Coronavirus LIVE Updates: For 1st Time Since Vax Drive, BMC Stocks 5L+ Doses But Sees Few Takers; India Records 10,853 New Cases

India saw a single-day rise of 10,853 COVID-19 infections, which took the country’s total tally of cases to 3,43,55,536, while active cases have declined to 1,44,845, the lowest in 260 days, according to Union health ministry data updated on Sunday. The death toll has climbed to 4,60,791 with 526 more fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 30 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 133 consecutive days now, the ministry said. The active cases have declined to 1,44,845, comprising 0.42 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March last year, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.24 per cent, the highest since March last year, it said.

With the addition of 95 new cases of coronavirus, the infection count in Maharashtra’s Thane district has gone up to 5,66,631, while four deaths pushed the toll to 11,542, an official said on Sunday. These new cases were reported on Saturday, he said.

The COVID-19 mortality rate in Thane is 2.03 percent, he added. In neighboring Palghar district, the COVID-19 case count has gone up to 1,38,149, while the death toll is 3,289, another official said.

Arunachal Pradesh’s COVID-19 tally rose to 55,180 as four more persons tested positive for the infection, two more than the previous day, a senior health official said here on Sunday. The total number of recoveries in the state rose to 54,840 as five more persons recuperated from the disease on Saturday, the official said.

The COVID-19 recovery rate in the state now is 99.38 per cent, while the active percentage is 0.11, State Surveillance Officer (SSO) Dr Lobsang Jampa said. The COVID-19 death toll in the frontier state remained at 280 as no fresh fatality was reported in the last 24 hours, the SSO said.

Arunachal Pradesh now has 60 active COVID-19 cases. Tawang district has the highest number of active cases at 11, followed by Lower Dibang Valley, Lohit and East Siang at nine cases each.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked the officials to escalate the pace of the Covid vaccination programme, with a focus on the second dose, across the state. The chief minister has issued directions to expedite the inoculation drive by setting a target of delivering 25 to 30 lakh doses every day, in the next two months.

According to the government spokesman, the chief minister said, “A target should be set to vaccinate around 25 to 30 lakh people daily so that 100 per cent eligible population gets vaccinated against Covid-19. To expedite vaccine coverage, the additional chief secretary, health, must start the preparations and speed up the proceedings by holding a meeting with all the chief medical officers of the state.”

Tanzanian authorities have said that between 80,000 and 100,000 people will be vaccinated daily against Covid-19 during the second phase of the inoculation campaign. A statement by the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children said the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Abel Makubi, revealed the acceleration of the vaccination in a meeting with Regional Medical officers and Covid-19 vaccination coordinators in the capital Dodoma.

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 249.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.04 million and vaccinations soared to over 7.22 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Sunday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and the total number of vaccine doses administered stood at 249,502,872, 5,043,945 and 7,226,106,343, respectively.

A US federal appeals court Saturday halted a vaccine mandate by President Joe Biden’s administration that is intended to push millions of workers at businesses with more than 100 employees into getting Covid-19 shots. The New Orleans-based US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that because petitioners “give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate, the Mandate is hereby STAYED pending further action by this court.” The traditionally conservative court ordered the government to reply to the motion for a permanent injunction by 5:00 pm Monday.

The Karnataka government on Friday withdrew the night curfew that was enforced in April this year, to curb Covid-19. The night curfew, which is generally effective from 10 pm to 5 am, has been withdrawn with immediate effect, Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar said in a notification. According to a report in The Indian Express, the hotel industry and the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) have welcomed the move by the government as an important step to revive the service industry in cities such as Bengaluru.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha reviewed the coronavirus situation in the Union Territory on Saturday and directed for strict enforcement of Covid-appropriate behaviour to check any spike in the cases. Sinha also reviewed the situation of dengue in Jammu and directed the officials concerned for effective prevention efforts even as a central team is in Jammu to assess the on-ground situation in the Union Territory.

Reviewing the COVID-19 situation during a series of meetings with the members of the Covid Task Force, deputy commissioners and superintendents of police, Sinha emphasised on the need to take effective and quick actions to minimise COVID-19 impacts. He termed rapid asymptomatic testing and contact tracing as important tools to help reduce the spread of the virus.

Punjab recorded 25 fresh Covid cases, taking the infection tally to 6,02,517, according to a medical bulletin. The death toll remained at 16,562 as no new Covid-related fatality was reported in the state. Of the fresh cases, Mohali reported 10, followed by eight in Jalandhar and two each in Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran. There are 219 active cases in the state, while 21 people have recuperated from the infection in the last 24 hours, taking the number of those who have been cured to 5,85,736, according to the bulletin.

Meanwhile, Chandigarh reported one Covid case, taking the total count to 65,360. The death toll in the city stood at 820. There are 29 active cases in the Union Territory, 64,511 people have recovered from the infection.

Chhattisgarh’s COVID-19 tally rose to 10,06,159 on Saturday as 27 new cases came to light, while the death toll remained unchanged at 13,584, an official said. The number of recoveries touched 9,92,316 after seven people were discharged from hospitals and 19 completed home isolation during the day, leaving the state with 259 active cases, he said.

“Korba and Jashpur recorded five new cases each. No fresh case was reported in 19 districts. With 10,264 samples examined during the day, the number of tests in Chhattisgarh went up to 1,37,36,558,” the official added. Chhattisgarh’s coronavirus figures are as follows: Positive cases 10,06,159, New cases 27, Death toll 13,584, Recovered 9,92,316, Active cases 259, today tests 10,264, Total tests 1,37,36,558.

Slovenia will on Monday increase restrictions designed to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, the government said on its website amid the worsening situation. From Monday, any gathering of people will be prohibited temporarily apart from those within the same household. People will no longer be allowed to use ordinary textile face masks but surgical masks or FFP2 masks in all indoor public spaces.

In order to enter most public institutions, people will have to show personal identification as well as a certificate of vaccination, a negative test or proof that they have recovered from Covid-19, Xinhua news agency reported.

Chile reported 2,895 cases of Covid-19 and 27 deaths in the last 24 hours amid an outbreak of infections in the country, the Ministry of Health (Minsal) has reported. With these figures, the accumulated number of infections rose to 1,706,622, with 37,841 deaths.

Minsal said in a statement on Saturday that the positivity rate in the country in the last 24 hours reached 3.36 per cent after the results of 82,419 tests were analyzed, Xinhua news agency reported.

As Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state has begun to see a tapering of its vaccination rates, authorities announced on Sunday that the state would transition to the booster program phase of its vaccination rollout. As the state inches towards its 95 per cent inoculation target as of midnight Friday, 93.9 per cent of the NSW’s above 16 years population have had at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 89.7 per cent have been fully vaccinated, Xinhua news agency reported.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, during Sunday’s press conference, said the state would transit to its booster program phase, focusing first on the state’s most vulnerable population.

Costa Rican children aged five and up must get COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a new health ministry mandate, making the Central American country one of the first to adopt such a requirement for kids. The move would add COVID-19 to a list of other infectious diseases in which vaccines for children have for years been required, including for polio and smallpox.

“Our basic vaccination scheme has made it possible to subdue many of the viruses that cause suffering and health consequences and even fatalities in the underage population,” Health Minister Daniel Salas said in a statement issued on Friday, announcing the addition of COVID-19 to the scheme.

Nagaland’s COVID-19 caseload rose to 31,922 on Saturday with the detection of 17 new infections, six more than the previous day, a health department official said. The state’s coronavirus death toll rose to 689 after a patient died in Dimapur district, he said.

Of the new cases, Dimapur reported 13 while Kiphire, Kohima, Mokokchung, and Phek districts reported one each. The number of recoveries increased to 29,998 on Saturday after 13 COVID-19 patients recuperated during the day, the official said. The state’s COVID-19 recovery rate is now 93.97 per cent, he said. Nagaland currently has 188 active COVID-19 cases, while 1,047 coronavirus patients have migrated to other states.

The rising Covid numbers in the Northern Hemisphere are due to winter seasonality, waning immunity for those vaccinated, decreased mask use and increased mobility levels. At the global level, clearly the declines that the world was seeing which began in late August-early September for infections and then by mid-September for cases and deaths have essentially stopped, and we’re starting to see at the global level flattening and actual reversals, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

IHME is an independent global health research centre at the University of Washington. “Covid is not over as some people seem to think it is, and in fact, we expect that we’re entering a phase where we will have to pay more attention to Covid, certainly over the Northern Hemisphere winter,” it said.

Delhi on Saturday recorded zero death due to COVID-19 and 36 fresh cases with a positivity rate of 0.10 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department. The number of cumulative cases stood at 14,40,071. Over 14.14 lakh patients have recovered from the infection.

The death toll due to the coronavirus infection in Delhi stood at 25,091. The national capital has not reported any death due to COVID-19 so far this month. It reported four COVID-19 deaths in October and five in September. The case positivity rate slightly decreased to 0.10 per cent on Saturday, according to the latest health bulletin.

Himachal Pradesh recorded six coronavirus-related fatalities on Saturday, pushing the death toll to 3,757, while the infection tally rose to 2,24,830 with 114 fresh cases, an official said. Three new fatalities were reported from Kangra, two from Hamirpur and one from Una. Besides, 231 more patients recovered from the infection, taking the recovery count to 2,19,681, the health official said. The number of active Covid cases now stood at 1,375 in the state.

The coronavirus situation marginally improved in Assam on Saturday with the state registering 239 new infections, same as Friday’s daily count, and two fresh COVID-19 fatalities, three less than the previous day. The new cases and deaths have pushed the total caseload in the state to 6,12,134, a National Health Mission (NHM) bulletin said. The day’s positivity rate decreased to 0.67 per cent as against 0.68 on Friday. Kamrup (Metro) reported the highest number of new cases at 94, followed by Kamrup (Rural) with 25. The new cases were detected out of 35,450 tests, an increase from 35,000 clinical examinations conducted during the previous day, while the cumulative tests conducted in the state thus far have reached 2,49,16,836.

The two COVID-19 fatalities reported from Kamrup (Metro) and Darrang have taken the death toll to 6,026.