India reported a record 3,780 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest daily toll since the pandemic began. Over 900 deaths were from Maharashtra, while Delhi and Uttar Pradesh reported 338 and 351, respectively. At least 13 states are reporting more than 100 deaths a day.Coronavirus India Live Updates: K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre, has warned that a third wave of Covid infections is inevitable. “A phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur. Vaccines are effective against current variants. New variants will arise all over the world and in India too but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau. Immune evasive variants and those which lower or increase disease severity will arise going ahead,” he said.
Soon after taking oath as the chief minister for the third time, Mamata Banerjee has announced a slew of new restrictions to tackle the Covid crisis in West Bengal. All local trains in the state will be suspended from Thursday. From May 7, no air passenger will be allowed in Bengal without RT-PCR negative report not older than 72 hours. People entering Bengal via long-distance trains and inter-state buses must carry RT-PCR negative reports. Offices in Bengal should operate with 50 per cent workforce. Moreover, starting Thursday, banks will be operational between 10 am and 2 pm. Metro rail and government-run transport services will operate with 50% occupancy.
India reported a record 3,780 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest daily toll since the pandemic began. Over 900 deaths were from Maharashtra, while Delhi and Uttar Pradesh reported 338 and 351, respectively. At least 13 states are reporting more than 100 deaths a day. These include previously uncounted deaths from earlier days. The country reported 3.82 lakh cases of the novel coronavirus in the 24 hours ending 9 am Wednesday. Of these, Maharashtra recorded 51,880 cases, while Karnataka reported 44,631. Active cases are now more than 34.87 lakh.
As India continues to report over three lakh Covid-19 cases a day, several states are still flagging a shortage of oxygen supply. The Haryana government told the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday that several lives would be lost if it didn’t receive timely supply of oxygen; the Maharashtra government and Mumbai’s civic body BMC wrote separately to the Centre requesting enhanced allocation of oxygen; and 41 hospitals in New Delhi with 7,000 patients raised alarm bells on a single day on May 3.
Family members of Covid-19 patients wait to fill their empty cylinders with medical oxygen outside an oxygen filling centre, at Bhogal, New Delhi. (Express Photo: Amit Mehra)
Information technology industry veteran Nandan M Nilekani has extended a helping hand to revamp the computer software relating to bed allocation for COVID-19 patients in the city, Bengaluru south MP Tejaswi Surya said on Wednesday.
Surya, along with three BJP MLAs, on Tuesday raised issues of alleged irregularities and anomalies in the city's civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) bed booking for the COVID-19 patients.
The MP said he had a conversation with Nilekani, the non-executive chairman of software major Infosys Ltd and former chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), this morning and sought his help to revamp BBMP bed allocation software.
"Lots of gratitude to him for putting very best tech architects on the job immediately," the national president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP, said.
"This team of tech architects, also assisted by iSpirit @Product_nation, will redesign the bed-booking software to make it efficient, transparent and minimise manual intervention," Surya tweeted. "I thank the tech volunteers for helping this cause," he said. (PTI)
DRDO is setting up a 750-bedded makeshift Covid hospital at Banaras Hindu University premises. 90% of the work has been done and the rest will be completed in a day or two, says Deepak Agrawal, Varanasi Commissioner. (ANI)
Microsoft is mobilising resources to help Covid response in India. The company has stated that is helping the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable launch the Global Task Force on Pandemic Response. This is a public-private partnership to provide India with critical medical supplies, oxygen and other life-saving assistance. This effort will focus first on India and will then be a vehicle to support other countries devastated by Covid-19.
To address the problem of oxygen shortage for Covid patients in India, Microsoft, through a significant financial donation from Microsoft Philanthropies, has joined other companies to purchase 1,000 much-needed ventilators for hospitals in India. It is also working with the U.S-India Strategic Partnership Forum and other companies to provide 25,000 oxygen concentration devices to health care facilities in India.
Moreover, through Microsoft’s employee giving programme, the company stated that it has raised over $3 million (including Microsoft’s matched contribution) for organizations working on the ground in India, including Oxfam India and UNICEF.
Dr VK Paul, NITI Aayog member, when asked if nationwide lockdown the only solution to rise in cases, said, “...If anything more is required those options are always being discussed. There's already a guideline to states to impose restrictions to suppress chain of transmission.”
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said that the Centre should consider distributing foreign aid, particularly medical equipment, to voluntary organisations, including Gurdwaras and NGOs, who are rendering public service in these times.
“Once the government has got the aid, it is for the aid of the people of India. If anybody is there who is rendering voluntary services… it has to remain where it can be put to use. There is no point in the government of India taking it back and putting it in some store and letting in lie in junk…,” said the division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli. Read more
All members of the Indian delegation attending G7 in London are doing well and are isolated, said sources. They got their Covid test done. While leaving all were negative and they are vaccinated. EAM is also doing well and is attending meetings virtually, the sources added. (ANI)
Amazon has joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Task Force to bring in ventilators to help combat Covid in India.
Last week, Amazon had announced that it is sponsoring the supply of 100 ICU ventilator units costing USD 3.8 million from the US. Amazon approached USIBC to build sponsorship for a much larger scale. Under USIBC’s leadership, their various members have now committed to bring in 1000 Medtronic ventilators urgently to India. Amazon’s 100 ventilators comprise the first lot under this programme and are arriving in India starting today. Amazon in collaboration with USIBC is working with NITI Aayog and the MoHFW, who are defining the distribution plan for these ventilators.
Medical aid from Israel arrives in India.
Covid is not spreading through animals, it's human-to-human transmission, says Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog. (ANI)
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal visits the vaccination centre at Radha Soami Satsang Beas in Rajendra Nagar. He says, “Vaccination has started in both government and private sectors. But we need more supply of vaccine dosages. There is shortage of oxygen but we're getting support from all sides.”
K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Centre, says, “Vaccines are effective against current variants. New variants will arise all over the world and in India too but variants that increase transmission will likely plateau. Immune evasive variants and those which lower or increase disease severity will arise going ahead.”
He adds, "Variants are transmitted same as original strain. It doesn't have properties of new kinds of transmission. It infects humans in a manner that makes it more transmissible as it gains entry, makes more copies and goes on, same as original. A phase three is inevitable, given the higher levels of circulating virus but it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur.”
Lav Agarwal, Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary, says, “12 states have more than 1 lakh active cases, 7 states have 50,000 to 1 lakh active cases and 17 states have less than 50,000 active cases. Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have around 1.5 lakh active cases.
Around 2.4% day-on-day growth in COVID cases has been noticed, says Lav Agarwal, Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary. “An increase in deaths has been noticed too. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, and Haryana reported more death cases. There are some areas of concern. Bengaluru reported around 1.49 lakh cases in last one week. Chennai reported 38,000 cases,” he added. (ANI)
Taking to Twitter, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has raised questions about details of the Covid foreign aid India has received, how it is being allocated to the states and why there is “no transparency” on the issue.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said a tweet by a Navi Mumbai woman about a gathering of migrants at the Bandra terminus during the lockdown last year did not amount to any wrongdoing, and ordered for quashing of an FIR registered against her.
Sunaina Holey had approached the HC last year through her counsel Dr Abhinav Chandrachud, seeking that the FIR registered against her by the Mumbai police be quashed.
She was booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 153-A for vilifying a particular religious group or community, after she tweeted about a large group of migrants who had gathered at the Bandra terminus during the first phase of the nationwide coronavirus-induced lockdown in 2020.
In its verdict on Wednesday, the HC bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik said Holey's tweet had not named any particular community and did not create any enmity between communities. (PTI)
An IL-76 aircraft of IAF landed in Singapore today. After loading 352 empty oxygen cylinders there, it is expected to get airborne late afternoon and land at Hindon Air Force Station late in the night. (ANI)
Corona curfew imposed in Himachal Pradesh from midnight of May 6 to May 16. All offices to remain closed and only essential services allowed. No one from outside to be allowed without negative RT-PCR report. (ANI)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Delhi High Court’s contempt notice against the Centre in the oxygen supply matter, saying exercising powers under contempt jurisdiction “will not solve the problems” faced by the national capital.
The Centre had approached the top court after the Delhi High Court issued a contempt notice against it and sought the personal appearance of its officials for non-compliance of the direction on the required supply of 700 MT of medical oxygen per day to treat Covid-19 patients in Delhi. Read more
Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan writes to PM Narendra Modi and seeks allotment of at least 1,000 tonnes of imported liquid medical oxygen, PSA plants, oxygen concentrators and ventilators. (PTI)
Jharkhand makes Covid test, week-long quarantine mandatory for all migrant workers returning to the state. (PTI)