At a vaccination camp for children in Mumbai. (Express Photo: Amit Chakravarty)Coronavirus News Live: India reported 34,113 new Covid-19 cases and 346 related deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am, Monday. The active count dipped to 4,78,882, accounting for 1.2 per cent of overall cases. This is lower than Sunday’s count, when the country had over 5.37 lakh active Covid cases. The daily positivity rate saw a marginal rise from 3.17% on Sunday to 3.19%.
Just over 100 districts are now reporting a weekly positivity rate of more than 10 per cent, indicating a further decrease in the spread of coronavirus infection in the country, granular data being tracked by the Health Ministry show. A total of 105 districts reported more than 10 per cent positivity between February 5 and February 11, data from the ministry show. During the same period, 480 districts reported less than 5 per cent positivity. Five states currently have more than 10 districts with a positivity rate of more than 10 per cent: Rajasthan (17), Kerala (14), and Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram (11 each).
In other news, schools in Delhi reopened Monday for primary and middle school children after an almost two-year gap, which was only shortly broken in November 2021. Last week, students from classes 9 to 12 were allowed to resume offline classes following a dip in Covid cases in the city.
Schools in Delhi reopened Monday for primary and middle school children after an almost two-year gap, which was only shortly broken in November 2021. Last week, students from classes 9 to 12 were allowed to resume offline classes following a dip in Covid cases in the city.
Arunachal Pradesh on Monday reported 22 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the tally in the northeastern state to 64,004, a senior health official said. No casualty was reported in the past 24 hours.
Of the 22 fresh cases, nine were reported from the Capital Complex Region, four from Upper Siang, two each from Namsai and Lohit and one each from West Kameng, Tirap, Tawang, Lower Siang and Lower Subansiri district, the official said.
Single-day recoveries outnumbered new Covid-19 cases in Meghalaya on Sunday as 156 people were cured of the disease and 58 more tested positive for the infection, a health official said.
The fresh cases raised the tally to 92,991, while 90,678 people have so far recovered from the disease, he said. The death toll rose 1,562 as one more Covid patient succumbed to the infection, Health Services Director Dr Aman War said.
The northeastern state had on Saturday logged 86 new cases and two fatalities. Meghalaya now has 751 active cases, War said. (PTI)
Delhi’s daily Covid case count continued to decline, with the city reporting 804 cases on Sunday. The positivity rate, which was 1.68% on Saturday, dipped marginally to 1.5%.
With the decrease, market associations have made appeals to extend timings for markets and shops to open till 10 pm, instead of the 8 pm restriction at present.
The New Delhi Traders Association wrote to L-G Anil Baijal, who also heads the Delhi Disaster Management Association (DDMA), highlighting the problems they are facing. President of the association Atul Bhargava said that since the timing applicable to restaurants — 8 am to 11 pm — has been extended, the same metric should also apply to shops. Read more
The daily positivity rate saw a marginal rise from 3.17% on Sunday to 3.19% on Monday, according to the data provided by the Union Ministry of Health.
However, the weekly positivity rate climbed down to 3.99% from Sunday's 4.46%.
India reported 34,113 new Covid-19 cases and 346 deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am, Monday. The active count dipped to 4,78,882, accounting for 1.2 per cent of overall cases. This is lower than Sunday’s count when the country had over 5.37 lakh active Covid cases.
With the state reporting a consistent drop in new Covid infections, the West Bengal government on Sunday relaxed its guidelines for international air passengers, saying all but those arriving from the UK will not be tested for the virus nor be quarantined upon their arrival at the Kolkata airport.
Until now, all passengers who tested positive were quarantined for seven days. The government said 90% of the total tests for UK passengers will be through rapid antigen testing and the rest through the gold standard RT-PCR method.
J&K government issues new Covid guidelines; allows universities, colleges, ITIs to start offline classes from Feb 14. Classes from 9 to 12 (Summer Zone) can start offline. Classes for junior classes (Summer Zone) can start from Feb 21 Classes in winter zone can start after Feb 28.
Maharashtra on Sunday reported 3,502 new coronavirus positive cases, over 850 less than the day ago, which took the state's infection count to 78,42,949, while 17 deaths pushed the toll to 1,43,404, the health department said.
On Saturday, the state had logged 4,359 cases - over a thousand less than the previous day - and also reported 32 pandemic-related deaths. At present, there are 45,905 active cases in Maharashtra.
😷 Today's Covid numbers: Delhi (804 cases), Mumbai (288 cases), Bengaluru (1,059 cases), Chennai (461 cases), Kolkata (62 cases)
Bengaluru on Sunday recorded 1,059 new Covid cases and 7 deaths while a total of 2,372 covid cases were reported from Karnataka.
Mumbai on sunday reported 288 new Covid-19 cases and a single related death.
Kerala reported 11,136 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday. While the state added 11 related fatalities in the past 24 hours, 58 deaths that were newly certified as Covid-19 deaths based on the revised rules and 77 more deaths recorded late due to the delay in obtaining the documents were also added taking the death toll to 62,199. The test positivity was recorded as 18.43 per cent. There are 1,60,330 active Covid cases in Kerala.
Jammu and Kashmir lifts night curfew, educational institutions to resume physical classes in phased manner beginning Monday. (PTI)
Delhi on Sunday reported 804 fresh Covid-19 cases alomg with 12 more deaths. 1197 recoveries also recorded in the past 24 hours. test positivity rate stands at 1.50 per cent.
Biological E has sought emergency use authorisation from India's drug regulator for its Covid-19 vaccine Corbevax for the 12 to 18 years age group, official sources said on Sunday. The Drugs Controller General Of India (DCGI) has already approved Corbevax, which is India's first indigenously developed RBD protein sub-unit vaccine against Covid-19, for restricted use in emergency situation among adults on December 28. (PTI)
Over 70 per cent of India’s adolescents in the 15-18 age group have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine so far, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Sunday.
Twenty-two more coronavirus patients, including an infant, have died in Odisha and 1,148 people tested positive for the pathogen, the Health Department said on Sunday. The daily positivity rate was 1.82 per cent, the first time it fell below the threshold of 2 per cent since January 5. The infections are the lowest since 680 cases on January 4.
The state had logged 1,539 Covid-19 cases and 24 deaths on Friday. A four-month-old girl in Ganjam district and eight patients in Balasore were among the new fatalities. The toll mounted to 8,884 and these are confirmed as Covid deaths after an audit. Fifty-three other Covid-19 patients have died due to comorbidities so far, according to data. (PTI)
Amid a dip in Covid-19 cases, night curfew in Uttar Pradesh has been relaxed by an hour. Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Awanish Awasthi, said on Sunday that the "The night curfew will be imposed from 11 pm (to 6.00 am) instead of 10 pm,"
In the past 24 hours, as many 10 fresh Covid-19 deaths were reported in Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll in the state to 23,391. There are a total of 15,276 active Covid-19 cases in the state.
The relaxation in the night curfew comes a day after the Election Commission citing significant improvement in the Covid-19 situation and further relaxed pandemic-induced restrictions on the assembly poll campaign in five states, including Uttar Pradesh. (PTI)
Why should I exercise when I have COVID?
Your body does need some rest when you are sick. However, doing simple, gentle exercises while convalescing with COVID can help improve your symptoms.
People who are older, overweight, or have a chronic condition, such as diabetes, or cardiovascular (heart/circulation) and respiratory (lung) disease, are more likely to have COVID symptoms.
So these groups are among those who would particularly benefit from simple, gentle exercise at home. Read more