The first batch of the Covid 19 vaccines arrived at the IGI airport in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express Photo/Tashi Tobgyal)Coronavirus India Live Updates: India on Wednesday reported 15,968 new cases of coronavirus. So far, more than one crore and 4.95 lakh people have been infected, of which about 2.14 lakh are currently active cases. As many as 202 deaths were reported. While Kerala has reported 5,507 new cases, Maharashtra has found 2,936 cases
Meanwhile, with less than a week left before India starts its nationwide inoculation drive, the first consignment of Oxford-Astrazena’s Covishield vaccine was dispatched from Pune early Tuesday. About half a crore doses of Serum Institute of India’s (SII’s) Covishield vaccine were shipped out of Pune to cities across India on Tuesday. In the morning, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had posted on Twitter that the four carriers would operate nine flights from Pune to ferry 56.5 lakh doses of the vaccine to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Shillong, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Patna, Lucknow, and Chandigarh.
On the global front, Japan is set to expand its state of emergency beyond the Tokyo region and Indonesia has kicked off what is set to be Southeast Asia’s largest inoculation program. The U.K. will crack down on people flouting lockdown rules as the number of patients needing ventilators rose to the highest since the pandemic began.
A private RT-PCR testing facility at the Ahmedabad airport for travellers. (Express photo)
The first consignment of Covidshield vaccine from Pune-based Serum Insititute of India arrived at the Cochin international airport here on Wednesday morning to combat COVID-19, official sources said. The Go Air flight carrying the vaccine for Ernakulam and Kozhikode landed at the airport at 10.35 am, they said. Special refrigerated vans were arranged to transport the vaccine safely to the respective centres. Transfer of vaccine boxes from the plane to vans was completed in 10 minutes, they said. The second flight carrying the vaccine is expected to reach Thiruvananthapuram international airport this afternoon. (PTI)
The first batches of Covaxin, the Bharat Biotech's coronavirus vaccine, left Hyderabad early this morning for Delhi, Haryana and 10 other places, a day after Serum Institute of India rolled out its vaccine against COVID-19
Indonesian President Joko Widodo became the first person in the country to receive a COVID-19 vaccine shot on Wednesday, as the government launched an ambitious vaccination campaign in a bid to stem one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia. The immunisation campaign aims to inoculate 181.5 million people, with the first to be vaccinated receiving the CoronaVac vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech, which Indonesia authorised for emergency use on Monday. Dressed in a white shirt and wearing a face mask, the president, who is known as Jokowi, received the jab in his left arm at the presidential palace
About half a crore doses of Serum Institute of India’s (SII’s) Covishield vaccine were shipped out of Pune to cities across India on Tuesday as the country launched its final phase of preparations for the mass inoculation drive against the novel coronavirus that begins on Saturday. The first consignment of 2.64 lakh doses of the vaccine took off for Delhi on a SpiceJet flight soon after 8 am, landing in the national capital a little before 10 am. A GoAir flight to Chennai and an Air India flight to Ahmedabad followed. The last flight of the day with the vaccine cargo, an IndiGo flight to Lucknow, left Pune at 2.10 pm.
The Delhi High Court Tuesday asked the Delhi government to hold a fresh review of its order on reservation of ICU beds for Covid patients in private hospitals before January 18. The Delhi government on Tuesday argued that the petition against reservation has become infructuous as it has been brought down to 40 per cent.
Justice Navin Chawla, after hearing arguments on both sides in the petition filed by the Association for Healthcare Providers (India), adjourned the case for next hearing on January 19. The court earlier asked the hospitals whether they would be able to create some place for Covid patients in case the order for reservation of ICU beds for Covid patients has to go.
During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain argued that not a single hospital has come before the court to say that they have suffered financial losses because of the order, and submitted that even individual hospitals have not come forward before the court. Contending that the State has not taken an uninformed decision, Jain submitted that the Covid situation still was not certain.
“We are still in the grey area. There is nothing certain,” submitted Jain, adding that the earlier order of 80 per cent reservation in 33 hospitals has been superseded and they will continue to review the situation.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, who represents the petitioner, earlier argued that the state cannot nationalise private hospitals. The association has challenged the government order, which was passed by the state last September, and has been arguing that the reservation amounts to violation of the rights of non-Covid patients.
As many as 93,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccination will be administered to frontline warriors, including healthcare workers and armed forces, in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said on Tuesday.
Thakur made the announcement while presiding over a meeting to review arrangements made for COVID-19 vaccination besides reviewing bird flu surveillance with the deputy commissioners of the state. He said his government constituted a state-level steering committee to monitor effective administration of the vaccination.
In the first phase of COVID vaccination, 93,000 doses will be administered to frontline warriors at 46 sites across the state.
Haryana on Tuesday reported eight more COVID-19 fatalities that took the death toll to 2,964, while 192 fresh cases pushed the state's infection tally to 2,65,391, according to the health department's daily bulletin
One fatality each was reported from Gurgaon, Panchkula, Yamunanagar, Mahindergarh, Jhajjar and Palwal districts while two deaths were from Sonipat, it said.
The bulletin said that among the districts that reported fresh cases, 56 were in Gurgaon and 34 in Faridabad. The number of active cases in the state is 2,441 and as many as 2,59,986 people have recovered. The recovery rate is 97.96 per cent, it said.
Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 2,936 fresh coronavirus positive cases, taking the tally of infections to 19,74,488, the state health department said.
With 50 more people succumbing to the viral disease, the cumulative death toll in the state mounted to 50,151, an official said. A total of 3,282 patients were discharged after treatment during the day, taking the total count of recoveries in Maharashtra to 18,71,120, the official said, adding that the state is now left with 51,892 active cases.
With 57,505 new tests for coronavirus, the number of tests conducted so far in Maharashtra has gone up to 1,35,00,734, the official said. Mumbai city reported 473 fresh coronavirus positive cases, taking its overall count to 2,99,799. With seven more patients succumbing to the viral infection in the day, Mumbai's overall death toll went up to 11,200.
Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday reported 511 fresh coronavirus cases, raising the tally to 5,94,175.
The death toll due to the infection has reached 8,514 with 10 more fatalities being reported in the past 24 hours. It was 8,504 on Monday. The active cases in the state has now come down to 10,560, of which 4,018 are in home isolation and 1,012 are undergoing treatment in private hospitals, Additional Chief Secretary Health Amit Mohan Prasad said.
The rest are being treated in different government hospitals, he added. So far, 5,75,101 patients have recovered from the infection and been discharged from hospitals, Prasad said.
A 10-member team of WHO experts assigned to probe the origins of COVID-19 will directly fly from Singapore to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December 2019, amid a resurgence of the deadly disease in several cities close to Beijing, prompting lockdowns.
"Current plan is that they will fly from Singapore to Wuhan on January 14," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing here on Tuesday.
He, however, said he has no details whether the experts would have to undergo quarantine and what is their itinerary and how long the team would stay in Wuhan and directed the media to the relevant authorities. Observers say it is significant that the 10-member expert team is commencing their much-delayed probe from Wuhan from where COVID-19 emerged in December last year before it became a pandemic, killing over 1,944,750 people worldwide so far.
The World Health Organisation team's visit has become a bone of contention as Beijing, which questions the widely-held view about the virus' origins in Wuhan, had delayed granting permission to it.
The Health Ministry stated that about 43.96 per cent COVID-19 patients are in healthcare facilities, 56.04 per cent in home isolation.
In its press conference Tuesday evening, the Health Ministry stated that the vaccine effectiveness will be seen after 14 days of getting the dose. "Urge people to keep following COVID-appropriate behaviour," it added.
Serum Institute of India (SII) CE Adar Poonawalla on Tuesday described the dispatch o Covishield vaccines for the January 16 national inoculatio drive a "proud and historic" moment.
Early Tuesday, the first consignment of the vaccine rolled out of the SII facility in Pune for transport t various locations in the country. Speaking to the select media persons at the SI facility, Poonawalla said the real challenge lies in takin the vaccine to the "common man, to the vulnerable groups o people and to healthcare workers".
"Our trucks left the SII facility early morning an now the vaccine is being distributed in the entire country This is a proud and historic moment as scientists, experts an all other stake-holders took great efforts while making thi vaccine in less than a year," he said.
Gujarat received its first tranche of 2.76 lakh COVID19 vaccines, procured by the central health ministry from the Serum Institute of India, Pune by air at Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on Tuesday. deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, who also holds the health portfolio who flagged off the flower bedecked vehicle carrying the vaccine out of the airport, told mediapersons, “1.20 lakh dose will be provided to Ahmedabad regional deputy director (RDD) office, housed at the cold storage facility at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. Another 96,000 doses will be kept at Gandhinagar RDD office zone, and 60,000 doses will be sent to Bhavnagar zone within the next two days. Thus this consignment will cater to Ahmedabad city and rural, Gandhinagar city and rural, and Bhavnagar zone".
The second consignment from Pune will reach Surat on Wednesday through special cold chain vehicles by road, containing 93,500 vaccine doses. Similarly, 94,500 vaccine dose consignment will reach Vadodara on Wednesday, and 77,000 doses will reach Rajkot on Wednesday. Patel assured that BJP has taken a decision that until the first two phases of inoculation for healthcare workers and “frontline COVID19 warriors” are completed, “no politician, political leader, or minister will be administered the vaccine.”
“The reason for this decision is to send a message to our citizens that this (vaccine doses) is for the citizens, the people, the healthworkers, the police personnel and their safety and they are our country’s priority followed by those aged above 50 years and then those below 50 years of age with serious comorbidities...to ensure their safety first, is a moral responsibility of governments’ political leaders, ministers, chief ministers etc. At a wedding only after guests are fed, do the hosts eat...it was decided on Monday and notified at the BJP-party level by chief minister Vijay Rupani and Gujarat BJP chief CR Paatil that no minister of ours, member of the assembly or political leaders won’t take the vaccine in the first phase,” explained Patel.
The first consignment of Covishield vaccine has reached Bengaluru from the Serum Institute of India in Pune on Tuesday morning ahead of the commencement of COVID-19 vaccination in India starting from January 16. Karnataka will be getting 7.95 lakh vials of Covid vaccine in the first consignment and it will be stored in the government storage facility near Anand Rao circle, said Health & Medical Education Minister Dr K.Sudhakar on Tuesday. “Covishield vaccine has already been approved by the DCGI (Drugs Control General of India). The Union government has purchased 1.1 crore doses of vaccine at a cost of Rs 210 per dose. This is the cheapest vaccine in the world,” said Sudhakar while adding Serum institute Pune is supplying vaccines at a cost of 231 crores and Karnataka will get 7.95 lakh vials of Covi-Shield in the first phase.
“Each dose of vaccine contains 0.5 ml and each vial contains 10 doses of vaccines. The second dose should be given 28 days after the first dosage. The vaccine will generate resistance power in the body and it is safe,” he added.
According to the minister, ‘Not for sale’ is being written over the vial to avoid misuse. Health warriors will get the vaccine on priority. All guidelines will be followed while giving the vaccine. Every person who is vaccinated will be kept under observation for 30 minutes after vaccination, Sudhakar explained. (With Darshan Devaiah)
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told a meeting of ruling party executives on Tuesday he would declare a state of emergency for the three western prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo to stem the spread of COVID-19, Kyodo news reported.
Responding to pressure from Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures in eastern Japan, Suga last week declared a one-month state of emergency for that region until Feb. 7. But the number of coronavirus cases has also climbed in the west, prompting Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo to seek a state of emergency too.
The government is finalising plans to do so on Wednesday, and could also consider adding the central prefectures of Aichi – home to Toyota Motor Corp – and Gifu, Kyodo reported, citing government sources. Adding those five prefectures would mean a state of emergency for about half of Japan’s population of 126 million people. (Reuters)
Budget carrier GoAir has operated a flight to Chennai from Pune, containing 70,800 vials of COVID-19 vaccines as the much-awaited roll out of the vaccine commenced on Tuesday. The flight took off for Chennai from Pune early morning on Tuesday, carrying 70,800 vials (7,08,000 doses) of the vaccine, according to GoAir.
"We at GoAir are overwhelmed with the kind of responsibility bestowed upon us to transport the life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. We are grateful that we have got an opportunity to be able to contribute to the vaccine movement and support the noble cause," GoAir chief Executive Officer, Kaushik Khona said in a statement.
"In our efforts to alleviate the complexities of the vaccine movement given the scale of the consignments and logistics, we are taking every possible step to support the institutions and our stakeholders to reach the vaccine in all possible corners of the country," he said.(PTI)
The first consignment of Covishield vaccines reached Delhi from Pune on Tuesday. It had left for the national capital around 8 am, three hours after three trucks with the maiden consignment of the vaccines rolled out of the Serum Institute of India.
Security has been stepped up at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital from where the first consignment of Covishield vaccines from Pune will be transported to different parts of the city on Tuesday, police said.
A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines landed at the Delhi airport around 10 am on Tuesday, four days ahead of the launch of a nationwide drive against the coronavirus. Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) Rajeev Ranjan said PCR vans along with local police will escort the vehicles carrying vaccines to its designated places.
He said sufficient security arrangements have been put in place to facilitate the transportation of vaccines. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Manish Agarwal said, "If any schedule and movement of vaccine is shared with us and if facilitation is asked for, we will provide it." The Delhi Traffic Police said it will ensure smooth movement of the vehicles carrying the vaccines.(PTI)