The number of coronavirus cases in the country stands at 3,08,993, including 1,45,779 active cases, 1,54,329 recovered cases and 8,884 deaths. (Express Photo by Prem Nath Pandey)
Coronavirus India News Live Updates: Amid the uptick of infections in the national capital, Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to review Delhi’s response to coronavirus. Apart from Shah, LG Anil Baijal and Kejriwal, those who attended the meeting include Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, members of the State Disaster Management Authority and senior officers from the Home and Health ministries.
The home minister has also called a separate meeting in the evening with the mayors of Delhi’s three municipal corporations — North, South and East — and commissioners of the civic bodies to discuss the coronavirus situation in the capital. Today’s meeting comes two days after the Supreme Court pulled up the Delhi government over the “horrendous, horrific and pathetic” situation in the city. Delhi has nearly 39,000 cases.
With nearly 12,000 new cases, COVID infections in India on Sunday rose to over 3.2 lakh. The death toll also crossed the 9,000-mark to stand at 9192. While over 1.62 lakh people have recovered, there are nearly 1.5 lakh active cases in the country. Maharashtra alone has over 1 lakh cases. India is the fourth country worst-hit by coronavirus, after the United States, Brazil, and Russia.
Globally, over 7.7 million people have been infected with nearly 4.3 lakh deaths. China reported 57 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday, the highest daily figure since April, as concerns grow about a resurgence of the disease. The domestic outbreak in China had been brought largely under control through strict lockdowns that were imposed early this year — but a new outbreak has been linked to a meat and vegetable market in south Beijing.
Migrants getting their temperature checked in Pune. (Express Photo by Arul Horizon)
As researchers across the globe race to develop a vaccine to tackle the pandemic, Acharya Balkrishna, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Patanjali Ayurveda Limited, claimed that his company developed an Ayurveda medicine that has cured Covid-19 patients within a span of five to 14 days. According to a report in news agency ANI, Balkrishna on Saturday said that a trial was conducted on hundreds of Covid-19 patients and that the medicine has yielded “100% favourable results.”
“We appointed a team of scientists after the Covid-19 outbreak. First, the simulation was done and compounds were identified which can fight the virus and stop its spread in the body. Then, we conducted a clinical case study on hundreds of positive patients and we have got 100 per cent favourable results,” Balkrishna said in Haridwar, according to ANI.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal arrived at the Ministry of Home Affairs for a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan. The meeting comes amid an uptick in the number of infections in Delhi
With European football leagues learning to co-exist with Covid-19, stakeholders in Indian cricket’s showpiece, the IPL, are hoping that the T20 carnival will become the first big sporting event in India to get past the pandemic. The plans are many. Stakeholders suggest: One city as venue for all matches, chartered flights, no fans, personal towels & water bottles. The BCCI, though, is waiting for the world governing body ICC’s announcement on the WorldT20. “Once we get a window of at least 40 days for IPL, we will figure out safety protocols, player travel, bio-secure arrangements, etc.,” says BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal.
On June 2, the Meghalaya Health department issued a new health protocol saying that the state would “by default” consider that everybody is an asymptomatic carrier of the novel coronavirus. The order reasoned that this was the best way to prevent the threat of community transmission with thousands of migrants returning to the state from different zones. Read our explainer to find out what this means and how this works
Sinovac Biotech Ltd. said its coronavirus shot is safe and capable of eliciting an immune response from human trials, suggesting the shot’s potential in defending against infection of the novel coronavirus. The Beijing-based company’s vaccine, called CoronaVac, hasn’t caused severe side effects and more than 90% of people administered with the shot on a 14-day interval have induced neutralizing antibodies two weeks after inoculation, Sinovac said in a press release on Sunday.
One of the key factors in Karnataka’s largely successful efforts at controlling Covid-19 in the state so far has been this aggressive contact-tracing, quarantining and testing, carried out by health authorities with the help of the civic administration, police and technology. Researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research who conducted a study of contacts tested of Covid-19 patients in different states between January 22 and April 30 found Karnataka at the top, with 93 on average tested compared to the national figure of 20. The worst-affected states like Maharashtra and Delhi have tested only eight and nine contacts respectively on average.
Apart from Karnataka, states falling within the high-performance 75th percentile for contact-testing are Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with 40 and 44 contacts tested per Covid-positive person.
China on Sunday reported its highest daily total of new coronavirus cases in two months after the capital's biggest wholesale food market was shut down following a resurgence in local infections. There were 57 confirmed cases in the 24 hours through midnight Saturday, the National Health Commission reported. That was the highest daily toll since mid-April and included 36 in Beijing, the capital.
The new cases illustrated how the virus can come back as anti-disease controls are relaxed. The Xinfadi market on Beijing's southeastern side was closed Saturday and neighboring residential compounds locked down after more than 50 people in the capital tested positive for the coronavirus.
With nearly 12,000 new cases, COVID infections in India on Sunday rose to over 3.2 lakh. The death toll also crossed the 9,000-mark to stand at 9192. While over 1.62 lakh people have recovered, there are nearly 1.5 lakh active cases in the country. Maharashtra alone has over 1 lakh cases. India is the fourth country worst-hit by coronavirus, after the United States, Brazil, and Russia.
A week after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that asymptomatic people should refrain from getting tested for coronavirus, the state government appeared to make a U-turn on Saturday, saying it was up to the ICMR to change guidelines “for testing to increase”. Speaking to reporters, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said “testing could be opened for all” if the ICMR guidelines allow. Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the process for getting tested should be eased and be like “any other pathological test”, saying this was the only way to contain the disease.
Delhi is conducting over 13,000 tests per million currently, among the highest in the country. However, as its submission in the High Court on Thursday shows, it is still not testing to capacity. While its 17 government and 23 private labs can test 8,600 samples per day, the number stood at 5,947 on June 12.
India has revised the protocol for clinical management of Covid-19 to include the use of remdesivir and off-label use of tocilizumab and convalescent plasma therapy on specific groups of patients. The list of symptoms has been revised in the new protocol to include the loss of smell and taste.
Remdesivir, which is one of the most keenly watched in the search for a cure for the novel coronavirus disease, is part of the Word Health Organisation’s ongoing Solidarity Trials, and it received emergency use authorisation by the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) on May 1.
The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will discuss fixing a price ceiling for treatment of Covid-19 patients and reducing the cost of testing in private labs. The meeting will be chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, who is also the DDMA chairperson. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Police Commissioner S N Shrivastava and Chief Secretary Vijay Dev are also among other members scheduled to attend. While there is no cap on treatment cost in private hospitals at present, Covid tests are capped at Rs 4,500. The cost of admission and treatment can vary significantly depending on which hospital you are admitted to.
Around 500 Covid isolation coaches of Indian Railways are being readied to be deployed in Delhi after the Arvind Kejriwal government requested for them to supplement the city’s health infrastructure in light of growing cases of coronavirus, a day before Home minister Amit Shah is to meet Delhi government top brass to discuss the situation in the capital.
The Delhi government, meanwhile, declared all nursing homes with a bed strength between 10 and 49 beds as Covid-only facilities. Specialised centres for eye, ENT, IVF and maternity homes have been exempted.The nursing homes have been asked to make Covid beds functional within three days, failing which action would be initiated. “In order to avoid intermingling of Covid and non-Covid patients in small and medium multispeciality nursing homes and also to augment the bed capacity for Covid-19 patients, all nursing homes in Delhi having bed strength of 10 beds or more up to 49 beds are declared as Covid nursing homes” stated an order by the health department.
Uttar Pradesh’s tally of coronavirus cases on Saturday rose by 505 to 13,118 while the death toll increased to 385 with 20 more fatalities. This was the second day in a row when new cases breached the 500 threshold.
Of the total cases, 3,015 were recorded in the last one week and 5,043 in this month alone. The daily average of cases in the last week was a tad more than 430. READ MORE
Nearly a month after the Union Territory was declared coronavirus-free, Ladakh has seen a huge spike in cases in the last 48 hours, reporting 198 confirmed cases from Kargil district on Saturday, the highest single-day figure so far, prompting the UT Administration to reenforce strict lockdown in Kargil district from Friday midnight. Read more here
The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will discuss fixing a price ceiling for treatment of Covid-19 patients and reducing the cost of testing in private labs. The meeting agenda reads, “Fixing price ceiling for treatment by private hospitals as some of them are charging exorbitant price and seeking huge advances… Fixing ceiling for charges of private ambulance services as some of them are charging huge prices. Reducing prices being charged by private labs for Covid tests to make it affordable to general public.”
While there is no cap on treatment cost in private hospitals at present, Covid tests are capped at Rs 4,500. The cost of admission and treatment can vary significantly depending on which hospital you are admitted to.
To regulate the cost of Covid-19 tests conducted by private laboratories across Maharashtra, the state Public Health Department Saturday issued a notification fixing the price for Covid-19 test at Rs 2,800 for swab collection and testing, and Rs 2,200 for cases where swab has already been collected.
Until now, private laboratories were charging Rs 4,500 for each real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, conducted to detect novel coronavirus. The new rates, which were approved by Maharashtra Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta, seeks to reduce the cost of Covid-19 tests by at least 37 per cent. Read more here
The Bombay High Court, in a significant judgment dealing with a batch of Covid-19 petitions, expressed concern over the rise in number of cases in Maharashtra and directed the state government, Centre and civic bodies to consider increasing healthcare budget and expenditure and to give priority to emergencies while admitting patients.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice A A Sayed on Friday passed a ruling on a batch of pleas filed by Mehrwan Farshed, Mutahhar Khan, NGO Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, Sarika Singh, Khalil Ahmad Hasanmiya Wasta and Dayanand Stalin seeking relief for non-Covid patients, stating that they were being refused treatment in government as well as private hospitals, and this had led to deaths. Read more here
An AIADMK MLA on Saturday tested positive for COVID-19 in Chennai, making him the second legislator from the state to test positive after the late DMK MLA J Anbazhagan.
K Palani, AIADMK MLA from Sriperumbudur, had a fever and was admitted to Miot Hospital in Chennai, where he later tested positive for COVID-19. The family members of the MLA have also been tested.
Meanwhile, according to data available on the Greater Chennai Corporation’s (GCC) official Covid-19 website, 360 streets have been marked as containment zones in Chennai as of June 12. Read more Tamil Nadu Covid-19 updates