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.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das Wednesday said the country’s economic recovery was likely to be gradual as it was still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. Addressing the FICCI National Executive Committee Meeting, the central bank chief said the GDP data for the first quarter was a telling reflection of how Covid-19 had affected the economy.
In other news, the discussion in Rajya Sabha Wednesday was on Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan’s statement on the Covid-19 situation in India. Vardhan Tuesday had told the House the pandemic was “far from over”. He also said the government had prevented 14-29 lakh cases and 37,000-78,000 deaths by imposing the nationwide lockdown on March 24, a claim the Opposition sought to know more on. Read Parliament Live Updates
Meanwhile, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General 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.
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: A NEET aspirant waits for the metro train in Kolkata (Express Photo/Partha Paul)
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das Wednesday said the country’s economic recovery was likely to be gradual as it was still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. Addressing the FICCI National Executive Committee Meeting, the central bank chief said the GDP data for the first quarter was a telling reflection of how Covid-19 had affected the economy. Read more here
Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj S Bommai has said he is Covid-19 positive. Taking to Twitter, he said he is in home isolation.
Two cases of possible reinfection of coronavirus, in a child aged three and another aged 14, both cancer patients, have been recorded in Gurgaon’s Medanta hospital. The hospital said it found IgG antibodies against the virus in both children when they tested positive the second time. It has reached out to the National Institute of Virology for sequencing of viral strain. Read Tabassum Barnagarwala's report
The Parliament session resumes at 11 am. Due to Covid-19, the Rajya Sabha meets in the morning while Lok Sabha meets at 3 pm. In the Upper House today a discussion will be held on Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan's statement on the Covid-19 situation in India. Vardhan on Tuesday had told the House the pandemic was "far from over" in India. He also said the government had prevented 14-29 lakh cases and 37,000-78,000 deaths by imposing the nationwide lockdown that was announced on March 24. Follow Parliament Live Updates
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.