Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan reviewed the process in GTB Hospital in Delhi.Coronavirus India Live Updates: India recorded 18,177 new Covid cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am Sunday, taking the total number of infections to over 1.03 crore. Active cases further dropped to 2.47 lakh, while recoveries continued to rise and stand at over 99.27 lakh. A total of 217 deaths were reported on Saturday, the toll currently stands at over 1.49 lakh.
Covid-19 testing on the first two days of the new year have been below one million. Only three states reported more than 1,000 cases on Saturday, but Kerala is still reporting over 5,000 cases. With 5,327 new cases on Saturday, Kerala has so far recorded over 7.71 infections.
Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine – Covaxin- currently under its late-stage trials, was given a restricted emergency clearance on Saturday days after India’s top drug regulator also recommended similar approval for Oxfords’ Covishield. The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) is scheduled to make a statement today at 11 am on granting such approvals to start India’s Covid-19 immunisation.
A dry run to check the best way to administer Covid-19 vaccine and plug loopholes in logistics and training was held across all states on Saturday. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan reviewed the process in GTB Hospital in Delhi and said the government would not compromise on any protocol before approving a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. He appealed to people not to be misguided by rumours regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
In other news, Rajasthan government Saturday imposed night curfew from 8 pm to 6 am in 13 districts in the state. Curfew has been imposed within the urban limits of district headquarter towns in 13 districts – Kota, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Udaipur, Ajmer, Alwar, Bhilwara, Nagore, Pali, Tonk, Sikar & Ganganagar, news agency ANI said.
The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) is expected to make some big announcement on Covid-19 vaccination in India during a press conference scheduled on Sunday, 11 am. Speculations are on that the announcement by the drug controller watchdog may include approval of the emergency use of two vaccines –– Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin–– after the expert panel of Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) recommended them for emergency use.
On January 1, Covishield was recommended for emergency use whereas Covaxin was recommended for restricted use on January 2. Now. a final approval by DCGI on the use of both vaccines is awaited.
A diminished sense of smell, called anosmia, has emerged as one of the telltale symptoms of COVID-19. It is the first symptom for some patients, and sometimes the only one. Often accompanied by an inability to taste, anosmia occurs abruptly and dramatically in these patients, almost as if a switch had been flipped.
Most regain their senses of smell and taste after they recover, usually within weeks. But in a minority of patients, the loss persists, and doctors cannot say when or if the senses will return.
Scientists know little about how the virus causes persistent anosmia or how to cure it. But cases are piling up as the coronavirus sweeps across the world, and some experts fear that the pandemic may leave huge numbers of people with a permanent loss of smell and taste.(Read more here)
India recorded 18,177 new Covid cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am Sunday, taking the total number of infections to over 1.03 crore. Active cases further dropped to 2.47 lakh, while recoveries continued to rise and stand at over 99.27 lakh. A total of 217 deaths were reported on Saturday, the toll currently stands at over 1.49 lakh.
An expert panel under India’s top drug regulator on Saturday recommended restricted emergency approval for Covaxin, Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate that is currently under testing in the country.
The expert panel has now recommended restricted clearance for two vaccine candidates in as many days — on Friday, it recommended similar approval for Covishield, the variant of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that is being manufactured under licence in India by Pune-based Serum Institute of India.The recommendations in favour of Covishield and Covaxin pave the way for Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) Dr V G Somani to clear the two candidates for use in the country’s imminent mass vaccination programme.
The DCGI is scheduled to make a statement to the media on the Covid-19 vaccine at 11 am on Sunday.(With Prabha Raghavan)
India has successfully cultured the new coronavirus strain, which originated in the UK, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Saturday.
In a tweet, the ICMR claimed that no country has yet reported successful isolation and culture of the UK-variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside their natural environment.
Cricket Australia confirmed on Saturday that five India players, Test vice-captain Rohit Sharma included, were placed in isolation after they committed a possible breach in biosecurity protocols by eating at a Melbourne restaurant earlier this week.
Australia and India are in the middle of a four-match Test series with both sides currently staying in Melbourne before travelling to Sydney for the third Test from January 7.
Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw, and Navdeep Saini were purportedly seen eating at an indoor restaurant in Melbourne in a video posted on social media. The fan, who was apparently seated close to them, had tweeted about getting a hug from Pant but later retracted the claim after it raised serious questions on a breach of protocol.
COVID-19 vaccines do not belong to any political party, but humanity, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said on Saturday, hours after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav termed coronavirus vaccines to be rolled out in the country as “vaccine of the BJP”.
Taking to Twitter, the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said, “I don’t know about anyone else but when my turn comes I’ll happily roll up my sleeve & get a COVID vaccine.”
Rajasthan government Saturday imposed night curfew from 8 pm to 6 am in 13 districts in the state. Curfew has been imposed within the urban limits of district headquarter towns in 13 districts - Kota, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Udaipur, Ajmer, Alwar, Bhilwara, Nagore, Pali, Tonk, Sikar & Ganganagar, news agency ANI said.
Three persons, who returned from the United Kingdom (UK) to Karnataka recently, have been found to be infected with the mutated strain of coronavirus, state Health and Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said Saturday. Karnataka now has a total of ten patients infected with the new Covid-19 strain.
“All of them are being treated and isolated in Government hospitals. The infection is not severe in any of them,” Sudhakar said.
To ensure that the Pune administration is ready to undertake a massive Covid-19 vaccination programme in the near future, a dry run of the process was held at three health centres in Pune on Saturday.
A dry run — the process of calling the vaccine receiver and going through the entire process until the patient’s discharge from the vaccination centre — was held at three sites (health centres) in the district, Sub-District Hospital in Aundh, the primary health centre in Maan near Hinjewadi, and the Jijamata Hospital in Pimpri-Chinchwad.
An expert panel of India’s central drug authority on Saturday recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of the indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin with certain conditions, a day after giving similar direction for the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, sources said.
Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The Gujarat government will try to bear the cost of coronavirus vaccination "as far as possible" so that people get it free, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said on Saturday, PTI reported.
Patel, who holds the Health portfolio, said the state is fully prepared to administer vaccination to the priority groups as soon as doses are received from the Centre.
"We have been discussing this (free vaccination) with the chief Minister from time to time that as far as possible, we shall not let the citizens bear the cost of vaccination," he told reporters in Ahmedabad.
As many as 85 people, including staff members of ITC Grand Chola in Guindy near Chennai, have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past fortnight. “One staff member tested positive on December 15. A total of 609 samples have been collected till now and 85 of that found to be positive. The Chennai Corporation has advised saturation testing of all the residents of the hotel,” State Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said on Saturday.
The Greater Chennai Corporation officials confirmed that they will conduct saturation testing in all the luxury hotels. The hotels across the city have been instructed to strictly follow the SOPs issued by the government.
This is the second such cluster in the city after IIT Madras where around 200 students had tested positive for Covid-19 last December.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued the standard operating procedure for epidemiological surveillance and response to the new variant of the novel coronavirus in the context of regulated resumption of flights from the UK to India, January 8 onward.
The Civil Aviation Ministry announced Friday that the flights from the UK, which have been suspended since December 22, will resume on January 8 in a staggered manner.
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan Saturday said vaccines would be administered free of cost to priority groups in the first phase on India’s inoculation drive. This includes one crore healthcare workers and two crore frontline workers. Vardhan said the details of the second phase, in July, which will include vaccines for 27 crore more beneficiaries, is being worked out.
He also said the government would not compromise on any protocol before approving a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. He appealed to people not to be misguided by rumours regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
The dry run for COVID-19 vaccination in Karnataka was held in Kalaburagi, Shivamogga, Mysuru, Belagavi, and Bengaluru. The mock drill was conducted for two hours from 9 am. According to the health department, 25 beneficiaries, including designated health staff at each of the identified primary health centres(PHC), taluk and district hospitals, participated.
Four people who recently returned to Gujarat from the United Kingdom have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus, a top state health department official said on Saturday.
The official said results of the 15 samples that had tested positive for coronavirus on arrival in Ahmedabad from the UK are currently pending with the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune.
"All the passengers who had reached Ahmedabad from the UK were screened, and the samples of those who had tested positive for coronavirus were sent to the NIV. We have received intimation that the UK strain of coronavirus has been detected in four such cases," Principal Secretary (Health), Jayanti Ravi told reporters.
All the four patients are in isolation at Ahmedabad's SVP Hospital.
A 48-hour lockdown began in Pithoragarh town in Uttarakhand from 7 am on Saturday to contain the spread of Covid-19, PTI reported.
All offices and business establishments in the town will remain closed for 48 hours, subdivisional magistrate Tushar Saini said. Medical shops will remain open as usual and vegetable shops can operate only till 10 am, he said.
The district administration decided to impose the restrictions after Covid-19 cases recorded a rise in the town and some other parts of the district, officials said.
Speaking at Delhi’s vaccination dry run at Maternity Mother and Child Welfare Centre (MCW), Daryaganj, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that the Delhi government is prepared to vaccinate 1 lakh city residents everyday, once the vaccination process begins.
A dry run was held at three locations on Saturday morning; a private hospital, a government hospital and at the MCW. As many as 25 beneficiaries were present at each location, where the run was held to check the efficiency of the process.