A healthcare worker collects a swab sample from a passenger for Covid-19 testing amid a surge in coronavirus cases, at a railway station in Prayagraj, Tuesday. (PTI)
India witnessed a slight dip in new cases, with 2,827 new Coronavirus infections registered on Thursday. Meanwhile, 24 patients succumbed to the infection since yesterday.
The European Union will no longer require masks to be worn at airports and on planes starting next week amid the easing of coronavirus restrictions across the bloc, authorities said Wednesday. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said it hoped the joint decision, made with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, would mark “a big step forward in the normalisation of air travel” for passengers and crews, AP reported.
India numbers up, but UP death registrations fell in pandemic year While the trend of increasing registrations of deaths in India continued in 2020 as well, Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, saw a big drop, despite the fact that the total number of deaths would probably have risen due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to data from the Civil Registration System (CRS), Uttar Pradesh registered 8.73 lakh deaths in 2020, down from 9.44 lakh deaths registered in 2019.
Kerala, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Delhi also saw a drop in death registrations in 2020 as compared to the previous year. In fact, in percentage terms, Telangana registered a 11 per cent decline as compared to a 7.5 per cent fall in UP.
Why there’s no agreement on India’s Covid death figures With the images from the Covid pandemic, of burning pyres and floating bodies, still fresh in our minds, the current debate on the magnitude of mortality during 2020 and 2021 looks surreal and unsympathetic. There are two extreme positions. One, that the government is showcasing the whole episode as yet another successful management effort by underreporting the number, and the other, that is projecting India to be the biggest contributor to the death pool globally by using fragmented data and macro-level modelling. By deaths per thousand population, India, however, does not figure among the top 100 countries, though the infection fatality rate of 1.2 per cent places it in seventh position globally.
As accurate death statistics by causes is hard to come by — around 70 per cent of deaths take place at homes even in normal times — attempts have been made to estimate the Covid deaths by identifying “excess” deaths over what would have been the number otherwise. There are conceptual issues involved since deaths due to starvation, returnee migrants miseries, those linked to the lockdown, unemployment, and other ailments not receiving medical help due to pressure on the system, are not due to Covid, but are part of excess deaths. Also, the Supreme Court’s decision to consider all deaths within three months of Covid infliction as Covid deaths resulted in a surge in reporting. Similarly, the lives saved due to the lockdown and measures adopted by people to protect themselves from the virus and those who would have died due to other causes had there been no Covid, would have to be taken on the positive side, increasing the discrepancy between Covid and excess death.
Gurugram: A healthworker administers a dose of Covid-19 vaccine to a beneficiary at a vaccination centre, in Gurugram, Monday, May 9, 2022. (PTI Photo)
Shanghai will try again to reopen in a few days after it has eliminated COVID-19 transmission among the population at large as an outbreak in China's largest city subsides, an official said Friday.
The strict lockdown of the city — now in its seventh week but moved, lifted and reinforced at times to the frustration of residents — is part of the ruling Communist Party's “zero-COVID” goal that has exacted a mounting economic toll and that even the World Health Organization says may be unsustainable.
The goal in Shanghai is to achieve “elimination in society,” meaning any new cases would only be in people already in isolation, Vice Mayor Wu Qing said at a news conference. That would allow for an “orderly opening, limited (population) flow, and differentiated management,” Wu said. (AP)
South Korea plans to provide Covid-19 vaccines and other medical supplies to the North, President Yoon Suk-yeol's office said on Friday, a day after the neighbouring country confirmed its first outbreak of coronavirus. "We will discuss detailed plans for assistance with North Korea," Yoon's spokesperson said in a statement. (Reuters)
India recorded 2,841 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s latest update. The total number of active cases is presently at 18,604.
North Korea said Friday that six people died and 3.5 lakh have been treated for a fever that has spread "explosively" across the nation, a day after its first acknowledgement of a Covid-19 outbreak.
The true scale is unclear, but a big Covid-19 outbreak could be devastating in a country with a broken healthcare system and an unvaccinated, malnourished population. North Korea, which likely does not have sufficient Covid-19 tests and other medical equipment, said it did not know the case of the mass fevers.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said of the 3.5 lakh people who developed fevers since late April, 1,62,200 have recovered. It said 18,000 people were newly found with fever symptoms on Thursday alone, and 1,87,800 people are being isolated for treatment. (AP)
President Joe Biden appealed to world leaders at a COVID-19 summit Thursday to reenergize a lagging international commitment to attacking the virus as he led the U.S. in marking the ``tragic milestone'' of 1 million deaths in America. He ordered flags lowered to half-staff and warned against complacency around the globe.
“This pandemic isn't over,” Biden declared at the second global pandemic summit. He spoke solemnly of the once-unthinkable U.S. toll: “1 million empty chairs around the family dinner table.” The coronavirus has killed more than 999,000 people in the U.S. and at least 6.2 million people globally since it emerged in late 2019, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Other counts, including by the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association and American Nurses Association, have the toll at 1 million.
“Today, we mark a tragic milestone here in the United States, 1 million COVID deaths,” he said. (AP)
Chhattisgarh on Thursday recorded four new COVID-19 cases, taking the overall tally to 11,52,331, while no fresh death due to the infection was registered in the state, an official said.
The death toll remained unchanged at 14,034, he said. The four cases, at a positivity rate of 0.10 per cent, were reported from Raipur (3) and Balrampur (1), he added.
The recovery count increased by two to touch 11,38,262, leaving the state with 35 active cases, the official said. With 4,017 swab samples examined during the day, the tally of tests carried out so far in Chhattisgarh went up to 1,76,84,755, he added. (PTI)
The COVID-19 tally in Madhya Pradesh rose to 10,41,832 on Thursday after the detection of 40 new cases, while no fresh death linked to the respiratory disease was registered in the state, a health department official said.
The death toll remained unchanged at 10,735, the official said. The positivity rate, or cases detected per 100 tests, stood at 0.5 per cent, he said. The recovery count increased by 29 to touch 10,30,867, leaving the state with 230 active cases, the official informed.
With 8,000 swab samples examined during the day, the number of tests conducted so far in MP went up to 2,91,69,602, he added. A government release said 11,82,19,070 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far in the state, including 39,255 on Thursday. (PTI)
Gujarat on Thursday recorded 28 new cases of coronavirus that raised the tally of infections to 12,24,622, an official from the state health department said.
With 23 patients discharged from hospitals, the count of recoveries reached 12,13,490, while the toll stood at 10,944 as no new casualties were reported during the day, the official said. The state currently has 188 active cases, he added.
Gujarat COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 12,24,622 new cases 28, deaths 10,944, discharged 12,13,490 active cases 188 and people tested so far - figures not released. (PTI)
Telangana on Thursday registered 39 fresh coronavirus cases taking the tally to 7,92,474. Hyderabad reported the highest number of cases with 28.
A health department bulletin said 28 people recuperated from the disease in the last 24 hours and the cumulative number of recoveries till date was 7,87,961. The recovery rate stood at 99.43 per cent.
No fresh fatality occurred due to the viral infection and the toll continued to be 4,111. The bulletin said 13,422 samples were tested on Thursday. The number of active cases was 402, it said. (PTI)
Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 231 fresh coronavirus cases, more than half of them from Mumbai, and one more death linked to the infection, the state health department said.
With this, the state's overall COVID-19 tally rose to 78,80,074, while the death toll increased to 1,47,851, the department said in a bulletin.
Mumbai recorded 139 cases in the last 24 hours, accounting for more than 50 per cent of the new patients in the state. The state's sole death due to the respiratory disease in the day was reported from Solapur district. (PTI)
Mumbai on Thursday reported 139 new coronavirus cases, the highest daily count since February 23, but no death linked to the infection was reported in the financial capital, the city civic body said.
With this, the city's overall COVID-19 tally rose to 10,61,177, while the death toll remained unchanged at 19,563, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a bulletin.
For the third consecutive day, Mumbai has logged over 120 COVID-19 cases, while it has registered infections in three digits for the ninth time in May so far. The metropolis had logged 124 COVID-19 cases, but no fresh fatalities on Wednesday. (PTI)
Jammu and Kashmir recorded one fresh Covid case on Thursday that took the infection tally to 4,54,126, officials said. The lone case was reported from Kupwara district in Kashmir division, they said.
There are 54 active cases, while the overall recoveries has reached 4,49,321, officials said.
The COVID-19 death toll stands at 4,751, No Covid-related fatality was reported in the last 24 hours, they said. There were 51 confirmed cases of mucormycosis (black fungus), they added. (PTI)
Despite an upward trend in coronavirus cases in Maharashtra, no scenario of a fourth wave of the pandemic is currently emerging in the state and the new infections are largely restricted to two to four districts, Health Minister Rajesh Tope has said.
Talking to reporters on Wednesday, Tope said during a meeting organised by the Union health ministry in Gujarat last week, he interacted with his counterparts from Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, which have also reported a rise in new coronavirus cases in the last few weeks.
He said the health ministers of Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh told him that the cases are rising, but there was “no reason to worry” as hospitalizations were extremely low. (PTI)
Stating that the COVID pandemic continues to disrupt lives, supply chains and test the resilience of open societies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday said that India has adopted a people-centric strategy against the pandemic. He was speaking at the second Global Covid Summit.
“We have made the highest-ever allocation to our annual healthcare budget. Our vaccination programme is the largest in the world. We have fully vaccinated almost 90 per cent of the alien population and more than 50 million children. India manufactures four WHO approved vaccines and has the capacity to produce 5 billion doses this year,” Modi said.
He further stated: “We must build a resilient global supply chain and enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines. WTO rules need to be more flexible. WHO must be reformed and strengthened to build a more resilient global health security architecture.”
“Last month we laid the foundation of WHO Centre for Traditional Medicine in India with an aim to make this age-old knowledge available to the world. It is clear that a coordinated global response is required to combat future health emergencies,” the PM added.
Delhi on Thursday recorded 1,032 fresh COVID-19 cases and zero death, while the positivity rate stood at 3.64 per cent, according to data shared by the state health department.
With these new cases, the national capital's overall Covid tally has increased to 18,98,173 while the death toll stood at 26,184. Delhi reported 970 fresh Covid cases at a positivity rate of 3.34 per cent and one death on Wednesday.
A total of 28,386 tests were conducted a day earlier, according to the latest health bulletin. According to the government health bulletin, there are 4,928 active cases in Delhi right now. (PTI)
Scotland Yard on Thursday said that it had issued over 100 fixed penalty notice fines for COVID-19 lockdown breaches at UK government offices as part of its ongoing investigation into the so-called partygate scandal.
The Metropolitan Police had previously confirmed 50 fines, including one each issued to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak for attending a birthday party for the British prime minister at the Cabinet Room in 10 Downing Street in June 2020.
The force's Operation Hillman inquiry into these illegal gatherings has been ongoing, which has now resulted in a further 50 fines. (PTI)
With the count of daily new coronavirus cases in Delhi fluctuating over the last few days, experts on Thursday said the city will keep witnessing such trends for fairly long and attributed it to behavioural changes among citizens.
The national capital reported 970 COVID-19 cases and one death due to the disease on Wednesday while the positivity rate was at 3.34 per cent. The day before, Delhi reported 1,118 coronavirus cases and one fatality while the positivity rate was at 4.38 per cent.
On Monday, the city logged 799 cases of the disease and three deaths -- the highest in a day in over two months -- while the positivity rate was at 4.94 per cent. (PTI)
President Joe Biden will appeal for a renewed international commitment to attacking COVID-19 as he convenes a second virtual summit on the pandemic and marks 1 million deaths in the United States.
“As a nation, we must not grow numb to such sorrow," Biden said in a statement Thursday. "To heal, we must remember. We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible.” The president called on Congress to provide more funding for testing, vaccines and treatments, something lawmakers have been unwilling to deliver so far.
The lack of funding — Biden has requested another $22.5 billion of what he calls critically needed money — is a reflection of faltering resolve at home that jeopardizes the global response to the pandemic. (AP)
The number of new coronavirus cases reported worldwide has continued to fall except in the Americas and Africa, the World Health Organisation said in its latest assessment of the pandemic.
In its weekly pandemic report released late Tuesday, the U.N. health agency said about 3.5 million new cases and more than 25,000 deaths were reported globally, which respectively represent decreases of 12% and 25%.
The downward trend in reported infections began in March, although many countries have dismantled their widespread testing and surveillance programs, making an accurate count of cases extremely difficult.
WHO said there were only two regions where reported COVID-19 infections increased: the Americas, by 14%, and Africa, by 12%. Cases remained stable in the Western Pacific and fell everywhere else, the agency said. (AP)
North Korea imposed a nationwide lockdown Thursday to control its first acknowledged COVID-19 outbreak after holding for more than two years to a widely doubted claim of a perfect record keeping out the virus that has spread to nearly every place in the world.
The outbreak forced leader Kim Jong Un to wear a mask in public, likely for the first time since the start of the pandemic, but the scale of transmissions inside North Korea wasn't immediately known. A failure to slow infections could have serious consequences because the country has a poor health care system and its 26 million people are believed to be mostly unvaccinated. Some experts say North Korea, by its rare admission of an outbreak, may be seeking outside aid.
The official Korean Central News Agency said tests of samples collected Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fevers in the capital, Pyongyang, confirmed they were infected with the omicron variant. (AP)