Coronavirus live updates: Covid cases in India surge to over 4.4 lakh, death toll at 14,011

US passes 120,000 virus deaths: Johns Hopkins tally

Servitor of Puri Jagannath temple tests positive for Covid-19 virus, confirms Puri district collector Balwant Singh.

312 deaths and highest single-day spike of 14,933 new cases reported in India in last 24 hrs.

Punjab CM lauds 2 Covid-19 positive nurses who appeared for exam from quarantine facility, reports ANI.

INS Airavat repatriates 198 Indians stranded in Maldives.

It includes 195 from Tamil Nadu and 3 from Pondicherry. They reached Tuticorin port this morning. This is the third ship to repatriate stranded Indians to Tuticorin.

Shut down Bengaluru for 20 days to curb coronavirus spread, says JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy.

In a series of tweets, the JD(S) leader said sealing some areas would not serve any purpose and that weaker sections of the society should be taken care of immediately. "Stop playing with human lives. It will not serve any purpose to seal a few areas. If you care for the human lives in Bengaluru, shut down the city totally for 20 days. Else, Bengaluru will become another Brazil. People's lives are more important than the economy," Kumaraswamy tweeted.

Karnataka medical education minister's wife and daughter test positive for coronavirus.

"Test results of our family members have come. Unfortunately, my wife and daughter have tested positive for Covid19 and are undergoing treatment," the minister tweeted on Tuesday. He said he and his two sons have tested negative. Sudhakar's father P N Keshava Reddy tested positive for coronavirus on Monday. He was admitted to the hospital with a cough and fever.

Read: Panic in political circles in Gujarat, as Bharatsinh Solanki tests Covid-19 positive

Panic spread across Gujarat’s political spectrum on Monday after senior Congress leader and two-time state Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki tested positive for Covid-19. Solanki, who was one of the Rajya Sabha nominees of the Congress, had met a host of political leaders including chief minister Vijay Rupani, senior BJP leaders and all Congress MLAs and leaders, on Friday last.

Read: Saudi Arabia bars international pilgrims for haj

Saudi Arabia said on Monday it will bar arrivals from abroad to attend the haj this year due to the coronavirus, allowing only a limited number of Saudi citizens and residents to make the pilgrimage with social distancing measures enforced.The announcement means this will be the first year in modern times that Muslims from around the world have not been allowed to make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which all Muslims aim to perform at least once in a lifetime."This decision is taken to ensure Hajj is performed in a safe manner from a public health perspective while observing all preventative measures and the necessary social distancing protocols to protect human beings from the risks associated with this pandemic and in accordance with the teachings of Islam in preserving the lives of human beings," the ministry that oversees pilgrimages said in a statement.

I thank the Trustee & Mahant for understanding the situation & arranging Rath Yatra inside the temple premises: Gujarat CM

Read: New Covid hotspots are emerging in rural villages across India

The states of Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh received the most number of returning labourers - now they are also witnessing the sharpest rise in new cases in the two weeks to June 8, according to internal government estimates seen by Bloomberg. In the rural districts of Rajasthan and Karnataka, the virus is also spreading rapidly, it showed. Infections have now spread to 98 of the country's 112 poorest rural districts, up from 34 on April 15, according to the report from NITI Aayog. Nearly 2,250 new cases were added in those districts.

Read: New research casts doubts on long-term Covid immunity

The research by researchers at Chongqing Medical University, published in Nature Medicine on June 18, highlights the risks of using “immunity passports” and supports the prolonged use of social distancing. The research, which studied 37 symptomatic patients and 37 asymptomatic patients, found that of those who tested positive for the presence of the IgG antibody, one of the main types of antibodies, over 90% showed sharp declines in 2-3 months.