Coronavirus India Latest Update Live: WHO says booster shots must be delayed as several nations suffer vaccine inequity

An expert panel, set up by an institute under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has predicted a third wave of COVID-19 hitting the country anytime between September and October and suggested significantly ramping up vaccination pace. The committee of experts, constituted by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), also said that children will have a similar risk as adults since paediatric facilities, doctors and equipment like ventilators, ambulances, etc. are nowhere close to what may be required in case a large number of children become infected. The report, which has been submitted to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), observed that only around 7.6 percent (10.4 cr) people are fully vaccinated in India and if the current vaccination rate is not increased, India can witness six lakh cases per day in the next wave. "Leading experts have repeatedly warned of an imminent third COVID-19  wave in India. Epidemiologists predict a series of surges till we achieve herd immunity through infection or vaccination and the disease becomes endemic," the report said. (PTI)

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday that COVID-19 booster shots should be delayed as priority should be given to raising vaccination rates in countries where only 1% or 2% of the population has been inoculated.If vaccination rates are not raised globally, stronger variants of the coronavirus could develop and vaccines intended as booster shots should be donated to countries where people have not received their first or second doses, he said during a visit to Budapest."In addition, there is a debate about whether booster shots are effective at all," Ghebreyesus told a news conference with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.Those whose immune system is compromised should get a booster shot, though they represent only small percentage of the population, he added. – Reuters

Over 130 people have been booked in Khargone in Madhya Pradesh for taking out a 'tazia' procession in violation of COVID-19 norms and also for allegedly misbehaving with officials at the time, police said on Monday. The incident took place in Maheshwar town on Saturday and the organisers of the procession changed the route after which they scuffled and argued with officials who tried to prevent them from doing so, said Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Jitendra Singh Pawar. He said over 130 had been booked, 31 of whom had been identified on the basis of CCTV footage from the area, while another 100 were yet to be identified from the crowd. - PTI

Mizoram reported 292 new COVID-19 cases and six fatalities in the last 24 hours, taking the state's tally to 52,472 and death toll to 200, a health department official said on Monday. The single-day positivity rate was 13.95 per cent as the fresh cases were detected from 2,093 samples, he said. The cases were reported from Aizawl (169), Siaha (59), Mamit (32), Kolasib (15), Lawngtlai (7), Lunglei (5), Serchhip (3) and Champhai (2). More than 63 children are among the newly infected people, he said, adding that all the patients were found to have contracted the virus locally. Mizoram currently has 5,982 active COVID-19 cases, while 46,290 people have recovered from the infection, including 872 people on Sunday. The COVID-19 recovery rate in the state now is 88.21 per cent and the death rate is 0.38 per cent. The state has tested more than 7.91 lakh samples for COVID-19 till date. - PTI

Odisha on Monday registered 761 new COVID-19 cases, including 101 children, taking the state's tally to 10,01,698, while 68 fresh fatalities pushed the toll to 7,426, a health department official said. This apart, 53 COVID-19 patients in the state have died due to comorbidities in the past. Of the 761 new cases, 443 cases were reported from quarantine centres and the rest detected during contact tracing. Khurda district, of which state capital Bhubaneswar is a part, recorded the maximum number of new cases at 289, followed by Cuttack at 117. Three districts -- Kalahandi, Koraput and Nuapada -- did not report any new case. Cuttack district reported 17 fresh fatalities followed by Jagatsinghpur at 15, Dhenkanal at nine, Khurda at eight and Jajpur at six. - PTI

The Delhi High Court Monday granted time to the Election Commission to file reply on a petition seeking to debar campaigners and candidates from campaigning in assembly elections for repeatedly violating the mandatory guidelines, including wearing masks, issued by the poll panel in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The EC submitted that the petition is now infructuous as it was regarding campaigning in the assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry which got over in April. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh granted time to the EC to file its response to the petition and listed the matter for further hearing on October 18. - PTI

Schools and Pre-University (PU) colleges here and in other districts of Karnataka where COVID test positivity rate is less than two per cent reopened for students of classes 9-12 on Monday after a gap of five months. The Chief Minister Basavaraj S Bommai likened the reopening to freedom for students from COVID-19. "Students are very happy. It's like, they have got a freedom today from COVID-19. August 15 is celebrated as a freedom for the country but for our students from classes ninth, tenth, 11th and 12 it's a real freedom for them with the opening of schools," Bommai told reporters after visiting a few schools in the city. He said students were facing a lot of issues in online classes such as communication and network problems but here in the physical classes they can interact with their teachers better. - PTI

Russia reported 19,454 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, the first time the daily tally has dipped below 20,000 since June 23 as authorities blamed a case surge on the infectious Delta variant.The government coronavirus task force also reported 776 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours nationwide. – Reuters  

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended New Zealand's coronavirus lockdown on Monday, saying the current outbreak has not peaked, as criticism mounts of her strategy to eliminate COVID-19 amid the slow rollout of its vaccine programme.Ardern garnered global praise for stamping out COVID-19 in New Zealand last year and the country was virus-free since February. But an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus last week while few people have been vaccinated has called into question the approach of snap lockdowns and border restrictions that have curtailed the economy.Ardern extended the strict level 4 national lockdown by three days until midnight on Aug. 27 while its largest city Auckland, the epicentre of the current outbreak, will have restrictions in place at least until Aug. 31. – Reuters

Weeks after the Delta variant of the coronavirus ripped through Jakarta, the Indonesian capital has reached "herd immunity", the city's deputy governor said, ahead of an expected decision by the president on Monday on whether to extend COVID-19 curbs.For much of last month, Jakarta was devastated by the outbreak with inundated hospitals, oxygen shortages and COVID-19 patients dying at home, but in recent weeks case numbers have dropped sharply, while vaccination rates have climbed.On July 12, Jakarta recorded more than 14,600 infections, but by Sunday the figure had fallen to 700."Jakarta has entered the green zone and has reached herd immunity," deputy Jakarta governor Ahmad Rizia Patria told reporters on Sunday.The deputy governor was referring to high vaccination rates in the capital, where more than 54% of residents are fully vaccinated and most have received one shot. – Reuters

Researchers have identified an antibody that is highly protective at low doses against a wide range of variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19. The findings, posted as a pre-proof in the journal Immunity, could help develop new antibody-based therapies that are less likely to lose their potency as the virus mutates. The new antibody attaches to a part of the virus that differs little across the variants, meaning that it is unlikely for resistance to arise at this spot, the researchers said. "Current antibodies may work against some but not all variants," said study senior author Michael S Diamond, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, US. "The virus will likely continue to evolve over time and space. Having broadly neutralising, effective antibodies that work individually and can be paired to make new combinations will likely prevent resistance," Diamond said. - PTI

The Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Medanta hospital to set up a COVID-19 care centre at the Delhi airport for its employees and their family members, a statement said on Monday. The Covid Care Centre, which is being established at Terminal 2 of the airport in anticipation of "the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic", is expected to be operational early September, said the statement of GMR-group led DIAL. This Centre will help isolate, clinically treat, clinically support asymptomatic, mild and mild to moderate Covid-positive employees of GMR or their family members, till they are transferred to a hospital or discharged to their homes, it mentioned. - PTI

Puducherry witnessed a dip in number of new coronavirus cases during the last 24 hours reporting 42 infections, a senior official of Department of Health said on Monday. The union territory recorded 42 fresh cases as against the 60 recorded on Sunday, Director of the Department G Sriramulu said in a release. The new cases were identified at the end of the examination of 3,035 samples and they were spread over Puducherry (25), Mahe (12), Karaikal (four) and Yanam (one). The overall infection tally climbed to 1,22,934. The Health department Director said the number of active cases stood at 796 with 665 in hospitals and the remaining 631 in home isolation. - PTI

Forty-nine more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Arunachal Pradesh, pushing the total caseload in the northeastern state to 52,214, a senior health department official said here on Monday. The COVID-19 death toll in the frontier state increased to 259, as two more persons including a woman, succumbed to the infection in the past two days, the official said. The Capital Complex Region recorded the highest number of fresh cases at 14, followed by West Kameng, Leparada, Papumpare and Anjaw with five cases each, four from Lower Subansiri, two each from Changlang, Lohit, Lower Siang and West Siang and one each from East Kameng, Shi-Yomi and Pakke Kessang district respectively, the SSO said. Of the fresh cases, 44 were detected through rapid antigen test and 5 through RT-PCR method, the official said. - PTI

President Tsai Ing-wen got vaccinated with Taiwan's first domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, giving her personal stamp of approval as the island begins rolling out the shot whose approval critics say has been rushed.The health ministry last month approved the emergency use of Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp's COVID-19 vaccine, part of a broader plan for inoculation self-sufficiency as delays in vaccine deliveries from global drug companies have affected Taiwan and many other countries.Tsai, who had held off using vaccines from Moderna Inc or AstraZeneca Plc, the current mainstay of Taiwan's vaccination programme, received her Medigen shot at a hospital in central Taipei, demonstrating her confidence in the safety of the vaccine.Tsai chatted to medical workers as they prepared her shot, the whole process being broadcast live on her Facebook page, and gave a short response of "no" to a shouted question from reporters about whether she was nervous."It doesn't hurt, I'm in good spirits, and I'm going to continue working for the day," she later wrote on Facebook. – Reuters

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday extended New Zealand's strict nationwide COVID-19 lockdown saying the current outbreak of the Delta variant of the coronavirus had not yet peaked.The level 4 national lockdown was extended by three days until midnight on Aug. 27 while Auckland, the epicentre of the outbreak, will have restrictions in place at least until Aug. 31."The safest option for all of us right now is to hold the course for longer," Ardern said at a news conference."If the world has taught us anything it is to be cautious with this variant of COVID-19," she added.Ardern said contacts in the community by people infected with the Delta variant were reported all over the country. There are more than 320 locations of interest linked to the outbreak and 13,000 contacts have been recorded, far more than in previous outbreaks."Delta has changed the rules of the game," Ardern said. – Reuters

China shares bounced back on Monday after last week's sharp drop, as authorities reported no new local COVID-19 cases for the first time since July, while technology and healthcare stocks helped Hong Kong equities rise after a two-day fall. – Reuters

Vietnamese soldiers on Monday were deployed on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City to help enforce a lockdown in the country's business hub, which has become the epicentre of its worst coronavirus outbreak so far during the pandemic.Panic-buying broke out at supermarkets in the city of nine million people over the weekend ahead of the tighter lockdown, which started on Monday and prohibits residents from leaving their homes.Vietnam's toughest order yet comes amid a spike in fatalities and infections.Soldiers on Monday were checking permits of residents on the streets and delivering food, according to witnesses and photographs on state media.The city began movement restrictions early last month, but infections have continued to surge after authorities said there had not been strict enough enforcement of the curbs.The city has recorded a total of 176,000 COVID-19 infections and 6,670 deaths, accounting for half of the Southeast Asian country's overall cases and 80% of fatalities, according to the health ministry. – Reuters

India reported 25,072 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, the lowest in 160 days, the government said in a statement on Monday. - Reuters 

With the addition of 196 new cases of coronavirus, the infection count in Maharashtra's Thane district has gone up to 5,49,596, an official said on Monday. These new cases were reported on Sunday, he said. The virus also claimed the lives of five more people, which pushed the death toll in the district to 11,244, he said, adding that the COVID-19 mortality rate in Thane stood at 2.04 per cent. In neighbouring Palghar district, the COVID-19 case count has gone up to 1,34,236, while the death toll has reached 3,277, another official said. - PTI

Andaman and Nicobar Islands did not record any new COVID-19 case in the last 24 hours, a health official said on Monday. The COVID-19 tally in the union territory remained at 7,557, he said. The archipelago now has eight active COVID-19 cases and all eight patients are in the South Andaman district. The other two districts - North and Middle Andaman and Nicobar - are COVID-19 free, the official said. One more person recuperated from COVID-19, taking the total number of coronavirus recoveries to 7,420, he said. The COVID-19 death toll in the union territory remained at 129 as no fresh fatality due to the disease was reported in the last 24 hours. So far 4,72,803 samples have been tested for COVID-19 and the cumulative test positivity rate is 1.60 per cent. - PTI

A third dose of Pfizer 's COVID-19 vaccine has significantly improved protection from infection and serious illness among people aged 60 and older in Israel compared with those who received two shots, findings published by the Health Ministry showed on Sunday.The data were presented at a meeting of a ministry panel of vaccination experts on Thursday and uploaded to its website on Sunday, though the full details of the study were not released.The findings were on par with separate statistics reported last week by Israel's Maccabi healthcare provider, one of several organisations administering booster shots to try to curb the Delta coronavirus variant.Breaking down statistics from Israel's Gertner Institute and KI Institute, ministry officials said that among people aged 60 and over, the protection against infection provided from 10 days after a third dose was four times higher than after two doses.A third jab for over 60-year-olds offered five to six times greater protection after 10 days with regard to serious illness and hospitalisation.That age group is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 and in Israel was the first to be inoculated when the vaccine drive began in late December. – Reuters

Japan's factory activity growth slowed in August, while that of the services sector shrank at the fastest pace since May last year, highlighting the increasingly heavy toll a recent wave of COVID-19 infections is taking on the economy.Manufacturers mostly withstood the impact of the coronavirus resurgence, due largely to the highly contagious Delta variant that is forcing governments in Japan and elsewhere in Asia to put in place lockdowns or other curbs.The au Jibun Bank Flash Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to a seasonally adjusted 52.4 in August from a final 53.0 in the prior month.Overall orders and export orders increased, though the pace of growth was the slowest in seven months. Firms faced severe supply chain disruptions from a global semiconductor shortage, IHS Markit said. – Reuters

North Korea has developed its own Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) equipment to conduct coronavirus tests, state media said on Monday, as the country steps up efforts to head off more contagious new strains of the virus.The isolated country has not confirmed any COVID-19 cases, but has sealed borders, restricted travel and imposed strict prevention measures, seeing the pandemic as a matter of national survival.As part of the anti-virus efforts, scientists and technicians at the State Academy of Sciences have developed the PCR system that meets global standards for the first time, said the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Worker's Party's newspaper.The equipment was introduced as one of recent achievements made under leader Kim Jong Un's push to localise machinery, tools and materials amid international sanctions and border closures that sharply reduced trade. – Reuters

China's health authority reported on Monday that there were no new locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 for the first time since July, offering more signs that the current outbreak which began late last month may be tapering off soon.The latest outbreak was driven mainly by infections first detected among a few airport workers in the eastern city of Nanjing on July 20. Since then, more than 1,200 people in China have been confirmed to be infected.The outbreak has spurred local authorities across the country to impose tough counter-epidemic measures including mass testing for millions of people to identify and isolate carriers, as well as treat the infected.No one has died in the current outbreak, which has largely focused on the cities of Nanjing and Yangzhou in the province of Jiangsu, near the financial hub of Shanghai.Across China, new local cases fell to the single-digits last week, after peaking in early August. – Reuters

The outbreak of the Delta variant of the coronavirus in New Zealand is not a "game changer" yet and there is no pressure to act on monetary policy, a senior official at the central bank said on Monday."At this stage we don't see it as a game-changer in the sense that our underlying economic analysis and views should be thrown out of the window and we should start again," the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's (RBNZ) Chief Economist Yuong Ha said in a phone interview with Reuters.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday the country must begin to ease strict COVID-19 restrictions once vaccination rates increase, with over half of all Australians enduring weeks-long lockdowns to curb Delta outbreaks.Some states have flagged they may not stick to a national plan that would include relaxing border controls, worried about a surge in cases in the country's southeast, with Sydney breaking new one-day records for infections."(Lockdowns) cannot go on forever. This is not a sustainable way to live in this country," Morrison said during a televised media conference in Canberra."Because if not at 70% and 80%, then when? Then when? We must make that move and we must prepare to make that move and we must prepare the country to make that move. – Reuters

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen received her first dose of the island's domestically developed coronavirus vaccine on Monday, launching its rollout to the public. The vaccine, made by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp., was given emergency approval by regulators in July using a shortcut that prompted fierce opposition from parts of Taiwan's medical and scientific community. Taiwanese regulators bypassed the large-scale, longer term studies that are typically used to approve vaccines. Instead, they compared the level of antibodies that Medigen's vaccine was able to generate with that of AstraZeneca's vaccine, which has been approved by many governments and has undergone the full three stages of clinical trials. The two-dose Medigen protein subunit vaccine uses a piece of the coronavirus to teach the body to mount an immune response. - AP