just days before her university in the Indian state of Punjab closed as a preventive measure against the novel coronavirus. At the time, she thought the virus would not last for long. But the Indian government imposed an extensive lockdown to tackle the situation.
Loten was among many foreign nationals stranded on the university campus. After Bhutanese students reached out to their embassy in New Delhi, their government arranged a repatriation flight to bring them back home safely. Read DW report here
At least 31 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Manipur, taking the state's total tally to 342, officials said on Thursday. Of the 31 fresh cases, 13 each are from Imphal West district and Tamenglong, two each from Kakching and Ukhrul district and one from Bishenpur district, a statement issued by the COVID-19 Common Control Room here said. The control room, in its statement, asked people not to stigmatise or discriminate against people who have recovered from the disease. (PTI)
A newly constructed building, which was set to operate as the Burns and Plastic Surgery Block at the AIIMS in Delhi, will now be used temporarily as a dedicated facility for treating COVID-19 patients. The decision by the AIIMS authorities comes after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that Delhi will need 1.5 lakh beds in healthcare facilities by July 31 once people start coming to the city for treatment from other states. Officials said the 100 bed-facility, which is located next to the AIIMS Trauma Centre, is being readied for the care of coronavirus infected patients and is likely to be functional by the weekend. (PTI)
After days of facing uncertainty in Mumbai, there was a sense of relief among the 180 migrant workers who arrived at the airport in Lucknow on Thursday morning by a special flight arranged by megastar Amitabh Bachchan. Migrants hailing from Gonda, Ambedkar Nagar, Unnao and other parts in Uttar Pradesh were looking forward to reach their homes. Coming out of the airport after due testing, Abdul Jalil Khan of Gonda who lives in Bandra in Mumbai, said he had boarded the flight with his wife and children. (PTI)
Junior doctors at Gandhi Hospital continue with their strike on Day 3 demanding decentralisation of Covid-19 treatment in Telangana and immediate recruitment of manpower after talks with the state government on Wednesday failed. (Video is sourced)
The number of coronavirus cases in Uttarakhand rose to 1,637 on Thursday.
A PIL has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the AAP government to impose a strict lockdown in the national capital in view of the rising coronavirus cases, PTI reported. The plea, by a lawyer and his office boy, has said the Delhi government itself admitted there would be around one lakh Covid-19 cases in the national capital by end of June and the number would escalate to around 2.25 lakh by mid-July and over 5.5 lakh by July end. In such a scenario, the government should consider imposing strict lockdown in Delhi, the plea by lawyer Anirban Mondal and his employee Pawan Kumar has contended. The petition, filed through advocate Mridul Chakravarty, has also sought a direction to the Delhi government to consider constituting an expert committee of doctors, medical specialists and virologists to prepare a 'detailed blue print' for controlling or containing the spread of the virus.