Coronavirus India Live Updates: The Jharkhand government late on Sunday announced the prohibition of religious congregations and ceremonies on the banks of water bodies for Chhath Puja. According to the precautionary guidelines issued by the State Disaster Management Committee, no one will be allowed to organise any event near the water bodies during November 17 to 21. The practise of bathing in water bodies by large groups could increase chances of virus transmission, the guidelines warned. Earmarking of areas and putting barricades to perform the puja was also banned this year.
Places of worship in Maharashtra, shut since March, reopened Monday with devotees with a slew of Covid-19 measures in place. The standard operating procedure (SOP) released by the state government states that only shrines located outside containment zones will be allowed to reopen with thermal screening and social distancing in place. Today morning, devotees could be seen visiting prominent temples and shrines in the state.
India recorded 30,548 new cases of Covid-19 in the 24 hours ending 9 am Monday. This is the lowest single day spike in cases since July 14. With this, the country’s total tally currently stands at over 88.45 lakh cases. With 435 people succumbing to the virus Sunday the death toll stands at 1,30,070. Out of the total cases, 4.65 lakh cases are active, while 82.49 lakh people have recovered after testing positive.
Low testing is most likely the reason behind less cases reported in the last 24 hours. Less then one million samples have been tested since Friday and only 8 lakh tests were carried out on Saturday.
With the capital reeling from a fresh spike in COVID-19 cases, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain Monday clarified that there are no plans to reimpose the lockdown. Stressing that the “third wave is past its peak,” Jain was quoted as saying by ANI, “There will be no reimposition of lockdown in Delhi. I don’t think it will be an effective step now, wearing of masks by everyone will be more beneficial.”
One of the fastest-growing cities in the country, Delhi currently has over 4 lakh cases. Over the last week, Delhi contributed the maximum number of new cases in the country, breaching the 8,500-mark for a day and recording over 51,000 cases in the last week.
Places of worship in Maharashtra, shut since March, reopened Monday with devotees with a slew of Covid-19 measures in place.Today morning, devotees could be seen visiting prominent temples and shrines in the state.
Devotees were seen visiting Lord Vitthal's temple at Pandharpur in Satara, Saibaba's shrine in Shirdi, Goddess Tulja Bhavani's temple in Osmanabad and the famous Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai. The Siddhivinayak temple's chairman Aadesh Bandekar on Sunday said only 1,000 devotees will be allowed inside the temple every day in staggered time slots to be booked through a mobile phone application.
The state government has issued a set of guidelines to ensure minimum risk.
The Jharkhand government has issued a notification prohibiting congregation and religious ceremony on the banks of rivers, ponds and other public waterbodies for Chhath puja, in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the guidelines issued by the State Disaster Management Committee late on Sunday, all precautions were being taken by the government to ensure the safety of people amid the pandemic, and as part of the measures, no one would be allowed to organise any musical or cultural programme near the waterbodies during the Chhath festival.(PTI)
Nearly 160 tonne of biomedical waste in the form of gloves, face masks and empty sanitiser bottles used by polling personnel and voters was generated during the Bihar assembly polls held amid the COVID-19 pandemic, poll authorities in the state have said.
The poll authorities also relied on an inexpensive but effective technology used to track EVMs to ensure that the waste reached public health centres for its onward journey to the incinerator.
To ensure safety of voters, polling staff and security personnel in the first-ever polls held amid the pandemic, the Election Commission had procured 18 lakh face shields, 70 lakh face masks, 5.4 lakh single use rubber gloves for polling and security personnel and 7.21 crore ‘one hand’ single use polythene gloves for voters to press the EVM button and sign the register at the polling stations.
In India, there are 4.89 lakh active Covid cases, 8 million of whom have recovered. Doctors say many of them have been returning with complaints of fatigue, headaches, insomnia, shortness of breath, body pain, lack of appetite, sore throat and diarrhoea. Add to that, mental health issues. There is now increasing evidence that Covid-19 can lead to anxiety, depression, psychosis, insomnia and memory fogs.
A Lancet Psychiatry study published last week found that 18.1% Covid patients had a psychiatric problem within 14 to 90 days of infection. Doctors and experts say the unpredictability of the virus is what is adding a mental dimension to the disease. Add to that the isolation that patients go through, and the fact that measures to check the spread of the virus have had economic ramifications.(Read Tabassum Barnagarwala's report here)
India recorded 30,548 new cases of Covid-19 in the 24 hours ending 9 am Monday. This is the lowest single day spike in cases since July 14. With this, the country’s total tally currently stands at over 88.45 lakh cases. With 435 people succumbing to the virus Sunday the death toll stands at 1,30,070. Out of the total cases, 4.65 lakh cases are active, while 82.49 lakh people have recovered after testing positive.
Amid a massive spike in daily cases and deaths over the past two weeks, critical care facilities for Covid-19 patients are filling up fast — 88% ICU beds with ventilators are occupied at 99 hospitals, data on the Delhi government’s corona app shows. At 62 of these hospitals, including a few government facilities, there are no ventilator beds in ICUs.
The city Sunday recorded 3,235 fresh cases, the lowest since October 26 when 2,832 cases were seen, taking the infection tally to 4,85,405. This may be attributed to fewer tests being conducted on Diwali.(Read Astha Saxena's full report here)
Assam reported two deaths due to COVID-19 on Sunday and registered 93 new cases, its lowest tally of daily infections since early June, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. The two fresh fatalities from Kamrup Metropolitan district pushed the death toll to 963, and the total number of coronavirus cases rose to 2,10,268. (PTI)
The new COVID vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech would begin to be delivered at the "end of this year, beginning of next year" if everything continued to go well, one of its creators said on Sunday. Last week, BioNTech and co-developers Pfizer said preliminary analysis showed their vaccine could prevent more than 90 per cent of people from getting Covid-19. About 43,000 people took part in tests.
Prof Ugur Sahin, co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, told the BBC that the goal was to deliver more than 300 million doses worldwide by next April, which "could allow us to only start to make an impact". He said the bigger impact would happen later, adding: "Summer will help us because the infection rate will go down in the summer and what is absolutely essential is that we get a high vaccination rate until or before autumn/winter next year." If everything continued to go well, he said, the vaccine would begin to be delivered at the "end of this year, beginning of next year". (PTI)
Thirty more people died of coronavirus in Punjab in the past two days, raising the toll to 4,458, while 1,054 new cases pushed the infection count to 1,41,658, a health department medical bulletin said on Sunday. Eight fatalities were reported on Saturday while 22 deaths took place on Sunday, it said. There are 5,769 active COVID-19 cases in the state as of now, according to the bulletin. A total of 1,025 coronavirus patients were discharged after recovering from the infection, taking the number of cured persons to 1,31,431, it stated. Eighteen critical patients are on ventilator support while 140 are on oxygen support, the bulletin said. A total of 28,68,278 samples have been collected for coronavirus testing so far in the state, it said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday chaired a meeting to review the Covid-19 situation in Delhi amid a spike in new cases. Taking to Twitter after the meeting, Shah said RT-PCR tests will be doubled in the national capital (over 1 lakh in a day) and 750 ICU beds will be set up at a Dhaula Kuan-based DRDO facility. “Mobile testing vans of the Ministry of Health and ICMR will be deployed where the labs in Delhi are more likely to be used, making greater use of their capacity,” he added.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain and senior officers of the central government attended the meeting chaired by Shah.
The Union home minister said that some MCD hospitals will be converted into dedicated COVID hospitals. Dedicated multi-departmental teams will visit all private hospitals in Delhi to clearly indicate the availability of beds and other medical conditions. In order to save more lives, more oxygen cylinders, high flow nasal cannula and other necessary equipment will be made available to the Delhi government by the Centre, he added.
Haryana reported another 1,957 new cases of coronavirus infections and eight deaths in the last 24 hours on Sunday evening, taking the cumulative number of positive cases in the state to 1,99,874 and 2,019 deaths. The number of active Covid patients in the state reached 19,557. Among the active cases, there were 334 patients in a critical condition out of whom 42 were on ventilator support while 292 patients were on oxygen support. Gurgaon and Faridabad continue to witness a surge amid the ongoing festive season. While Faridabad added 643 new Covid-19 patients, Gurgaon added 515 in the last 24 hours.
In the last 24 hours, 1,930 patients recovered, taking the total number of recovered patients in the state to 1,78,298 and recovery rate to 89.21 per cent. Among the eight patients who died in the last 24 hours, three died in Bhiwani, two in Faridabad, and one each in Gurgaon, Sonipat and Sirsa.
The Covid situation in other districts of Haryana appeared under control, according to the Sunday evening Covid bulletin. In the last 24 hours, while Hisar added 163 new patients, Sonipat added 136, Ambala 18, Karnal 17, Panipat 38, Rohtak 92, Rewari 26, Panchkula 24, Kurukshetra 14, Yamunanagar 10, Sirsa 34, Mahendragarh 43, Bhiwani 38, Jhajjar 61, Palwal 28, Fatehabad 45, Kaithal zero, Jind eight, Nuh three and Charkhi Dadri one.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday took stock of Delhi’s COVID-19 situation in the wake of recent spike in cases in the national capital, PTI reported. Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain and senior officers of the central government attended the meeting chaired by Shah. The home minister reviewed the situation arising due to the spike in COVID-19 cases in Delhi and discussed ways to deal with it, a home ministry official said.
Andhra Pradesh added 1,056 fresh cases of coronavirus, taking the cumulative to 8.54 lakh on Sunday. In 24 hours ending 9 am on Sunday, 2,140 patients got cured while 14 others succumbed in the state. The latest bulletin said the total recoveries increased to 8.28 lakh and the toll to 6,868, leaving 18,659 active cases. Guntur district reported 206, West Godavari 154, Krishna 153 and East Godavari 139 fresh Covid-19 cases in 24 hours. Nine other districts added less than 100 each, with Srikakulam accounting for the lowest 24.
At least 26 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Tripura on Sunday, pushing the tally in the state to 31,945, a health department official said.
The coronavirus death toll remained at 359 as no patient has succumbed to the infection in the last 24 hours, he said. On Saturday, 64 people were discharged from GB Pant Hospital, the main referral facility for COVID-19 patients in the state, taking the total number of recoveries to 30,455, the official said.
Tripura currently has 1,108 active cases and 23 coronavirus patients have migrated to other states. West Tripura district, of which state capital Agartala is a part, has accounted for 185 of the 359 COVID-19 deaths, the official said. The northeastern state has so far conducted 4,93,898 sample tests for COVID-19, he said.
"Altogether 2,97,499 rapid antigen tests were carried out and 1,96,399 samples tested through RT-PCR method," the official added.
Delhi recorded 3,235 fresh COVID-19 cases taking the infection tally in the national capital to over 4.85 lakh on Sunday, while the positivity rate climbed to 15.33 percent. Ninety-five more fatalities pushed the death toll to 7,614, authorities said.
These fresh coronavirus cases were detected from 21,098 tests conducted the previous day, the lowest since August 14, when 14,389 tests were done. Of the total tests conducted, 11,877 were rapid-antigen tests, and 9,221 were RT-PCR tests, the bulletin said. Delhi recorded a positivity rate of 15.33 per cent amid the festive season and rising pollution in the city, according to the bulletin issued by the Health Department.
At 3,235, it was also the lowest number of cases since October 26, when 2,832 cases were reported. The national capital had recorded its highest single-day spike of 8,593 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.
On Thursday, 104 fatalities, the highest in a day in over five months, were recorded. The city had registered 93 deaths on June 16. On Sunday, authorities reported 95 more fatalities. The 10-day average death rate stands at 1.23 per cent, the bulletin said.
The total number of cases reported so far has climbed to 4,85,405.
Chief Minister of Manipur, N Biren Singh on Sunday announced that he has tested positive for Covid-19. "I have tested positive for COVID-19. I request all those who came in close contact with me recently, to self isolate and get tested," Singh tweeted.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 150 Covid-19 vaccines are presently in development, with around 44 candidates in clinical trials and 11 undergoing late-stage testing.
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