A health worker takes swab sample for Covid-19 test at a testing center in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)Coronavirus India Live Updates: The government on Wednesday extended a temporary ban on UK-India flights till January 7, after which “strict-regulated” resumption will take place. The Civil Aviation Ministry had suspended all flights between UK and India from December 23 to December 31 over the detection of a mutated variant of coronavirus.
India has recorded 14 fresh cases of new coronavirus mutant strain first reported in the United Kingdom in September, taking the total number of cases to 20, news agency PTI reported. The tally includes who were found positive for the new virus strain on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, India reported 20,550 new Covid-19 cases, taking the total tally to 1,02,44,853, according to data from the Union Health Ministry. With 286 deaths in the past 24 hours, the overall death toll rose to 1,48,439. While there are 2,62,272 active cases in the country, as many as 98,34,141 people have recovered from the disease.
Meanwhile, the country’s top government medical experts Tuesday reassured that vaccines developed against the novel coronavirus would remain effective despite the emergence of the new, more contagious strain in the United Kingdom. However, they cautioned that injudicious use of unproven therapies against Covid-19 puts “immune pressure” on the virus, which can lead to mutations.
The government on Tuesday announced that at least six persons who have returned recently from the United Kingdom have been found positive for the new “variant under investigation”, which is being called VUI-202012/01.
Dry run for the Covid-19 vaccine at Civil Hospital in Ludhiana on Tuesday (Express photo by Gurmeet Singh)
Economic shocks like the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 only arrive once every few generations, and they bring about permanent and far-reaching change.
Measured by output, the world economy is well on the way to recovery from a slump the likes of which barely any of its 7.7 billion people have seen in their lifetimes. Vaccines should accelerate the rebound in 2021. But other legacies of Covid-19 will shape global growth for years to come.
The government on Wednesday extended a temporary ban on UK-India flights till January 7, after which "strict-regulated" resumption will take place. The Civil Aviation Ministry had last week suspended all flights between UK and India from December 23 to December 31 over the detection of a mutated variant of coronavirus.
A 20-something man from Colorado is the first American known to be infected with a new variant of coronavirus that emerged this fall in the UK, raising concern that a more transmissible strain could spread widely across the country.
The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed the patient had the mutated form of the virus, known as B.1.1.7, and informed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Colorado Governor Jared Polis said in a statement on Twitter.