Coronavirus India LIVE Updates: Over 2 lakh samples tested in 24 hours; 12 Army personnel infected

Briefing reporters on the pandemic situation, Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said: "The cases are increasing in Bengaluru. Therefore, we have sealed some areas in Bengaluru. Today, we've called a meeting of ministers and officials to discuss the next course of action. In Bengaluru,  we've arranged all facilities to treat coronavirus patients. But we are also thinking about the number of cases which is increasing in the city. I urge people to maintain social distancing and sanitisation if Bengalurians don't want another round of sealing." 

Over 30 personnel attached to Naval Air Station INS Parundu in Ramanathapuram have tested positive for coronavirus, district officials said on Thursday, but the forward operating base was 'operational', Defence sources in Chennai said. According to PTI, while the district authorities put the number of infected at 33, Defence sourcessaid 'some' of the sailors, mostly who had arrived here recently on postings, have been affected with the virus. They said that as per standard protocol, such personnel are quarantined and tested for the contagion in which 'some' of them have tested positive. "INS Parundu is very much operational. Entry of civilian staff working there has been restricted," they added.

The Centre has informed the Madras High Court that 17,701 people from Tamil Nadu stranded in various countries due to travel curbs following the coronavirys pandemic were brought back through 50 flights, PTI reported. The Union External Affairs Ministry made the submission in a counter-affidavit on a petition by the DMK seeking details on bringing Tamils stuck abroad because of Covid-19 and suspension of flights. The Ministry said 45,242 repatriation requests were received from people of Tamil Nadu stranded in different countries.

In a bid to combat the virus pandemic, the Chennai division of Southern Railways has introduced an advanced technique to facilitate contactless access to passengers at railway stations. Automated Ticket Checking and Managing Access (ATMA) is the new system installed at Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. MGR Chennai Central Railway Station. This new system facilitates contactless verification of tickets, body temperatures, and face masks of passengers entering and exiting the station premises. As per a press release from the Southern Railways, the ATMA system is equipped with a web camera, affixed on the enquiry desk at the entry points. Passengers are directed to show their ticket along with identity proof which is captured by the camera, and the image gets displayed on the monitor for officials to check. Once the ticket verification is done, the passenger are allowed to enter the station premises for further screening.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to make India more self-reliant, but if the experience over the past few years is anything to go by, it’s not going to be easy. Faced with disruptions to raw material supplies from China because of the pandemic and millions of job losses following a nationwide lockdown, Modi has ratcheted up calls to boost local manufacturing and reduce India’s reliance on imports. A shortage of personal protective equipment at the beginning of the outbreak increased his resolve — and within the space of just two months, India has become the world’s biggest maker of PPE kits after China. That success has only emboldened Modi as he exhorts Indians to buy local goods. A military standoff with China is now adding fuel to those calls. Following a deadly clash between soldiers from both countries along a contested Himalayan border this month, Indian political leaders have called for a boycott of Chinese goods and possible higher tariffs on products from its neighbour. Traders, who were previously reluctant to snub cheap Chinese imports, have now come up with a list of 3,000 items, including toys, watches and plastic products, that can easily be replaced by local manufacturing.

On June 24, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) took over Covid-19 Care Centre at Radha Soami Satsang Beas in Delhi's Chattarpur as Nodal Agency to operate. Many teams of ITBP including medical and administration paid a visit to the ashram. They held a series of discussions with the stakeholders as well. Radha Soami Satsang Beas COVID-19 care centre has 10,000-bed facility.

Twelve Army personnel have tested positive for coronavirus in Nagaland's Kohima district, officials said on Thursday. Health and Family Welfare Department officials said 12 Army personnel of Jakhama army camp quarantine centre tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. A group of army personnel had returned to Jakhama garrison from different parts of the country last week and were put under strict quarantine as per the military SOP rules within the camp jurisdiction, officials said. Twelve positive cases were reported on Wednesday, taking the total infections in Jakhama Army camp to 15, they said. Earlier a COVID-19 case was detected in the camp on June 19 and two cases on June 23. All the 15 Army personnel are admitted to the Jakhama Army Hospital and all are asymptomatic, sources said.

India’s Hetero Labs Ltd has priced its generic version of remdesivir, Gilead’s experimental Covid-19 drug, at 5,400 rupees ($71) per 100-milligram vial, the drugmaker said on Wednesday, as it prepares to ship them to hospitals in the country. The privately held company said it would supply 20,000 vials of the drug. Fellow Indian drug firm Cipla Ltd had said on Tuesday that its own version of the antiviral drug remdesivir would be priced below 5,000 rupees. Cipla and Hetero are among a bevy of drugmakers which have licensing agreements with U.S.-based Gilead Sciences Inc, the original manufacturer of remdesivir, to make and sell the drug in 127 low- and middle-income countries.

In a bid to regulate admission of non-Covid patients in the hospitals, the Health Department has warned both private and government hospitals that strict action will be taken if patients were denied admission for treatment. The government also cautioned private hospitals of suspending licences as well as initiating necessary penal steps if it receives any complaints of patients being denied admission for treatment. “There have been instances of denial of admission and services by the private hospitals and patients suffer due to this lackadaisical attitude of these hospitals. Such denial is an offence under the West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) Act, 2017 and the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Rules, 2017. If any report of denial of admission or services is received against such private hospital, necessary penal steps, including suspension of licence, will be initiated against the aforesaid hospital,” the order issued by the Health Department said.

A day after Ramdev launched an ayurvedic ‘Corona Kit’ claiming it cured Covid-19, serious questions have emerged over the business practices of Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, the FMCG company that markets Patanjali brand products and Divya Pharmacy, the unit producing the medicines. On Wednesday, a day after the Ministry of Ayush ordered Patanjali to stop publicising claims of Covid-19 cure, the Uttarakhand government said its licencing authority did not grant any approval to the Corona Kit, and the Rajasthan government told The Indian Express it had no knowledge of clinical trials at National Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (NIMS), a private hospital in Jaipur where Covid-19 patients are admitted. Most significantly, when mildly symptomatic patients developed fever during the trials, they were administered allopathic medicines. As it is, the trials were conducted only on asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients. Severely symptomatic patients and those with acute respiratory distress syndrome were excluded for enrolment.

There are many parallels one can draw between the novel coronavirus-induced lockdown (gharbandi) and demonetisation (notebandi), in terms of their impact on India’s farm economy. Both resulted in the same thing – demand destruction – albeit through different routes. Either way, the outcome was the same. Notebandi and gharbandi both basically “flattened” farm produce prices, by shifting the demand curves to the left. The demand drop wasn’t due to prices going up. Rather, with consumption being limited to homes — manpower shortages forced many food companies to also curtail production in factories and, hence, cut raw material purchases — there was less demand now for milk, potatoes or tomatoes even at the same price. This wasn’t, in other words, simply a “movement along the demand curve”, but a “leftward shift in the demand curve”.

As many as 75,60,782 samples have been tested so far.

COVID-19 Testing Update . For more details visit: https://t.co/dI1pqvXAsZ #ICMRFIGHTSCOVID19 #IndiaFightsCOVID19 #CoronaUpdatesInIndia #COVID19 #COVID19India pic.twitter.com/H3T0RmkefP

— ICMR (@ICMRDELHI) June 25, 2020

At first glance, the numbers tell a scary story — of Delhi surpassing Mumbai to become the city with the highest Covid-19 cases in the country. And the fact that a third of the capital’s 70,390 cases have been recorded in the past week. A closer look at the capital’s evolving Covid response, though, suggests that the surge in cases is closely tied to significantly increased testing — 1.08 lakh tests, more than a fourth of the total, have been conducted in the corresponding period. So far, the city has tested over 4.2 lakh people using the RT-PCR as well as rapid antigen testing kits. The number of hospital beds has also increased in the past two weeks — from 8,800 on June 10 to 13,400 on Tuesday.

The Covid-19 tally in India rose to 473,105 on Thursday after nearly 17,000 fresh cases were recorded within a span of 24 hours.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai has become the first major educational institution in the country to scrap all face-to-face lectures for the rest of the year due to the pandemic. In an announcement made late Wednesday night, director Subhasis Chaudhuri said the institute would teach the next semester “purely in the online mode so that there is no compromise on the safety and well being of the students”. “The COVID Pandemic has made us at IIT Bombay rethink the way we impart education to our students. To ensure that our students begin the academic year without further delay, we are planning on extensive online classes details of which will be informed to all students in due course of time,” he wrote in a Facebook post shared close to midnight.

With 3,788 new Covid-19 cases being reported on Tuesday, Delhi has overtaken Mumbai as the city with the highest case count — 70,390 cases so far. The total case count in Mumbai, which reported 1,118 new cases in the last 24 hours, is 69,528. While Delhi has done 4.2 lakh tests so far (about 22,142 per million), Mumbai 2.94 lakh tests (22,668 per million). Mumbai’s positivity rate (23.2%) remains higher than Delhi (16.7%); Delhi also has fewer deaths (2,365) than Mumbai (3,964). With the number of cases still rising, the Delhi government has prepared an ambitious plan —house-to-house screening in containment zones by June 30, and in the rest of the city by July 6.

The Assam government has started a mental health support programme for Covid patients and quarantined persons in the state to provide emotional support, counselling and treatment. The programme, called ‘Monon’, was started on June 17. The team behind it comprises 220 psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and trained voluntary counsellors. It is led by Dr Mythili Hazarika, an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital. “This is a unique kind of a programme, where the mental health professionals are calling those who might need help rather than just waiting for them to call us,” Hazarika told The Indian Express. She added that each person on the team is allotted to call at least 15 Covid patients per day.

Around 2.30 pm Wednesday, more than 30 people stood in a queue outside a CRPF bus at Sarvodaya Enclave's gate number 2, some visibly anxious as the line slowly moved forward. The bus is a makeshift laboratory aimed at providing free and fast Covid test results to area residents, with officials saying such mobile testing labs have become crucial in assessing the spread of the virus.

"For the past several days, we have been carrying out mobile tests in many parts of South Delhi. Testing trucks are stationed at vantage points as well as in and around containment zones. We have observed that in many areas, several domestic helps, shopkeepers and people whose jobs involve visiting multiple places reside. In such a case, testing becomes crucial since the data gives an idea of where the infection is spreading. We also carry out surveys to ensure testing vans are placed in such a manner to provide maximum coverage," said Kapil Chaudhary, South Delhi sub-divisional magistrate.

The makeshift testing centre involves a bus where the testing kit is placed and a registration counter outside. A lab technician handles the testing paraphernalia, while another makes reports. A driver and two CRPF guards are also present. A government doctor oversees the operations. The resident welfare associations of these areas help the SDM arrange the mobile testing facility. 

Bringing yet another change in its testing protocol, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will now allow all those over the age of 70 to undergo testing for Covid-19 without prescription. The BMC, which had earlier warned doctors of disciplinary action if they recommended tests to patients without physical examination, has now decided to review this rule as well stating that e-prescriptions will also be allowed for testing. Read more here