Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari inaugurates the new Covid-19 testing laboratory (molecular lab) of the Bhaktivedanta Hospital, Mira Bhayandar through the digital platform from Raj Bhavan, Mumbai. Governor asks the hospital to give ‘motherly affection’ to patients.

Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari inaugurates the new #COVID19 testing laboratory (molecular lab) of the Bhaktivedanta Hospital, Mira Bhayandar through the digital platform from Raj Bhavan, Mumbai. Governor asks the hospital to give ‘motherly affection’ to patients pic.twitter.com/OcsJMmYP7t

— ANI (@ANI) August 6, 2020

India's proactive and graded multi-level institutional response to Covid resulted in maintain "very low cases and deaths per million" population, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said Thursday. While speaking at a virtual meeting of the regional director of WHO for South-East Asia (SEA) with ministers of health of the member nations, he added that this could be achieved and maintained despite high population density, low fractional GDP spending and per capita doctor and hospital bed availability compared to developed nations, reported PTI.

The Delhi government has again sent a proposal to Lt Governor Anil Baijal to allow hotels, gymnasium and weekly markets to reopen, saying that the COVID-19 situation has been improving in the national capital, sources said on Thursday. The government said that in accordance with the unlock guidelines issued by the Centre, it has right to take decision to allow such establishments in Delhi. In its proposal, the AAP government said that the COVID-19 cases have been increasing in several states and situation is frequently deteriorating, but hotels, gyms and weekly have been allowed there. (PTI)

• Over 56,000 new cases registered; India’s total caseload at 19,64,536
• Major fire at Gujarat COVID hospital, 8 dead
• Novavax signs Covid-19 vaccine supply deal with India's Serum Institute
• UP Law Minister tests positive for Covid-19
• Veteran CPI(M) leader Shyamal Chakraborty dies of COVID-19
• Over 18.8 million Covid-19 cases have been reported globally, death toll at 708,278
• Alcoholism drug may help in fight against COVID-19, study says
• Kim Jong Un orders special aid for Kaesong city reeling under lockdown
• Singapore monitoring spate of suicides among migrant workers
• Fauci says the world may never eradicate coronavirus

he World Health Organization on Thursday urged the member nations of its southeast Asia region to maintain essential health services and accelerate resumption of healthcare facilities hit by the pandemic as an integral part of the COVID-19 response. The pandemic has put immense strain on health systems across the South-East Asia Region. Previous disease outbreaks have shown that disruption to essential services caused by an outbreak can be more deadly than the outbreak itself, said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the Regional Director WHO South-East Asia Region, on Thursday. (PTI)

Convalescent plasma therapy has not shown any benefit in reducing mortality risk in  COVID-19 patients, according to an interim analysis of a randomised controlled trial done at AIIMS in Delhi to assess the efficacy of this mode of treatment. The therapy involves taking antibodies from a recovered person and transfusing those into an active coronavirus patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight back the infection. AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria told PTI on Thursday that no clear mortality benefit of convalescent plasma therapy was noticed during a trial conducted among 30 COVID-19 patients. During the trial, one group of patients was given convalescent plasma therapy along with the standard supportive treatment while the other group only received standard treatment. The number of fatalities recorded in both the groups was equal and there was not much clinical improvement in the condition of patients, he told PTI.

Disulfiram, the medication used to treat alcoholism, may help in the fight against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study. The researchers from National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Russia noted that the structural elements of the novel coronavirus that are less subject to mutation during its evolution should be chosen as a target for the potential treatment. Otherwise, a medication effective against one strain would no longer be effective against another, they said.

The best candidates for this are conservative proteins, such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus main protease M pro, according to the study published in the Mendeleev Communications journal. In addition to being resistant to mutations, M pro plays a major role in coronavirus replication, which means that its inhibition is able to slow down or even completely stop its reproduction inside the body, the researchers said. Read full story here

Delhi court has directed the police to register an FIR in a case of alleged duping of a man into ordering 3M category masks worth about Rs 2.25 lakh. Metropolitan Magistrate Manu Vedwan directed the Station House Officer (SHO) of Police Station, Punjabi Bagh, to lodge the case and file a status report by September 18. "The SHO, Police Station, Punjabi Bagh, is directed to lodge an FIR under appropriate sections of IPC or any other law with all the contents of complaint in the case and carry out the investigation in a fair manner and to conclude the same as expeditiously as possible which otherwise also in the mandate of the law," the court said in its order passed on July 30. (PTI)

Himachal Pradesh's Covid-19 case tally rises to 2,928. There are 1,087 active cases, 1,801 recovered cases and 12 deaths in the state: State Health Department.

Karnataka-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) today said it has donated two ambulances to a hospital in Bengaluru, PTI reported. HAL gave them to Bowring & Lady Curzon Medical College & Research Institute also as part of the corporate social responsibility of the company. They can be used for transporting patients, who require medical monitoring while in transit and non-invasive airway management, HAL CMD R Madhavan was quoted as saying in a press release. The ambulances were handed over at a function held in the presence of state Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar and senior officials of the government and HAL.

Odisha's coronavirus tally surged past the 40,000-mark on Thursday with the biggest single-day spike of 1,699 cases, even as 10 more fatalities pushed the death toll to 235, a health department official said. Ganjam district, the state's coronavirus hotspot, reported three deaths, Sundergarh (2), and Bhadrak, Kandhamal, Keonjahr, Nabarangpur and Nayagarh one each, he said. Another 45-year-old coronavirus positive patient from Ganjam breathed her last, but the department attributed the cause of her death to other health conditions. Nabarangpur district reported its first COVID-19 fatality, the official said. The state registered a total of 1,699 fresh cases, raising the tally to 40,717, he said. 

Five more people including two women succumbed to COVID-19 in Puducherry, taking the death toll in the union territory to 70, a top Health department official said on Thursday.

As many as 195 new cases were reported taking the overall tally to 4,621, of which 1,743 were active cases (including 510 patients in home quarantine in Puducherry and Yanam regions), Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said in a release. On the five deaths in the last 24 hours ending 10 am today, he said the deceased were in the 55-80 age group and most of them had comorbidities. (PTI)

The surge in COVID-19 cases continued in Telangana, with 2,092 new cases being reported, the highest single-day spike so far, while the death toll mounted to 589 after 13 more people succumbed to the virus. Out of the 2,092 new cases, 535 were from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), followed by Rangareddy (169), Warangal Urban (128), Medchal-Malkajgiri (126) and Karimnagar (123) districts, a state government bulletin said on Thursday, providing data as of 8 pm on August 5. The case fatality rate in the state was 0.80 per cent, while it was 2.09 per cent at the national level, it said. Follow LIVE updates

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent, Governor Shaktikanta Das announced on Thursday. “An accommodative stance of the monetary policy will continue as long as necessary to revive growth and mitigate the impact of the pandemic while ensuring that inflation remains within target going forward. RBI is perhaps the only central bank in the world which has set up a special quarantine facility for continuity of critical operations,” he told reporters. Click here for more updates.

Scientists have analysed the presence throughout the human body of a protein which the novel coronavirus uses to enter host cells, and have found that it is produced only at "very low levels, if at all," in the respiratory system, an advance which highlights the need for further studies to reassess the biological mechanisms responsible for Covid-19. The study, published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology, presented a systematic evaluation of the production of ACE2 -- the 'coronavirus entry gate' protein -- in more than 150 cell types in the human body. It noted that the protein expression was consistently high in the intestines, kidney, gallbladder, heart, male reproductive organs, placenta, eye and vascular tissues, while it was limited in the respiratory system. "Previous studies have indicated that ACE2 protein is highly expressed in the human lung. But these expression profiles have not been reliably presented along with tissues and organs from the entire human body, or based on several different datasets," said study senior author Cecilia Lindskog from Uppsala University in Sweden. (With PTI inputs)

Continuing its worrying trend, West Bengal logged another highest single-day spike in coronavirus cases and deaths at 2,816 and 61 on Wednesday. This took the total count of cases to 83,800 and toll to 1,846. Wednesday was the fourth consecutive day of recording over 2,500 cases. As many as 204 people died of the disease in the same period. As many as 2,078 Covid patients were discharged, taking the cumulative figure to 58,962. The discharge rate stood at 70.36 per cent. There were 22,992 active cases as on Wednesday. With 24,047 new samples tests in the last 24 hours, the total count crossed the one-million mark, translating into 11,145 tests per million population.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today condoled the fire incident in a Gujarat hospital and said that he spoke to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and Ahmedabad Mayor Bijal Patel regarding the situation.

Saddened by the tragic hospital fire in Ahmedabad. Condolences to the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Spoke to CM @vijayrupanibjp Ji and Mayor @ibijalpatel Ji regarding the situation. Administration is providing all possible assistance to the affected.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 6, 2020

While optimistic about a Coronavirus vaccine being ready by early next year, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, now a philanthropist backing several global public health initiatives, has said that the first vaccine might not be the best one. In an interview with Bloomberg agency, Gates said more effective vaccines might take a little longer to develop and would become available only much later. “The initial vaccine, in terms of its effectiveness against sickness and transmission, won’t be ideal and may not have a long duration,” Gates was quoted as saying. He said he thought the first vaccines might only be a ‘stop-gap’ offer available primarily to the rich countries. Through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has provided financial support to several leading vaccine candidates including the one being developed by AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University.

Thirty-three people, including 29 security personnel, have tested positive for the virus in Mizoram in the last 24 hours, taking the state's tally to 537, a Health Department official said on Thursday. Of the fresh cases, 28 were reported from Aizawl district, two from Champhai and one each from Lunglei, Kolasib and Saitual, he said. "Twenty-nine security personnel are among the fresh patients. A nurse, who has been taking care of coronavirus patients at Zoram Medical College (ZMC), has also tested positive for the disease," the official said.