Just before the start of the brief Monsoon Session of Uttar Pradesh Legislature, the Samajwadi Party on Thursday staged a protest in the Vidhan Bhawan against the law and order situation and the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Party members of both houses of the legislature staged a protest in front of the statue of former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, holding banners against the state government. The also stopped state Health Minister Jai Prakas Singh while he was going to attend first day of monsoon session of state assembly in Lucknow on Thursday. (Express Photo by Vishal Srivastava) 

West Bengal has over 2300 containment zones even as recovery percentage of Covid-19 patients in the state is better than the national rate, the government said.The highest number of containment zones are in Nadia district followed by East Burdwan and NorthDinajpur districts, as per the state government's website 'Egiye Bangla'. The total number of containment zones in West Beengal is 2304, it said.West Bengal has witnessed 2,581 Covid-19-related deaths out of which 2,277 were due to comorbidities where the disease was incidental, the website said. Till Wednesday, there were 1,25,922 active cases and over 95,000 people have recovered from the disease. The discharge rate in the state is 76 per cent while nationally it is 74 per cent, it added.

Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who tested positive for Covid today, had held two important meetings on Tuesday., PTI reported One was on the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL). Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh attended the meeting virtually while his Haryana counterpart M L Khattar was physically present at the meeting with Shekhwat, his deputy in the ministry Rattan Lal Kataria, and senior officials.

Navi Mumbai police on Wednesday arrested a man and seized over four lakh used hand gloves which were being washed and readied to be resold during the Covid-19 pandemic. The crime branch (Unit 1) also seized 17 packets of used blue-coloured latex gloves, packed as new, for sale. Senior Inspector Subhash Nikam said a raid was conducted on a godown in Gami Industrial Park in the MIDC area of the city following a tip-off and Prashant Surve, the owner of the godown used for printing and binding books, was arrested. “We found that the accused was using a washing machine to clean the gloves and a blower to dry them, before repackaging them to be sold in the market,” Nikam said. The value of the items seized is above Rs 6 lakh, he added. The senior inspector said considering the quantity of the latex gloves found with the accused, it is suspected that he had managed to procure the gloves disposed of by medical establishments.

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of shielding the PM CARES Fund from any kind of scrutiny. "It is abundantly clear that the BJP government is making desperate efforts to shield PM-CARES Fund from any kind of scrutiny," he tweeted. "Was the Fund set up by the central government as concluded by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs? If not, who set up the Fund and in what capacity?" he asked. "If the Fund was not set up by the central government, why are the PM and three Ministers serving as Trustees? Who appointed them as Trustees?" the senior Congress leader asked. "If the Fund is a private established fund, why are donations to the Fund counted against CSR? Will donations to other privately-established funds be also counted against CSR," he posted on the micro-blogging site. 

Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat announced that he tested positive for coronavirus today. Taking to Twitter, he said that he will be admitted to the hospital as per recommendations from the doctors. He also urged all his recent contacts to isolate and get themselves tested.

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— Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (@gssjodhpur) August 20, 2020

Pune is well-equipped to defeat Covid-19, said Rajesh Deshmukh, who took over as the new district collector on Wednesday, and added that he will continue with the various measures taken by his predecessor in the fight against the pandemic. “It’s true that Pune has the highest count of Covid-19 cases. But it’s also true that since the onset of the pandemic, Pune has been doing the highest per-day testing in the state and the more you test, more cases you tend to find. Also, the rate of recovery is the highest in Pune. In July, the rate of recovery was about 50 per cent, now it’s gone up to 75 per cent and the credit for this improvement goes to the health machinery of the district,” he said. Deshmukh, who most recently served as the managing director of Haffkine Institute in Mumbai, said he worked as a nodal officer for several aspects, including testing and receipt of equipment via CSR, since the pandemic began.

With the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic looming large over the upcoming Ganesh festival, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Wednesday prohibited Ganesh installation and immersion processions and urged local residents to instal idols at their home. “Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly… if we don’t want the virus to spread, we should avoid celebrations. There should be no installation or immersion processions in the city,” said Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar. Urging people to celebrate Ganesh festival at home, the PCMC chief said, “People should install Ganesh idols at their home, do the pooja and make arrangements for immersion inside their home… the PCMC will not make any arrangements in the river ghat area for the immersion”.

A 35-year-old sub-inspector of Mumbai Police died of coronavirus on Thursday, an official said. With this, the Covid death toll in the Mumbai Police force has gone up to 60, he said. The sub-inspector was posted at Deonar police station. He tested positive on August 9 and was undergoing treatment at D Y Patil Hospital in Navi Mumbai. He succumbed to the disease on Thursday, the official said. Another constable who had also tested positive for the disease along with him was later discharged after treatment, the official added.

Kerala, once the most successful state in containing the spread of the novel Coronavirus epidemic, has been adding relatively large number of cases for several weeks now. On Wednesday, the state detected more than 2,000 cases in a day for the first time, and simultaneously reached 50,000-figure for confirmed cases. In the last one month, the number of confirmed cases have grown by almost four times, at a rate which is among the fastest in India. Even now, at 4.01 per cent per day it is growing much faster than the national rate. In fact, amongst the states with high caseloads, those with more than 20,000 confirmed cases, only Punjab has higher growth rate than Kerala right now. Click here to read more.

Jain added: "The prevalence of antibodies found in sero-survey showed that the antibodies were present in 29% of the people in the northeast districts, 27% in the south, 33% in the southeast and 24% in New Delhi. There was also an increase of 6% to 50% among people in various districts compared to the earlier survey. The sero-prevalence of antibodies was found in 28.3% of the males while 32.2% of the female population. As many as 15,000 people had participated in the survey." 

The second serological survey which was conducted between August 1 and 7 showed that 29.1% of people in Delhi have developed antibodies against the virus, Health Minister Satyender Jain announced on Thursday. A total of 15,000 samples were collected during the survey, he added.

With the bi-weekly lockdown underway, all government and private establishments, shops, markets and banks remained closed in West Bengal on Thursday. Medical shops, milk booths and petrol pumps, however, were kept out of the purview of the lockdown. According to PTI, Kolkata and other districts wore a deserted look as people remained indoors and public transport and other vehicles, barring those engaged in essential services, were off the roads. Police personnel kept a strict vigil on major intersections in Kolkata and other districts and put up guard rails to prevent people from venturing out without any valid reason. Flight services out of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport here remained suspended, while long-distance trains were rescheduled at Howrah and Sealdah termini.

Inter-district bus services of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) resumed on Thursday morning after almost five months, officials said. The Maharashtra government on Wednesday permitted the state-owned undertaking to re-start inter-district bus operations, which were stopped in March after the enforcement of lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. On Thursday, the first bus from Mumbai Central depot, where the MSRTC headquarters is located, left around 8.30 am for Chiplun in Ratnagiri district with six passengers boarding at the starting point, a transport corporation official said. More passengers were expected at Dadar and other stops, he said.

The second serological survey which was conducted between August 1 and 7 shows that 29.1% of people developed antibodies against coronavirus, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said. A total of 15,000 samples were collected during the survey, he added.

After the recent sero-survey in Pune revealed that nearly 50 per cent of samples of local residents from five high-incidence areas had antibodies for coronavirus infection, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER)-led survey has now begun a study to detect ‘neutralising antibodies’ in an effort to understand the human body’s response to the virus. This will possibly be the first of its kind survey in the country. “The sero-survey has been completed in the five highly-affected areas. It was found that 51.5 percent of the 1,664 residents from whom samples were collected had developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 infections, ie coronavirus, but it does not indicate immunity through it. So, this is a further study to detect ‘neutralising antibodies’ that protect from the viral infection,” said Professor L S Sashidhara of IISER.

Continuing with its six-day streak of recording more than 3,000 cases, West Bengal on Wednesday added 3,169 coronavirus positive cases, pushing the total count to 1,25,922. With an addition of 53 deaths linked to the virus in the last 24 hours, the death toll rose to 2,581. Nine districts recorded more than 100 fresh cases, of which four had over 200 cases. Kolkata and adjacent four districts continued to account for a major share. As many as 666 people tested positive in Kolkata, 657 in North 24 Parganas, 213 in South 24 Parganas, 172 in Howrah and 151 in Hooghly. Besides these, 225 people tested in Dakshin Dinajpur, 137 in Purba Midnapore, 121 in Murshidabad and 111 in Paschim Bardwan.

Jharkhand's Covid-19 caseload rose to 26,300 as 967 more people tested positive for the infection, while 13 fresh fatalities pushed its coronavirus death toll to 278, a health official said on Thursday. The fresh infections have pushed the total number of active Covid-19 cases in the state to 9,456, while 16,566 people have recovered from the disease so far, he said. A total of 12,282 samples have been tested for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the official added.

G R Chintla, chairman of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, on Wednesday said the lender had taken several measures to ensure unhindered flow of credit to financial institutions and farmers in the coronavirus times and was working towards achieving the Atmanirbhar dream — a recurring theme in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches to make India self-reliant. Chintla said while launching the Atmanirbhar package announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. “Out of Rs 25,000 crore already allocated by RBI under Special Liquidity facility, NABARD has disbursed Rs 22,977 crore to 23 state cooperative banks and 27 RRBs, and Rs 985 crore to 9 MFIs (microfinance institutions) as front ended liquidity support to augment banks’ resources in financing farmers and to tackle liquidity crunch due to the pandemic. The loans extended to NBFC-MFls are in the form of an 18-month term loans. The RBI has been approached for additional Rs 5,000 crore for extending further assistance to these RFIs,” said Chintla.