Jammu: A healthcare worker collects a swab sample of a passenger for Covid-19 testing amid a surge in coronavirus cases, at Charbagh railway station in Lucknow, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. (PTI Photo/Nand Kumar)Coronavirus News Live Updates Today: Delhi will provide free Covid precautionary dose to beneficiaries in the 18-59 age group at government vaccination centres, the city health department said on Thursday. “In order to give the benefit of precaution dose to all eligible beneficiaries in Delhi, the same will be available for 18 to 59 years’ age group, free of cost in all government CVCs,” the health department said in an order.
The Punjab government on Thursday advised people to wear face masks at crowded places amid a surge in coronavirus cases in some of the states. Punjab on Wednesday had reported 30 fresh cases, taking its coronavirus tally to 7,59,334. According to the advisory issued by the Department of Home Affairs and Justice, wearing of masks should be ensured in closed environments such as in buses, trains, aircrafts, cinema halls, shopping malls, departmental stores, offices and classrooms.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said that the number of reported new Covid-19 cases worldwide decreased by nearly a quarter last week, continuing a decline since the end of March. The Geneva-based UN health agency said in a weekly report that nearly 5.59 million cases were reported between April 11 and 17, 24% fewer than in the previous week, AP reported.
Jammu: A healthcare worker collects a swab sample of a woman for Covid-19 testing, at a market in Jammu, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. (PTI Photo)
Tamil Nadu on Thursday posted 39 fresh Covid cases, pushing the caseload to 34,53,390 as the state continued to witness an increasing trend.
The toll remained 38,025 with zero fatalities being recorded in the last 24 hours, a medical bulletin said.
Taking cognizance of the rise in new cases, the government directed the health department to step up testing of samples to around 25,000 a day from the present 18,000 cases. (PTI)
Delhi logged 965 fresh Covid cases in a day with a positivity rate of 4.71 per cent while one more person succumbed to the infection, according to data shared by the health department on Thursday.
A total of 20,480 tests were conducted in the city a day ago, it stated. Delhi had reported one death and 1,009 fresh Covid cases on Wednesday, the maximum since February 10, with a positivity rate of 5.7 per cent.
On Tuesday, the city had reported 632 cases with a positivity rate of 4.42 per cent. A day before, Delhi logged 501 cases with a positivity rate of 7.72 per cent. (PTI)
Telangana on Thursday recorded 17 new Covid cases taking the tally to 7,91,709 so far. Hyderabad reported the highest number of cases with 12.
A bulletin said 24 people recuperated from the infectious disease, raising the cumulative number of recoveries till date to 7,87,411. The recovery rate stood at 99.46 per cent.
No fresh fatality occurred and its toll continued to be 4,111. The bulletin said 14,337 samples were tested today. The number of active cases was 187, it said. (PTI)
The subject expert panel on Covid-19 vaccines on Thursday recommended India’s drug regulator to grant emergency use authorisation to Hyderabad-based Biological E’s Corbevax for the age group of 5-12 years subject to various conditions, health ministry sources said.
Top sources told The Indian Express that recommendations of the subject expert committee will be taken up by India’s drug regulator for formal approval of the vaccine in the next few days.
With Thursday’s approval, Biological E’s Corbevax will become the first Covid-19 vaccine candidate that could be likely administered for children aged above 5 years, after the government expert body on Covid-19 takes a final decision to roll out Covid-19 vaccination for this age group. Read more
Delhi will provide free Covid precautionary dose to beneficiaries in the 18-59 age group at government vaccination centres, the city health department said on Thursday.
The administration of the precautionary or third dose of Covid vaccine to the 18-plus population through private vaccination centres had started across the country on April 10.
"In order to give the benefit of precaution dose to all eligible beneficiaries in Delhi, the same will be available for 18 to 59 years' age group, free of cost in all government CVCs from April 21," the health department said in an order. (PTI)
Italy reported 75,020 Covid related cases on Thursday, against 99,848 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily number of deaths fell to 166 from 205.
Italy has registered 162,264 deaths linked to Covid since its outbreak emerged in February 2020, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth highest in the world. The country has reported 15.93 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid - not including those in intensive care - stood at 10,231 on Thursday, up from 10,207 a day earlier. There were 40 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 44 on Wednesday. The total number of intensive care patients stood at 415, increasing from a previous 413. (Reuters)
Gujarat reported 19 new coronavirus positive cases and one fatality on Thursday, taking its infection tally to 12,24,214 and death toll to 10,943, the state health department said.
The Covid-linked death was reported for the first time in the state in nearly a month. The state had last reported such fatality on March 22. The latest death occurred in Vadodara.
As 12 patients were discharged during the day, the number of recoveries rose to 12,13,173, the department said in a release. With this, the number of active cases in the state stood at 98. (PTI)
Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 179 fresh coronavirus cases, 17 more than the day before, and one fatality linked to the infection, the health department said.
With this, the state's overall Covid tally rose to 78,76,382, while the toll increased to 1,47,831, the department said in a bulletin. On Wednesday, the state had recorded 162 coronavirus cases, but zero fatality.
Mumbai recorded 91 cases, more than half of the new patients detected in the state in the last 24 hours. The state's active cases rose to 762 --- 72 more than the day ago. (PTI)
Genome sequencing laboratories in Delhi have detected a sub-variant of the omicron sub-variant BA.2, which was announced by the New York state health department, which said that it had 23% to 27% growth advantage over the BA.2 variant of omicron.
The samples, which were positive for the new sub-variant (BA2.12.1), have been sent to the country’s apex Covid-19 genome sequencing consortium INSACOG for confirmation, according to officials from Delhi’s health department.
“We have not detected the sub variant yet. We have known of this sub-variant only for a couple of week and it will take some time before we can say whether it is more transmissible, whether it causes different symptoms,” said a senior official from INSACOG. Read more
Some hospitals in Canada's most populous provinces are cancelling or postponing medical procedures in the face of another wave of the coronavirus pandemic, increasing backlogs of procedures that health practitioners say will take years to work through and could cost more lives.
There are some signs the sixth Covid wave may be peaking in Ontario, Canada's most populous province. But hospitals are facing a double whammy of new Covid infections and, to a much greater degree, health workers off sick or isolating due to Covid just as some had begun to tackle pandemic backlogs.
Covid hospitalisations in Ontario are below their January peak but, as a lagging indicator, keep rising after estimated infections may be peaking. Health worker absences are hitting operations when burnout is high and as hospitals struggle to cope with years of deferred care, administrators say. (Reuters)
Jammu and Kashmir reported 10 fresh Covid cases on Thursday that took the infection tally to 4,53,966, officials said. Of the new cases, five each was reported from Jammu and Kashmir division, they said.
Jammu district logged four new cases, followed by three in Srinagar, two in Baramulla and one in Kathua, officials said. There are 55 active cases while the overall recoveries has reached 4,49,160, they said.
The Covid death toll stands at 4,751. No Covid-related fatality was reported in the last 24 hours, officials said. There were 51 confirmed cases of mucormycosis (black fungus), they added. (PTI)
A senior health official in Telangana on Thursday urged citizens to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour in view of a rise in cases in some States, even as he discounted the possibility of a fourth wave in the State where about 93 per cent of the people have developed anti-bodies.
Citing the sero-survey conducted recently by the city-based National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), State Director of Public Health G Srinivasa Rao said the sero-positivity rate was found to be 92.9 per cent among the general population in the State. The sero-positivity rate was 93.1 per cent among healthcare workers. It was over 97 per cent in Hyderabad.
Rao said R-value in the State is less than 0.5 per cent. R-value indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to. The positivity rate in the State is 0.14 per cent. (PTI)
Vaccine inequity remains an issue both within India, where less than 2 per cent of the population has received a Covid booster, and the globe with 56 countries unable to inoculate even 10 percent of their people, says Johns Hopkins scientist Amita Gupta.
Tracking hospitalisation rates which provide an indicator of severity of illness is key, the chief of the Division of Infectious Disease, and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said while stressing that no one is safe from Covid until everyone in the world gets vaccinated.
She cited the example of the Omicron variant to buttress her point. The highly transmissible variant is believed to have emerged in November last year in South Africa and Botswana due to inadequate immunisation in African countries before spreading globally, Gupta said, adding that another variant is likely to follow the same trend. (PTI)
Mumbai on Thursday recorded 91 new Covid-19 cases. Of the total, 90 are asymptomatic and one was hospitalised. No virus-related fatalities were reported in the city on Thursday.
Omicron sublineage BA.2.12 has been detected in a majority of the samples sequenced from Delhi in the first fortnight of April and it could be behind the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the city, sources said Thursday.
However, an Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) source has claimed that Omicron variant derivative BA.2.12.1 has also been found in a few samples in Delhi which is said to be contributing to the recent rise in cases in the US.
But officials have not confirmed that it indeed was found in some samples in Delhi. (PTI)
Twelve students at the IIT Madras campus have tested positive for Covid-19, prompting health secretary J Radhakrishnan to inspect the campus and to direct officials to sanitize the locality and follow safety guidelines.
Radhakrishnan said the first case was detected on April 19 and two more students tested positive on April 20 following which the health department, the Chennai municipal corporation and the medical team at the IIT Madras campus took samples of those who were in close contact with these students. Read more
Even though Covid cases are on the rise, there is no need to panic and the risk for those who have taken the vaccines is very low, an Uttar Pradesh government spokesperson said here on Thursday.
According to health experts, it is possible that in the coming days, there may be an increase in new cases of the disease, but the current variant of the virus is a "normal" one, the official said. There is no need to panic but caution has to be maintained, he added.
On guidelines issued by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at a meeting to review the Covid situation in the state, the spokesman said there is a need to be vigilant about the health safety of children and that they should be made aware of Covid protocols in schools. (PTI)
The Punjab government on Thursday advised people to wear face masks at crowded places amid a surge in coronavirus cases in some of the states.
Punjab on Wednesday had reported 30 fresh cases, taking its coronavirus tally to 7,59,334.
According to the advisory issued by the Department of Home Affairs and Justice, wearing of masks should be ensured in closed environments such as in buses, trains, aircrafts, cinema halls, shopping malls, departmental stores, offices and classrooms. (PTI)
The omicron variant overtook delta in January when the third wave was at its peak in the capital as shown by government data, which revealed that 79% of the total samples sent for genome sequencing was of omicron and 14% was of delta. In February and March, omicron cases had an incidence of 100% and delta stood at zero. A total of 783 samples were sent for sequencing of which 504 were analysed and the prevalence of omicron was at 100%, data showed.
Meanwhile, about 97% deaths during the peak of the third wave of the pandemic had the omicron variant, shows data. While 1,035 people died of Covid from January-March, a majority of these deaths were incidental – they were people with serious illnesses or those admitted to hospitals with co-morbidities, who were later infected with Covid. Read more
Shanghai reported eight more deaths due to COVID-19, taking the toll in the current outbreak in the eastern metropolis to 25, while the Chinese mainland reported over 19,300 cases due to the new Omicron variant. Wednesday saw eight deaths from COVID-19, all in Shanghai, China's National Health Commission reported on Thursday.
With this, the death toll in China since coronavirus emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 has reached 4,663 according to official data. On Wednesday, the Chinese mainland reported total 19,382 COVID-19 cases, including 2,830 who tested positive while the rest were asymptomatic cases with a majority of them in Shanghai, the country's financial hub. (AP)