Coronavirus Live Updates: Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya to hold key meet with IMA officials

The UK health authorities said on Monday that they will stop publishing their regular COVID-19 infections modelling data in the new year because it is seen as “no longer necessary” as the country moves to a phase of living with the virus with the help of vaccines and medicines. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that it will continue to monitor Covid like other common viral illnesses such as seasonal flu. Since April this year, the data on the reproductive rate, or the R value speed at which the novel coronavirus infects people, has been published fortnightly as a monitoring tool.

Pharma player Hetero Group on Monday said it has emerged as the first in the world to receive the World Health Organisation's prequalification of medicines programme (WHO-PQ) for its generic version of Covid-19 oral antiviral treatment candidate Nirmatrelvir, which along with Ritonavir is used as part of Pfizer’s Paxlovid.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,43,179 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.

Scores of holidayers who have booked a trip to Thailand — one of the top destination for desi globetrotters — as well as those who were planning to go there this winter break are now in a fix whether they should change their travel plans.

Passengers returning to Tamil Nadu from China, US, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong even through transit flights (from Singapore, Abu Dhabi, etc. ,) will be subjected to RT-PCR tests, health minister Ma Subramanian said on Sunday. Already, air passengers from these five countries, arriving at international air-ports in the state through direct flights are subjected to mandatory Covid-19 tests along with those reaching airports with symptoms like fever, cold or cough.

Mask-wearing Beijing and Shanghai commuters crowded subway trains on Monday, with China's two biggest cities moving closer to living with Covid-19, as millions have been infected with the virus across the country.

India logged 196 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases marginally increased to 3,428, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

Amid fears of Covid-19 resurgence and renewed efforts by the authorities to administer booster shots, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has said that 1. 2 lakh doses of Covaxin in its stocks are set to expire by January-end. While stating that only 20% of the eligible persons in the city had taken the booster dose, the civic body said that it is planni ng to place orders for more Covaxin and Covishield doses.

Less than 0.5% of the 345 international arrivals screened at Delhi’s IGIA till Sunday evening had tested positive for Covid. The low percentage of positive cases so far had brought relief to authorities, as IGIA saw a peak of 5-6% last summer at the height of the Delta wave, officials of Genestrings Diagnostic Centre's lab, which has been conducting tests at Delhi airport during the pandemic, said.

As India and the world grapple with the fear of another Covid surge triggered by BF.7 sub-variant of Omicron virus, work is underway to develop vaccines targeting the newer variants as existing vaccines are based on the Wuhan or original strain of SARS-CoV-2.

Covid vaccination in Bengal, which had been happening at a snail’s pace for several weeks as elsewhere in the country, jumped almost three-fold on Saturday. The current surge in some countries, especially China, and health experts’ advice on completing vaccination have made people come back to CVCs. Sources in the health department said the rise in vaccination footfall so far is mostly seen in private CVCs.Before Saturday, Bengal had been administering around 1,000 doses daily for more than a month while the number dipped to three-digit figures occasionally. With 3,088 doses dispensed on Saturday, the state recorded highest Covid-19 inoculation in about seven weeks. The number of recipients is expected to go up in the days to come.

Amid a resurgence in Covid-19 cases globally, Delhi government’s health department has asked district officials to conduct an inspection of hospitals for their preparedness to meet any emergency-like situation.At a meeting chaired by state health secretary Amit Singla and attended by district collectors and magistrates, officials were instructed to physically visit all government hospitals as well as the private ones that were earlier marked to cater to Covid patients.

Anticipating growth in demand for Covid booster shots amid an ongoing wave in China, the state government has demanded 10lakh Covishield shots from the Centre. However, the state has n’t received any indication on how soon the doses might arrive. In fact, there are concerns that it could be a while before the doses arrive since the Centre has not hinted towards procurem ent recently. While the public health department has 17lakh doses of Covaxin, it has zero Covishield doses in stock. The demand for Covishield is maximum as the majority have got immunised with this vaccine, which people also prefer for the third shot despite mixing and matching being allowed by the Centre. Many private hospitals have also placed demand for small batches of Covishield after bei ng flooded with calls enquiring about the availability of booster shots in the past week.

Within 72 hours of the detection of the BF. 7 Omicron variant in India, there has been a 400% jump in precautionary jabs across Telangana and almost eight-fold rise in Odisha. In Telangana, on December 21, a day before the sub-variant surfaced in India, only 646 beneficiaries had taken the booster shots. But this figure spiralled to 3,380 within three days (December 24) as people were jolted by the fear of another Covid wave that’s already taking a debilitating toll on neighbouring China.

: The highly transmissible BF. 7 Omicron variant of Covid-19 was highly unlikely to trigger another “wave” in the country, experts said, suggesting India should redefine a “surge or wave” to avoid panic in case localised or sporadic rise in caseloads is detected.

Some 37 million people in China may have been infected with Covid-19 on a single day this week, UK-based Financial Times (FT) reported, as Beijing discontinued restrictions that had contained the virus since the start of the pandemic. Chinese officials estimate about 250 million people were infected with Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, Financial Times reported citing people familiar with the matter.