A team of health workers take swab samples for Covid-19 tests in New Delhi on September 15, 2020. (Express Photo: Praveen Khanna)Coronavirus India News Live Updates: The number of novel coronavirus cases in India crossed 50 lakh on Wednesday, after the country detected 90,123 new cases in the 24 hours ending 9 am. The tally of 50,20,360 cases includes 9,95,933 patients who are undergoing treatment and 39,42,361 who have recovered. With 1,290 additional deaths, the toll rose to 82,066.
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) DG Balram Bhargava Tuesday clarified that reinfection was possible even though it was a “very rare” occurrence. He also stressed that it was not a matter of serious concern. The remarks were made amid suspected cases of Covid-19 reinfection being reported from abroad and Indian states like Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Punjab and Maharashtra.
Arunachal Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday tested positive for coronavirus. Taking to Twitter, he said, “I am asymptomatic and feeling healthy. However as per SOP and safety of others, I am self isolating myself and request everyone who came in contact with me to adhere to the SOP.”
In other news, a sero-prevalance survey conducted in the first week of August in New Delhi has found that 79 of the 257 people, who recovered from Covid-19 and were part of the exercise, did not have antibodies against the virus.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates told news agency PTI that it was very likely that Covid-19 vaccines would be rolled out in a “fairly big volume” (in India) sometime next year. He also said he was “brokering idea of taking a vaccine and manufacturing it in India, even if it comes from AstraZeneca, Oxford, Novavax or Johnson and Johnson.”
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: A NEET aspirant waits for the metro train in Kolkata (Express Photo/Partha Paul)
It took India 11 days to detect the last 10 lakh cases, taking its Covid-19 tally from 40 lakh to 50 lakh today. India's cases rose to 1 lakh in 110 days; 10 lakh in 59 days; 20 lakh in 21 days; 30 lakh in 16 days; 40 lakh in 13 days. The rise is partly attributed to the number of tests being conducted in the country. On Tuesday, India tested 11,16,842 samples for Covid-19. This takes the country's total tests so far to 5,94,29,115, according to ICMR.
India has reported 1,290 deaths due to Covid-19. This is the highest single-day fatality count. The toll now stands at 82,066. India has the third highest deaths due to Covid-19 in the world, followed by the United States (195,765) and Brazil (133,199). India's fatality rate is now 1.63 per cent. Yesterday, The Indian Express reported that 42 per cent of India's deaths were from 11 districts. Not just the big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai, but smaller districts like Nagpur, Nashik and Jalgaon were also reporting high deaths. Read more here
The number of novel coronavirus cases in India crossed 50 lakh on Wednesday, after the country detected 90,123 new cases in the 24 hours ending 9 am. The tally of 50,20,360 cases includes 9,95,933 patients who are undergoing treatment and 39,42,361 who have recovered. With 1,290 additional deaths, the toll rose to 82,066.
Read news on the latest developments on Covid-19 vaccines here
Migrants took to walking hundreds of kilometres to their homes during the lockdown because of fake news, the government has told Parliament. It also said that the global experience with Covid-19 and its highly infectious nature led to the Centre’s decision to clamp a nationwide lockdown on March 24 at a notice of just four hours. The information was given in Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai in response to two separate questions by Opposition members. Deeptiman Tiwari reports
Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V has garnered interest from veterinary and human vaccine maker Indian Immunologicals Ltd, which is currently engaged in talks to potentially collaborate to mass manufacture it here. The talks, still not finalised, involve an exchange of information on both sides to ascertain whether the Hyderabad-headquartered firm can successfully incorporate the Russian technology and scale up production here, The Indian Express has learnt. Read Prabha Raghavan's report
After receiving complaints of overcharging, the state government has formed a committee to fix rates for high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), a test routinely done for Covid-19 patients to diagnose lung severity. Read More
Isolation beds for Covid-19 patients in Mumbai have dropped by 20.2 per cent drop over the last one month despite an increase in daily infection cases. With more people from high-rises testing positive and seeking medical care, the city is also facing a shortage of intensive care units (ICUs), especially in the private sector. Read More
Over the last one month, Covid-19 cases have risen by around 34 per cent in the city. In the same period, number of sealed buildings in Mumbai has gone up by as much as 53 per cent. The maximum number of sealed buildings are in the Andheri-Borivali belt. Read More
The Covid-19 death toll in Punjab crossed the 2500 mark with 90 more fatalities pushing the tally to 2,514 while the infection tally climbed to 84,482 with 2,481 fresh cases reported in the state Tuesday. Read More
With 2,493 fresh cases of novel coronavirus infection Tuesday, the tally in Haryana reached 98,622, within a touching distance of one lakh-mark. The state also recorded maximum 26 deaths in a single day, pushing the toll of fatalities to 1,026. Read More
Seven residents, in the age group of 15 to 17 years, have tested positive for Covid-19 at the children’s home in Dongri earlier this week.
The first case was reported in May when two children and a staffer were infected with the virus. So far, 22 people, including two staffers, have been infected. Read More
Seventeen people, including staff and their family members living inside the Delhi BJP office, have tested positive for COVID-19 following which the premises will remain closed for sanitisation on Wednesday, party leaders said. Delhi BJP media cell head Ashok Goel said no party leader or office bearer has tested positive for COVID-19. "All the staff members and their families who live on the Delhi BJP office premises were tested through rapid antigen test on Tuesday. Seventeen of them including a guard, a driver and two peons have tested positive," Goel said. He said all the people who have tested positive were sent to a COVID care centre and the office premises will be thoroughly sanitised on Wednesday.
A sero-prevalance survey conducted in the first week of August in Delhi has found that 79 of the 257 people, who recovered from COVID-19 and were part of the exercise, did not have antibodies against the virus. About 15,000 representative samples were taken in the August 1-7 survey from 11 districts?and tested?for antibodies (IgG) against the virus. Blood samples of 257 people who had tested COVID-19 positive earlier and then recovered, were also taken during the survey to test if they had antibodies.
Seventy-nine of these people did not have the antibodies against the virus, according to its report of the August serological survey. The exercise was undertaken for a comprehensive assessment of the COVID-19 situation in Delhi and to formulate strategies based on its findings. The samples collected as part of this exercise spanned different areas and age groups, gender and economic class.
Antibodies against COVID-19 infection were found in 29.1 per cent of people in the August sero-prevalence survey in the national capital, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said late last month while announcing its results.
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday tested positive for Covid. He is asymptomatic. "I had undergone Covid test RT-PCR and have tested positive for Covid19," Khandu tweeted Tuesday evening.
Gujarat BJP unit president C R Paatil on Tuesday said he recovered from COVID-19 disease and will be discharged on Wednesday. Paatil tweeted that his latest RT-PCR test report returned negative. "My RT-PCR report came negative today and I will be given discharge on Wednesday. I want to thank everyone who prayed for my recovery," he tweeted. Paatil was admitted at a private hospital in Gandhinagar on September 9 after testing positive for coronavirus. Gujarat BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya also tweeted about his recovery from coronavirus infection on Tuesday. Pandya was discharged from a government hospital after undergoing treatment for seven days.
The ICMR chief said that India hasn't witnessed a huge peak at all compared to other countries. 'US and countries of Europe had a peak, then they came down&there is a 2nd wave occurring there. We took learning from that. We distributed the curve in a way that we didn't have many deaths. It was because we had an effective lockdown. We didn't have a huge peak at all,' he said.
The health ministry in its latest briefing on Tuesday said that there are 14 states & UTs in India where the total number of active cases are less than 5000,taking country's average positivity rate to 8.4 per cent.
*India's coronavirus tally crossed 49 lakh on Tuesday with 83,809 new cases and 1,054 deaths.
*As many as 40 lakh people are kept under surveillance as part of COVID contact-tracing, says Centre.
*Country's recovery rate is now at 78.28 per cent.
*Vaccine roll-out likely in fairly big volume in India sometime next year, says Bill Gates
*In Maharashtra, now any dead body brought to a government hospital will be subjected to a rapid antigen test.
*In the Rajya Sabha today, a demand was made for using the term 'physical distancing' on the grounds that using the term 'social distancing' was promoting social stigma of coronavirus patients and their families.
*Globally, the number of people infected is inching closer to the 30 million mark with over 29.27 million current infections.
*Pakistan reopens schools and universities after near-5 month COVID-19 break.
*South Korea to secure coronavirus vaccines for 60% of population, says PM Chung
*China coronavirus vaccine may be ready for public in November, says official
*US continues to lead the world with over 6.5 million cases and over 1.94 lakh deaths. India, second after the US is inching closer to 5 million cases.
The act of singing emits particles into the air, and the novel coronavirus spreads through particles. So, what is the risk of Covid-19 spreading when a person sings — or talks? Two studies have examined the amount of particles emitted when singing and talking.
The broad findings
One paper, from Lund University in Sweden and published in Aerosol Research and Technology, found that:
* The louder you sing, the more particles you spread
* Consonants — particularly P, B, R, T — are bigger aerosol spreaders than vowe