At a testing centre in New DelhiCoronavirus India Live Updates: Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother, on Tuesday became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shot outside of a trial as Britain began vaccinating its population. An early riser, Keenan received the vaccine at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, on Tuesday morning at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91. Britain began rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population in what was hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, India will carry out the largest vaccination drive in its history over the course of next year. Top government sources told The Indian Express that the guidelines on administration of the vaccine are based on the crucial question of the likelihood of an adverse event being reported after each dose. Sources said that since each vaccination will take at least 30 minutes, only 100 shots will be administered in each session. Both government and private healthcare facilities will be roped in to conduct the first round of immunisations for frontline healthcare workers.
India’s daily Covid-19 count fell steeply on Monday, with fresh cases dipping to 26,567. This is the lowest count since July 10. The relatively low count a result of less testing on Sunday. So far more than 97 lakh people have been infected, with 3.83 lakh active infections and 91.78 lakh recoveries. With 385 deaths, the toll now stands at 1,40,958. There is some positive news from Delhi as well, which has recorded 1,674 new cases on Monday — the lowest since the end of August.
Covid testing at Anand Vihar Metro station. (Express photo by Amit Mehra)
Andaman and Nicobar Islands COVID-19 tally rose to 4,773 as 15 more people tested positive for the virus, a health department official said on Tuesday. Of the 15 fresh cases, four were detected during contact tracing, while 11 have travel history, he said.
Seven more persons were cured of the disease on Tuesday, taking the total number of recoveries in the archipelago to 4,631, the official said. The Union Territory now has 81 active cases, while 61 people have so far died due to the infection, he said.
The Andaman and Nicobar administration has conducted 1,40,961 sample tests for COVID-19 so far, he added.
Forty two more people tested positive for coronavirus in Puducherry on Tuesday taking the total caseload to 37,311, a top official of the Department of Health and Family Welfare said. However, no fresh fatality was reported from any of the four regions of Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said in a release that the fatalities remained 615 as no deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. The 42 new cases were identified at the end of examination of 2,883 samples, he said.
The overall infections in Puducherry rose to 37,311 with the addition of new cases. While 388 cases were active, the total number of patients cured and were discharged were 36,308, he said. Forty five patients were discharged during last twenty four hours. The fatality and recovery rates were 1.65 percent and 97.31 percent respectively.
As many as 4.22 lakh samples were tested so far and it was found that 3.81 lakh out of them came out negative, the Director said. Puducherry region accounted for 11 new cases out of the total 42 fresh cases followed by two in Karaikal, three in Yanam and 26 in Mahe region.
Germany might tighten restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Health Minister Jens Spahn said, as a partial lockdown and social distancing rules in place since the start of November have slowed, but not stopped the disease spreading. Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues on Monday that existing lockdown measures in place would not be sufficient to get the European Union's most populous country through the winter, participants at the meeting said. "A short and comprehensive approach to really make a difference is probably more successful," Spahn told public broadcaster Phoenix, according to comments distributed late on Monday. "If we don't get there within the next one or two weeks until Christmas, we have to discuss it," he added.
Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother, on Tuesday became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shot outside of a trial as Britain began vaccinating its population. An early riser, Keenan received the vaccine at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, on Tuesday morning at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91. Britain began rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population in what was hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus. "I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against Covid-19," said Keenan.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to ensure that priority access for COVID-19 vaccines procured by the U.S. government is given to the American people before assisting other nations, senior administration officials said on Monday.
The Trump administration is confident it will have enough vaccine to inoculate everyone who wants a vaccine by the end of the second quarter of 2021, one official said, disputing a New York Times story that the government declined when Pfizer Inc offered in late summer to sell more vaccine doses to the United States. The White House is holding a summit on Tuesday to explain plans for vaccine distribution through Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which has been organising the effort. Trump and other officials will speak.
An 87-year-old Indian-origin man from the north east of England will become one of the first people in the world to get a vaccine against COVID-19 when he receives his Pfizer/BioNTech jab at a hospital in Newcastle on Tuesday.
Hari Shukla from Tyne and Wear said he feels it is his duty to receive his first of the two-dose vaccine, a moment UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed as a "huge step forward" as Tuesday was dubbed "V-Day" or Vaccine Day in the UK. "I'm so pleased we are hopefully coming towards the end of this pandemic and I am delighted to be doing my bit by having the vaccine, I feel it is my duty to do so and do whatever I can to help," said Shukla.
Hong Kong is implementing some of its strictest social distancing measures since the pandemic began, cutting off in-person dining at restaurants from 6 p.m. and closing gyms and beauty salons, amid a growing surge in cases. “We have no choice,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam said as she announced the dining restrictions at a weekly press briefing Tuesday. She did not say when the new restrictions would take effect. “We all need to be mentally prepared about more measures to be rolled out.”
South Korea said on Tuesday it had signed deals to provide coronavirus vaccines for 44 million people next year but it would not hurry inoculation to allow more time to observe potential side effects. Its cautious approach comes as the country battles surging coronavirus cases that health authorities say threaten to overwhelm the medical system.
The South Korean government has arranged to buy 20 million doses each from AstraZeneca Plc, Pfizer Inc, and Moderna Inc, and another 4 million doses from Johnson & Johnson's Janssen, enough to cover up to 34 million people, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo told a briefing. Additional doses for 10 million people would be procured through the World Health Organization's global vaccine project, known as COVAX, he added.
Shipments of the vaccine would begin no later than March, but authorities would observe how the vaccines worked in other countries for several months to ensure safety. Widespread vaccination was likely to begin in the second half of next year.
In its application for emergency use approval, Hyderabad-headquartered Bharat Biotech has included interim data from early- to mid-stage human trials of its vaccine candidate Covaxin, sources said. “This (Bharat Biotech's) is an application (under the category of) issue of permission to either import, manufacture a drug or for grant of clinical trial NOC (no-objection certificate),” a person close to the development told The Indian Express.
The source close to the Bharat Biotech development said India does not have specific regulations or permissions for emergency use authorisation (EUA) – and therefore, the portal under which these submissions are made – SUGAM – does not have an EUA category. This means that firms have to seek regular market authorisation, and a subject expert committee looking into the application may decide to allow speedy access to the vaccine with certain restrictions.
Senior officials at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country's top biomedical research body, said that a candidate intended for use in India must submit data from clinical trials conducted in India. However, the authorisation committee of experts, while considering the Indian data, can also draw conclusions based on data from international trials. Approval can be granted given the extraordinary emergency in the country, experts told The Indian Express.
India’s daily Covid-19 count fell steeply on Monday, with fresh cases dipping to 26,567. This is the lowest count since July 10. The relatively low count a result of less testing on Sunday. So far more than 97 lakh people have been infected, with 3.83 lakh active infections and 91.78 lakh recoveries. With 385 deaths, the toll now stands at 1,40,958. There is some positive news from Delhi as well, which has recorded 1,674 new cases on Monday — the lowest since the end of August.
AFTER Covid-19 positive cases more than doubled post-Diwali, Pimpri-Chinchwad has now started witnessing a downward trend. In the last six-seven days, positive cases have dropped by as much 40 per cent.
“Covid-19 positive cases have dipped from their high post Diwali,” said Additional Municipal Commissioner Santosh Patil.
Just before Diwali in November, the positive cases had fallen below the 100-mark. In September, Pimpri-Chinchwad was clocking over 1,000 cases. The trend of falling cases started in October. However, post Diwali, there was a sudden spike in positive cases. From 90 cases per day, Pimpri-Chinchwad started witnessing around 240 positive cases every day post Diwali. By the end of November, officials said the cases started falling again. “And in past one week, cases have dropped by a big margin. Currently, we are witnessing less than 150 cases every day,” Patil said.
Stating that positivity rate has also dropped to around 7 seven per cent, Patil said, “We used to conduct 4,000 tests every day. Now since the cases are coming down, we are conducting around 3,000 tests every day.”
With 1,515 fresh cases, the total number of those infected by coronavirus went up to 5,56,397 in Uttar Pradesh, while the death toll rose to 7,944 following 20 more deaths on Monday.
The total number of active cases stood at 21,732, of which, 10,241 are in home isolation and 2,122 in private hospitals, Additional Chief Secretar (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said.
Till now, 5,26,721 people have recovered and discharged from hospitals, he said, adding that 1,861 people were discharged in the past 24 hours.
The recovery rate of the state stands at 94.67 per cent, the official said.
According to a health department bulletin, 248 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported from Lucknow, 176 from Meerut and 155 in Ghaziabad among others.
Two deaths each have been reported from Kanpur Nagar, Varanasi, Fatehpur and one each from Lucknow , Prayagraj, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Muzaffarnagar, Hardoi, Etawah, Gonda, Ghazipur, Farrukhabad, Unnao, Mainpuri, Kanpur Dehat and Kasganj, it said.
Over 1.44 lakh tests were done in the state on Sunday taking the total number of tests conducted so far to over 2.04 crore, Prasad added
Madhya Pradesh on Monday recorded 1,307 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the count of infections to 2,15,957, health officials said. With 10 more people succumbing to the viral infection, including five deaths in Indore, two in Bhopal and one each in Ratlam, Satna and Mandsaur, the overall toll rose to 3,347, they said.
A total of 1,245 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, taking the state's count of recoveries to 1,99,167. Of the 1,307 new cases, Indore accounted for 509 and Bhopal 317, officials said. The total number of cases in Indore now stands at 45,960, including 787 deaths, while Bhopal's caseload is 34,210 with 531 fatalities so far. Indore now has 5,177 active cases, while Bhopal 3,110.
With 29,322 samples being tested in the state in the last 24 hours, the number of tests conducted so far rose to around 39.61 lakh. Coronavirus figures of MP are as follows: Total cases 2,15,957 new cases 1,307, death toll 3,347, recovered 1,99,167, active cases 13,443, number of people tested so far 39,61,552
Uttarakhand's COVID-19 case tally rose to 78,509 on Monday with 512 more people testing positive for coronavirus, while the death toll rose further by 10 to reach 1,295, officials said. Among the fresh infections, Dehradun district reported the maximum 229 cases, followed by Haridwar (60), Nainital (53), Chamoli (37), Pauri (25), Tehri (20), and Udham Singh Nagar and Uttarkashi (19 cases each).
Eighteen cases were reported from Almora, 15 from Pithoragarh, 12 from Champawat, four from Rudraprayag and one from Bageshwar, a state health department bulletin here said. Meanwhile, 10 more COVID-19 patients died in the state, taking the state's overall toll till date to 1,295, the bulletin said.
As many as 71,105 infected people have recuperated so far, 875 have migrated out of the state and 5,234 are under treatment, it said.
Delhi recorded 1,674 fresh COVID-19 cases in a day while the positivity rate slipped to 3.15 per cent on Monday, authorities said.
These fresh cases were detected from 53,207 COVID-19 tests conducted the previous day, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department. Sixty-three more fatalities were recorded in a day, pushing the death toll in the national capital to 9,706, while the positivity rate dropped to 3.15 per cent, the bulletin stated.
The positivity rate on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday was 4.96 per cent, 4.78 per cent, 4.2 per cent and 3.68 per cent respectively. The tally of active cases on Monday dropped to 22,486 from 24,693 the previous day. The national capital had recorded 2706 fresh COVID-19 cases on Sunday. The bulletin said that the total number of cases of coronavirus infection has climbed to 5,93,924.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the country will not have to wait too long for the coronavirus vaccine even as he cautioned people that there should be no laxity as far as prevention of the infection is concerned.
He was speaking while inaugurating the construction of the Agra Metro project via video conferencing. Before ending his speech, the prime minister said, "One thing, which I will definitely remind you is that the wait for a vaccine is on but in the past few days, I have met scientists, and feel that the country will not have to wait too long for it."
"However, there should be no laxity from our side as far as prevention of the infection is concerned. Masks and a distance of two yards is very necessary," he said.
Bollywood star Varun Dhawan, who tested positive for coronavirus last week, on Monday urged people to be "extra careful" amid the pandemic and said he could have taken more precautions to safeguard himself against the disease.
The actor tested positive for COVID-19 alongside his "Jug Jugg Jeeyo" co-stars Neetu Kapoor, Maniesh Paul and director Raj Mehta while they shooting for the film in Chandigarh.
Dhawan, 33, addressed his diagnosis for the first time in an Instagram post.
"So as I returned to work in the pandemic era I have contracted #covid_19. All precautions were taken by the production but still nothing is certain in life especially not COVID-19. So please be extra careful I believe I could have been more careful," he wrote alongside his selfie.
Night curfew in Ahmedabad was extended on Monday till further notice to check the spread of COVID-19 in the Gujarat city, police said.
The move comes a day after Ahmedabad reported 306 new COVID-19 cases, the highest in Gujarat, taking the tally inthe district to 52,030, as per official figures.
Earlier, the night curfew came into effect in the city on November 23 and was extended till December 7. In a new notification issued on Monday morning, city Police Commissioner Sanjay Srivastava announced extension of the night curfew till further orders.
"There will be a curfew between 9 pm and 6 am beginning December 7 until further order in this regard," the order said.(PTI)
Since the nation wide Covid-19 lockdown in March till December 5, Rs 93.56 crore has been collected as penalty from 21.40 lakh persons across Gujarat for not wearing masks at public places and spitting in public, as per the office of Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP).
According to a statement by the office of DGP Ashish Bhatia, a special drive was conducted in the past week across the state to check violation of Covid guidelines on social distancing, wearing mask and curfew timings.
“Till now we have filed 60,400 cases under Indian Penal Code section 188 for disobedience to order given by public servant. We have fined 21,40,384 persons till now for not wearing masks and spitting in public places to the tune of Rs 93,56,94,600,” read the statement from the office of Bhatia on Saturday night.
Puducherry added 26 new COVID-19 cases while one related fatality pushed the toll in the union territory to 615, a top Health department official said on Monday. The 26 new cases were identified at the end of the examination of 1,651 samples during the last 24 hours ending 10 AM Monday, raising the overall tally to 37,270, Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said in a release. A 70-year old man succumbed to the infection at the government hospital here pushing the toll to 615, he added. He said of the 26 new cases, Mahe logged 14, followed by Puducherry with nine and Yanam(3). Karaikal did not report any fresh case of infection. He said as many as 25 patients recovered and were discharged during the 24 hours. (PTI)