Passengers exiting from the arrivals gate of international terminal of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International airport, Ahmedabad. (Express file photo by Nirmal Harindran)Coronavirus News Live Updates: Issuing new guidelines for international travellers, the Ministry of Health Thursday scrapped the mandatory seven-day home quarantine. The new guidelines, which come into effect from February 14, require passengers to self-monitor their health for 14 days after arrival and isolate in case they develop symptoms of Covid-19. All passengers will undergo thermal screening on arrival and be isolated at a medical facility if found symptomatic. If they test positive, their contacts will be identified as per protocol.
The ‘at-risk’ tag for countries has also been removed. Moreover, passengers from 82 countries are allowed to upload a certificate of full vaccination instead of a negative RT-PCR report obtained 72 hours prior to boarding. These countries include those which have an agreement with India on mutual recognition of vaccination certificates of nationally recognised or WHO recognised vaccines or those which provide quarantine-free entry to Indians.
Meanwhile, India reported 67,084 new Covid-19 cases and 1,241 related deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am, Thursday. The active caseload in the country dipped to 7,90,789, from Wednesday’s 8.92 lakh. The daily positivity rate also saw a slight decrease from 4.54% to 4.44% on Thursday.
A health worker administers a dose of Covid-19 vaccine to a beneficiary at a school in New Delhi, Monday. (Express Photo By Amit Mehra)
As per the revised guidelines, all international passengers will undergo thermal screening on arrival and be isolated at a medical facility if found symptomatic. If they test positive, their contacts will be identified as per protocol.
The revised guidelines will kick in from February 14.
Passengers from 82 countries are allowed to upload a certificate of full vaccination instead of a negative RT-PCR report obtained 72 hours prior to boarding. The revised guidelines will kick in from February 14.
These countries include those which have an agreement with India on mutual recognition of vaccination certificates of nationally recognised or WHO recognised vaccines or those which provide quarantine-free entry to Indians. A list of these countries, which includes UK, US, Australia, Canada and Maldives, can be accessed here.
Issuing new guidelines for international travellers, the Ministry of Health Thursday scrapped the mandatory seven-day home quarantine. The new guidelines, which come into effect from February 14, require passengers to self-monitor their health for 14 days after arrival and isolate in case they develop symptoms of Covid-19.
The ‘at-risk’ tag for countries has also been removed. "Accordingly, the need for giving samples on port of arrival and waiting till the result is obtained from countries ‘at-risk’ is dispensed with," the Health Minister tweeted.
Moreover, there will be random testing of 2% of international travellers from all countries on arrival. Travellers can give samples and are allowed to leave the airport.
After nearly touching one lakh doses for two consecutive days, the Covid-19 vaccination in Delhi slowed down again Wednesday as only 79,013 doses were administered for the day.
Of these, 44.6 per cent of doses were given to children between the ages of 15 to 18 years and second doses accounted for almost 75 per cent of vaccination, according to the data from the government’s CoWIN portal. Read more
According to the data provided by the Union government, as many as 171.28 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far in the country.
Further, more than 1.61 crore precautionary doses have been administered. The third dose drive for priority groups began on January 10.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said pointedly on Wednesday that while Covid-19 caseloads are dropping overall in the US and her agency is working on new guidance for the states, it is too soon for all Americans to take off their masks in indoor public places.
However, if the drop in cases and hospitalizations continues, as many experts expect, Biden himself will soon have some tough decisions to make: Should he declare an end to the national emergency that his predecessor, President Donald Trump, declared in March 2020? Should Biden lift the mask mandate that he imposed for travel on airplanes, trains and buses? Read more
Ninety more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Arunachal Pradesh, pushing the virus tally to 63,814, a senior health official said here on Thursday.
The Covid-19 death toll in the northeastern state rose to 293 after a person succumbed to the infection, State Surveillance Officer Dr Lobsang Jampa said.
Of the 90 new cases, 28 were reported from the Capital Complex Region, 11 from East Siang, seven each from West Kameng and Tawang, six each from Lower Subansiri and Namsai and three each from Changlang, Lower Dibang Valley and Anjaw district respectively. (PTI)
Pune's weekly Covid positivity rate may be higher than the state average, but compared to the over 50,000 cases detected in the January 26 – February 1 week, there has been a significant drop in new infections. In the February 2 – 8 week, Pune reported only 22,719 fresh cases — a drop of 54% as compared to the previous week.
The state’s Covid positivity rate in the week ending February 8 was 9.3%. Pune is among 23 districts whose weekly positivity rate (WPR) is higher than the state average. The WPR in Pune district is 18.8% while Amravati, Wardha and Nagpur have weekly positivity rates between 23% and 27%. Read more
The Food and Drug Administration’s upcoming review of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for young children is without precedent in recent history.
Next week, scientific advisers to the agency will decide whether to endorse two doses of the vaccine for children 6 months to 4 years old, before clinical trials have shown the full course — three doses — to be effective. Such an authorization would be a first for the agency, many experts say.
In fact, interim results from the trial suggested that two doses of the vaccine did not produce a strong immune response in children ages 2 to 4. Results from trials of the third dose are expected in a few weeks. Read more
Andaman and Nicobar Islands recorded a dip in new Covid-19 cases as eight people tested positive for the infection, 10 less than the previous day, pushing the total caseload to 9,951, a health department official said on Thursday.
The Covid-19 death toll remained at 129 as no fresh fatality was reported in the last 24 hours, he said.
The union territory now has 168 active Covid-19 cases, while 9,654 people have recovered from the disease so far, the official said. (PTI)
It depends, but you should be able to use N95s and KN95s a few times.
The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says health care workers can wear an N95 mask up to five times. But experts say how often the average person can safely wear one will vary depending on how it’s used.
Using the same mask to run to the grocery store, for example, is very different than wearing it all day at work.
The amount of time a mask is worn is more important than how frequently it’s worn, says Richard Flagan, who studies masks and aerosols at the California Institute of Technology. In general, he recommends limiting the use of an N95 mask to about two or three days. Read more
India recorded 67,084 new Covid-19 cases and 1,241 related deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am, Thursday.
The active caseload in the country dipped to 7,90,789, from Wednesday’s 8.92 lakh. The daily positivity rate also saw a slight decrease from 4.54% to 4.44% on Thursday.
West Bengal's Covid-19 tally rose to 20,08,133 on Wednesday after 884 new infections, 148 more than the previous day's count, were registered, the health department said in its bulletin.
It said that 28 new fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 20,912.
On Tuesday, the state had recorded 736 new cases and 32 more deaths.
The positivity rate, which was 1.87 per cent on Tuesday, increased slightly to 1.89 per cent. (PTI)
Mumbai continued to record less than 500 Covid cases on Wednesday. Two days after recording 356 cases, it showed a slight increase in the daily cases at 441. An increase in the number of deaths due to the infection was also recorded with nine Covid fatalities on Wednesday.
The test positivity rate —the number of positive cases out of the total tests conducted — slightly dropped from 1.29 per cent on Tuesday to 1.16 per cent. Since earlier this month, daily testing has dropped below 40,000. The number of tests conducted in the city was 37,800.
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