Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Odisha are likely to start the vaccination drive for all above 18 from today.Coronavirus India News Live, Covid-19 Cases in India State-Wise Live Updates: Covid explosion! India on Saturday reported over 4 lakh cases, the highest single-day surge so far. According to data from the Union Health Ministry, India saw 4,01,993 fresh Coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 1,91,64,969. As many as 3,523 people died due to Covid-linked complications, while and 2,99,988 patients have been cured/discharged from the hospitals in the last 24 hours, as per Union Health Ministry data. The country still has 32,68,710 active Covid-19 cases.
Meanwhile, India is all set to start its phase 3 vaccination drive against Coronavirus for people above 18 years from today. However, the vax rollout is likely to be slow with many states/UTs complaining of a shortage of Covid vaccine supply.
According to reports, only six states — Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Odisha— are likely to start the vaccination drive for all above 18. Even then the inoculation drive in these states will be a ‘token one’, limited to few districts as these states have also limited vaccine stocks available with them.
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Highlights
After being lambasted by court over distributing COVID-19 drug Fabiflu, BJP MP Gautam Gambhir will now provide 200 oxygen concentrators to those having mild or moderate symptoms of the infection in the national capital. The East Delhi MP said the oxygen concentrators will be provided free of cost and the step has been taken to strengthen the city's fight against the deadly second wave of COVID-19 which has cost so many lives. The Delhi High Court had earlier this week questioned if Gambhir had license to procure and distribute Fabiflu in large quantities. The BJP leader's office, in a statement, said he has arranged 200 oxygen concentrators for the people in Delhi. (PTI)
Eight COVID-19 patients die due to oxygen shortage at Batra Hospital in Delhi. HOD of Gastroenterology dept at Batra hosp in Delhi among those dead; doctors trying to revive 5 other patients: Official (PTI)
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Saturday said the Union government is under pressure due to the surge in coronavirus cases in several states as it has to supply oxygen and other material. He was speaking to reporters after the state foundation day event in Pune, of which he is the guardian minister. "During the first wave of the pandemic, Maharashtra was hit hard. But in the second wave, some other states have also been impacted badly, possibly due to the poll gatherings and Kumbh Mela. Therefore, theCentre is under pressure as it has to supply oxygen and other material to these states," he said. (PTI)
Sri Lanka is looking at sources other than India to purchase the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in view of delay in securing the vaccines from the Serum Institute of India, health authorities said on Saturday. "The supply is being delayed from India. We have to understand that India has to look after their own country before supplying to us. It is not that they have told no to us," Gen Shavendra Silva, the chief of the COVID prevention operations told reporters. Silva said that presidential advisor Lalith Weeratunga was looking at other country sources to buy the coronavirus vaccines. Sri Lanka was left with only 300,000 jabs of India-manufactured Covishield when it started rolling out the second jab. (PTI)
People in the age group of 18 to 45 queued up outside the inoculation centres in 10 districts of Gujarat, where the COVID-19 vaccination drive for this category began on Saturday. The drive began in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Kutch, Mehsana, Bharuch and Gandhinagar districts, which are most affected most by the pandemic, officials said. The drive was launched in limited number of districts as Gujarat has received only three lakh doses from the vaccine manufacturers as against the order of 2.5 crore doses placed by the state government, they said. (PTI)
The Delhi High Court on Saturday said hospitals should learn from their experiences regarding oxygen scarcity during the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic and set up plants for generating the life-saving gas. A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said for commercial considerations, some hospitals reduce capital expenditures on things like oxygen plants which are essential in a hospital, especially the big ones. "Oxygen plants are essential. It is irresponsible not to have them," the bench said. (PTI)
Slamming the Uttar Pradesh government for conducting panchayat elections amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday said what is happening in the state is nothing less than a "crime against humanity" and the state election commission (SEC) is "playing along". The Congress general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh claimed that 700 teachers, including one who was pregnant and forced to attend poll duty, have died in the state. Polling for the four-phase panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh ended on Thursday. A voter turnout of 75 per cent was recorded in the final phase. "These elections have been conducted in almost 60,000 gram sabhas of UP without any thought of the catastrophic onslaught of the second wave," Priyanka Gandhi said in a series of tweets. (PTI)
Senior Samajwadi leader Mohammad Azam Khan tested positive for COVID-19 along with 13 other prisoners in Sitapur jail, officials said on Saturday. The Rampur MP and the other prisoners tested positive for the infection in both rapid antigen and RT-PCR tests, said R S Yadav, jailer, Sitapur Jail. He said the tests were conducted after complaints of fever and cough. Initially, the rapid antigen was done and later the samples were sent for the RT-PCR test, the reports of which came positive late Friday night, he said. The jailer said the treatment of the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader is going on as per COVID-19 protocol and he has been isolated. (PTI)
The Nepal government has decided to close 22 border points with India amid a sharp surge in COVID-19 cases in the neighbouring country. The decision came after the COVID Crisis Management Coordination Committee (CCMC) on Friday recommended to the Council of Ministers to shut down 22 out of a total of 35 border points between Nepal and India, according to officials. Now only 13 border points between Nepal and India will now remain operational. The decision comes in the wake of rising cases of COVID-19 infections in the southern neighbour. India's daily coronavirus tally crossed the grim milestone of four lakh, while the death toll rose to 2,11,853 with 3,523 fresh fatalities, according to the date updated by the Union Health Ministry on Saturday. (PTI)
A truck carrying 2.40 lakh doses of Covaxin worth Rs 8 crore was left parked for nearly 12 hours after its driver went missing under mysterious circumstances in Madhya Pradesh's Narsinghpur district, police said on Saturday. The Tamil Nadu-registered vehicle, which was transporting the vaccine from Hyderabad to Karnal in Haryana, was left abandoned for nearly 12 hours in Kareli area,Narsinghpur superintendent of police Vipul Shrivastava said. The matter came to light on Friday afternoon when the police were informed that a truck, with a mention of vaccine-manufacturer Bharat Biotech on it, was parked near Kareli bus stand, around 16 km from the district headquarters, the official said. According to the police, the truck contained 2.40 lakh doses of Covaxin worth Rs 8 crore. (PTI)
BJP MLC Hari Narayan Choudhary died of COVID-19 while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Patna, an official said on Saturday. Choudhary, 77, was elected from the Samastipur District Local Area Authority. He was admitted to the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna about a week ago after testing positive for COVID-19, said Awadhesh Narain Singh, the acting chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council. Choudhary died around 11 pm on Friday while undergoing treatment, he said. (PTI)
President Joe Biden has imposed restrictions on travel from India that stops most non-American citizens from entering the US for an indefinite period from May 4, citing the surging COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Biden issued a proclamation on Friday restricting travel from India starting on May 4. Certain categories of students, academics, journalists and individuals have been exempted from the ban, the US State Department said. US nationals, those having green cards, their non-citizen spouses and children below 21 years of age, are among the various categories exempted from the restrictions. The new travel restrictions have been imposed for an indefinite period and will require another presidential proclamation to end it. "I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to take action to restrict and suspend the entry into the United States, as nonimmigrants, of non-citizens of the United States who were physically present within the Republic of India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States," says the proclamation signed by Biden on Friday. (PTI)
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The COVID-19 vaccination of eligible jail inmates is in progress and was started from the holding centre' housing over 200 illegal immigrants from Myanmar here, Director General of Police, Prisons Department, V K Singh said on Saturday. He said there are no coronavirus positive cases among over 4,500 inmates in any of the 13 jails across the Union Territory, which is a "big achievement" despite the lethal second wave which forced the department to suspend the physical meeting of the inmates with their relatives for their safety. "The COVID-19 vaccination drive was started on April 6 from the Holding Centre Hiranagar in Kathua district, where 58 eligible internees were inoculated. Srinagar central jail saw 38 inmates being vaccinated against the dreaded infection on April 16 and another group of 16 inmates received a jab in district jail Rajouri on April 19," Singh said. (PTI)
A Sikh man has been criss-crossing the streets of Nagpur city of Maharashtra on his two-wheeler to provide free food to the needy everyday, a practice he has been following for the last few years, which continues even during the distressing times of coronavirus pandemic. Jamshed Singh Kapoor, 41, who is an astrologer, has been running this mobile 'Langar Seva', under which he provides 'dal khichdi' to hundreds of people for five hours starting 3 pm. Wearing a white T-shirt with 'Langar Seva' printed on it, Kapoor can be easily be spotted serving dal khichdi to people at various locations in the city, with a container filled with the eatable item tied to his two-wheeler. Langar literally means community kitchen, as part of which free vegetarian food is served at Gurdwaras everyday. Talking to PTI about his initiative, Kapoor said that he has been running the 'Langar Seva' in Nagpur since 2013. "Earlier, only the underprivileged and poor used to come to get food. But with small eateries remaining shut due to the pandemic and the restrictions, people from all walks of life avail this service," he said. (PTI)
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As the scheduled openings of phase 3 of COVID-19 vaccination drive across the country of age group 18-44 years kicks in from today onwards, the Union government said that the states which have already coordinated with the vaccine makers on procuring from the open market, will begin the exercise. Some of the country’s largest private hospitals such as Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals Group, and Max Healthcare have cleared that they will begin the planned immunisation programme in select locations, even if with limited doses. At present, only two vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — are available for the inoculation drive. READ FULL STORY
The second Oxygen Express for Delhi will carry the life-saving gas from West Bengal's Durgapur, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday. The first such train arrived in Delhi from Chhattisgarh carrying 70 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen. "Oxygen tanks are being loaded from Durgapur, West Bengal on Oxygen Express to provide Liquid Medical Oxygen for patients in Delhi," Goyal said in a tweet. The second train will carry 120 tonnes of oxygen for the oxygen-starved national capital. (PTI)
Reliance airlifted 24 ISO containers for transporting Oxygen - creating an additional 500 MT of transportation capacity for India. Since thanks to ARAMCO, BP and IAF for their help in sourcing & transportation. More ISO containers being airfreighted over the next few days: RIL (ANI)
The daily rise in COVID-19 cases in Odisha saw a major jump on Saturday as the state reported 10,413 new infections, an official said. These cases were detected from among 47,462 samples tested on Friday, recording a positivity rate of 21.93 per cent. Eleven more people died of COVID in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 2,054. There are 67,086 active cases in the state at present. The state has so far registered 4,54,607 COVID-19 cases. Of them, 3,85,414 patients have recovered, the official said. Of the new infections, 5,887 were reported from different quarantine centres, while the rest 4,526 were local contact cases. Khurda district, of which state capital Bhubaneswar is a part, recorded the highest 1,796 new cases, followed by Sundergarh (1100), Cuttack (828), Puri (533) and Bargarh (511). (PTI)
More than 79 lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses are available with the states and Union territories and over 17 lakh doses will be supplied to them in the next three days, the Union health ministry said on Saturday. The Centre has so far provided nearly 16.37 crore vaccine doses to states/UTs free of cost. Of this, the total consumption, including wastages, is 15,58,48,782 doses, according to official data available till 8 am on Saturday. "More than 79,13,518 COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs to be administered. "Furthermore, more than 17,31,110 vaccine doses will be received in addition by the states/UTs within the next 3 days," the ministry said. The ministry also said that Maharashtra has been allocated 17,50,620 'Covishield' and 5,76,890 'Covaxin' vaccine doses by the Centre for the first fortnight of May. (PTI)
With India battling a COVID-19 surge, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday urged the Centre to evolve a political consensus on a national policy to tackle the spread of the pandemic. In a video message, Gandhi said it is time that the central and state governments wake up and discharge their duties. (PTI)
Jailed former RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin died of COVID-19 at DDU Hospital here on Saturday, Delhi Prisons Department said. Director General (Prisons) Sandeep Goel said, "Information has been received from DDU Hospital about the death of Mohd Shahabuddin, inmate of Delhi Prisons. He was suffering from COVID-19 and was admitted to DDU Hospital on April 20." (PTI)
US Vice President Kamala Harris has described the coronavirus situation in India as "tragic" and said the US has made a commitment to support the country in battling the challenge. "There is no question that it is a great tragedy, in terms of the loss of life, and as I have said before, and I will say again, we as a country have made a commitment to the people of India to support them," Harris told reporters on Friday in Cincinnati, Ohio. "We have already made a commitment in terms of a dollar amount that will go to PPE and a number of other things. But it is tragic. My prayers go to the people on the suffering, the blatant suffering that is happening," Harris said in response to a question. (PTI)
UP panchayat poll: SC says officials, candidates, agents will have to produce 'negative' COVID-19 report before entering counting Centres (PTI)
The Jammu and Kashmir administration has said it will roll out the third phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive to cover people in the 18-45 age group from Saturday in a phased manner starting with the cities of Srinagar and Jammu. This comes a day after the administration said the third phase of the inoculation drive will not begin in the union territory from May 1 as it was awaiting vaccine supply. Jammu and Kashmir will roll out the vaccination of the 18-45 age group against COVID-19 from May 1 in a phased manner beginning with Jammu and Srinagar, the Department of Information and Public Relations said on Twitter on Saturday. "COVAXIN will be administered to this age group free of cost. It will be by *prior registration and prior appointment only.* Please do not crowd the vaccination centres without appointment," it said. However, the CoWIN portal did not accept any registrations for the 18-45 age group or even for those above 45. (PTI)
Puducherry added 1,379 fresh cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours ending 10 am on Saturday, taking the overall case tally to 60,001 while 12 more people succumbed to the viral infection taking the toll to 817. The deceased were in the age group ranging between 27 and 83 years. The 1,379 new cases were identified at the end of examination of 6,531 samples projecting a test positivity rate of 21.11 percent, Director of Health and Family Welfare Services S Mohan Kumar said. Total COVID 19 cases reported so far were 60,001 while there were 10,263 active cases comprising 1773 patients in hospitals and 8490 patients in home isolation. (PTI)
A PIL demanding an FIR and CBI probe into claims of politicians being able to procure and distribute Remdesivir, used for treating COVID-19 patients, even as others run pillar to post to get the medicine, was mentioned before the Delhi High Court on Saturday. The plea was mentioned before a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli by advocate Virag Gupta who was asked by the court to bring the petition on record during the day. The plea questions how politicians are able to procure large stocks of the medicine without having the requisite permission under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, when the general public was not getting it. Petitioner Deepak Singh, the chairperson of Hruduya Foundation and a national-level shooter, has contended that "denying access to medicines for one's own political gain is a crime of very serious nature, and affects coronavirus patients all over India". (PTI)
RIL ramps up production of Medical Grade Liquid Oxygen from near zero to 1000 MT per day free of charge. 1000 MT of oxygen to meet the needs of over 1 lakh people everyday on an average: Reliance Industries Limited (ANI)
Ten states including Maharashtra, Delhi and Karnataka accounted for 73.71 per cent of the new COVID-19 cases reported in a day, the Union health ministry said on Saturday. With a record daily rise of 4,01,003 COVID-19 cases, India's total tally climbed to 1,91,64,969 on Saturday, according to ministry data. Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are also among the 10 states that reported 73.71 per cent of the new cases. Maharashtra reported the highest number of new cases at 62,919, followed by 48,296 in Karnataka and 37,199 in Kerala. According to the ministry data, India's active caseload has reached 32,68,710, accounting for 17.06 per cent of the total infections. A net increase of 98,482 has been recorded in the active caseload in a day. Eleven states -- Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Bihar -- account for 78.22 per cent of the total active cases, the ministry said. "The National Mortality Rate has been falling and currently stands at 1.11 per cent," it said. (PTI)
Disneyland reopened on Friday and cruise lines welcomed the news that they could be sailing again in the US by midsummer, as the number of Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 reached another milestone: 100 million. Visitors cheered and screamed with delight as the Southern California theme park swung open its gates for the first time in 13 months in a powerful symbol of the US rebound, even though the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth is allowing only in-state guests for now and operating at just 25% capacity. The reopening and similar steps elsewhere around the country reflect increasing optimism as COVID-19 deaths tumble and the ranks of the vaccinated grow -- a stark contrast to the worsening disaster in India and Brazil and the scant availability of vaccines in many poor parts of the world. In fact, the US announced Friday it will restrict travel from India starting Tuesday, citing the devastating rise in COVID-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus. While the overall number of lives lost to COVID-19 in the U.S. has eclipsed 575,000, deaths have plummeted to an average of about 670 per day from a peak of around 3,400 in mid-January. (AP)
In the shadow of the rising cases of COVID, May 1, the otherwise Labour day holiday, was being eagerly awaited for the promise to deliverance with a vaccine dose for those who are 18 years and above as part of the third phase of the vaccination drive in India. That is some 595 million people getting the first dose (out of a total of over 1 billion doses that they will get in two instalments). But then, several state governments seem woefully short of the vaccines they need. READ MORE
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Hearing in Delhi High Court resumes regarding the shortage of oxygen supply, beds, and medicines in the hospitals in Delhi.
2,500 centres for 45 have begun phase 3 vaccination today. We've also begun vaccination for 18 age category & included 7 dists where positivity rate & active cases are highest-Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Gorahpur, Bareilly, Kanpur&Meerut, 85 separate centres for 18 set up; In next 5 days, vaccination will be done in these 85 centres at 7 districts. After this, everyone will be given vaccines in other dists. We have decided to give free vaccines to people between 18-44 years of age. People above 45 years of age are being given free vaccine by GoI: CM Yogi Adityanath (ANI)
Lucknow: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reaches Avantibai Hospital vaccination centre to inspect the phase 3 #COVID19 vaccination drive, that begins today. Vaccination for people above 18 years of age has begun today. (ANI)
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Priority will be given to people b/w 45 to 60 years of age coming in for their second dose. Vaccines will be given to people b/w 18 to 44 years of age only after they have registered & received a message. Vaccine centres will function as and when we receive vaccines: Mumbai Mayor (ANI)
Delhi: Two men arrested for selling fake Remdisivir to people. They used to sell Remdesivir at Rs 35,000 per vial. 17 injections seized from their possession. Further investigation is underway. (ANI)
15 oxygen concentrators from Thailand arrive in Delhi as assistance to India in the fight against COVID19. (ANI)