A health worker takes swab sample for Covid test in New Delhi. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)Coronavirus News Live Updates Today: India recorded 2,451 new Covid-19 cases and 54 deaths in the 24 hours ending 8 am Friday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Active cases increased to 14,241 while the recovery rate remained unchanged at 98.75 per cent.
Eighteen more students of IIT Madras tested positive for Covid-19 Friday morning taking the tally to 30. Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, who termed the spread as a small cluster, visited the campus on Friday alongside other health department officials to oversee the RT-PCR tests being carried out for those residing on the campus. The first case was detected on the campus on April 19.
In another development, 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.
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)
Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday warned against the return to the business-as-usual approach, saying we “can’t afford to put a price tag on the life of a citizen” as the pandemic is not behind us yet.
The chief executive defended his call for lowering the vaccination gap to six months from the present nine months to ensure that people don’t see again the pains they underwent in the first two waves of the pandemic, and not for making money, as he has made already enough.
“I have also offered vaccines for free to avoid waste, which I wouldn’t have done if my objective is money,” he said. (Read More)
Singapore will remove most remaining Covid-19 restrictions from April 26, in response to a decline in new daily infections, its health ministry said on Friday.
The measures include removing limits on group sizes, allowing the full return of employees to workplaces and scrapping a requirement for vaccinated travellers to take a Covid test before departing for Singapore. (Reuters)
Officials in Shanghai promised Friday to ease anti-virus controls on truck drivers that are hampering food supplies and trade, while city streets were still largely empty after millions of people were allowed out of their homes.
A deputy mayor, Zhang Wei, promised ``every effort'' to resolve problems that prompted complaints about lack of food and fears that the shutdown, which barred most of Shanghai's 25 million people from going outdoors, might disrupt global trade.
The streets of China's most populous city were quiet despite an easing of restrictions beginning April 13 that has released more than 10 million people. Many were barred from leaving their neighborhoods. Others had nowhere to go because most factories, shops and offices were closed.
In one neighborhood, a woman rode a skateboard and a couple took a child's photo outside a park. Delivery drivers rode past on scooters while government employees in white suits sprayed disinfectant on trash bags. (AP)
No student or staff should be allowed entry into school premises without thermal scanning and if any of them tests Covid positive, the institute's authorities must take appropriate quarantine measures, according to Delhi government guidelines for schools.
The guidelines were issued in the wake of a spike in coronavirus patients in the city that on Thursday logged 965 cases, 1,009 on Wednesday, 632 on Tuesday and 501 on Monday.
Schools have also been advised to ask students to not share lunch and stationery items, the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the city government stated.
Parents should be advised to not send their ward to school if the child or any member in the family tests positive or shows Covid symptoms, it said.
"If a student as well as staff member displays any Covid symptoms, they should be moved away from other people into an outdoor ventilated space or quarantine room," the SOP stated. (PTI)
Eighteen more students of IIT Madras tested positive for Covid-19 Friday morning taking the tally to 30 till now. Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, who termed the spread as a small cluster, visited the campus on Friday alongside other health department officials to oversee the RT-PCR tests being carried out for those residing on the campus.
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.
A UK patient with a severely weakened immune system had Covid-19 for almost a year and a half, scientists reported, underscoring the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus.
There’s no way to know for sure whether it was the longest-lasting Covid-19 infection because not everyone gets tested, especially on a regular basis like this case.
But at 505 days, “it certainly seems to be the longest reported infection,” said Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, an infectious disease expert at the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. (AP)
DOMESTIC AIR traffic is recovering from the Covid blow, having edged past the pre-pandemic daily passenger count of 4 lakh, and the aviation market is now seeing a fresh dose of competition with a pitched battle for the second spot.
Low-cost carrier IndiGo stays at the top with more than half the domestic market share, but there are three contenders — Air India, SpiceJet and GoFirst — for the second spot. According to monthly traffic data published by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for March, GoFirst became the third airline this year to occupy the No.2 rank in terms of passenger market share after Air India and SpiceJet had dominated the spot.
Read Pranav Mukul's full report here
Shanghai has extended the COVID-19 lockdown to April 26, amid reports of growing public resentment as the eastern metropolis of 26 million reported 11 more deaths on Thursday, taking the toll in the current outbreak to 36.
China on Thursday reported 2,119 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which 1,931 were reported in Shanghai, according to the National Health Commission. Shanghai has added 17,629 new cases in the previous 24 hours, 4.7 per cent fewer than a day earlier, according to data released on Friday, taking the city's cumulative cases since March 1 to 443,500. (PTI)
An increase of 808 Covid-19 cases has been recorded in India's active caseload in a span of 24 hours. The active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections.
Puducherry recorded zero coronavirus cases on Thursday and the cumulative figure remained 1,65,777. There was no active case as the one patient in home quarantine recovered and the overall recoveries stood at 1,63,815.
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)
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.
India recorded 2,451 new Covid-19 cases and 54 deaths in the 24 hours ending 8 am Friday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Active cases currently stand at 14,241 while the recovery rate remained unchanged at 98.75 per cent.
Tamil Nadu on Thursday posted 39 fresh Covid-19 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.
Delhi has started providing free Covid-19 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-19 vaccine to the 18-plus population through private vaccination centres had started across the country on April 10.
Delhi logged 965 fresh Covid cases in a day with a positivity rate of 4.71 per cent while one person died due to the infection, according to data shared by the city health department on Thursday. A total of 20,480 tests were conducted in the city a day ago, the data showed. Delhi had reported one death and 1,009 Covid cases on Wednesday, the maximum since February 10, with a positivity rate of 5.7 per cent.
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)