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India records 3,824 Covid cases, biggest single-day rise in six months

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U.S. regulators have opened up COVID-19 booster shots to all and more adults

NEW DELHI: India on Sunday recorded a single-day jump of 3,824 COVID-19 infections, the biggest in 184 days, while the number of active cases increased to 18,389, according to Union health ministry data

With the fresh infections, India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 4.47 crore (4,47,22,605). The death toll climbed to 5,30,881 with five deaths, the data updated at 8 am stated.

One death each was reported from Delhi, Haryana, Kerala and Rajasthan in a span of 24 hours and one was reconciled by Kerala.

At 18,389, the active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections.

The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.77 per cent, according to the health ministry website.

The daily positivity rate stood at 2.87 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 2.24 per cent.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,73,335, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

Country logs highest number of daily coronavirus cases in 149 days

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NEW DELHI: India logged 1,890 new coronavirus cases, the highest in 149 days, while the active cases increased to 9,433, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday.

The country had recorded 2,208 cases in a single day on October 28 last year. The death toll has increased to 5,30,831 with seven deaths.

While two deaths each were reported by Maharashtra and Gujarat in a span of 24 hours, three were reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The daily positivity was recorded at 1.56 per cent while the weekly positivity was pegged at 1.29 per cent.

The Covid case tally was recorded at 4.47 crore (4,47,04,147) The active cases now comprises 0.02 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.79 per cent, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,63,883, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.65 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

PM Modi reviews state of hospitals amid rise in COVID-19

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NEW DELHI: As COVID-19 and influenza cases are seeing a surge in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday held a high-level review meeting and directed hospitals to conduct regular mock drills to ensure they are prepared for all emergencies.

Highlighting that COVID-19 is far from over, the PM emphasised on following appropriate behaviour, including wearing of masks in hospital premises by both patients and health workers. He also advised senior citizens and those with comorbidities to wear masks when in a crowded area.

His directions came at a high-level meeting to assess the COVID-19 and Influenza-related preparedness of health infrastructure and logistics, the status of the vaccination campaign, the emergence of new COVID-19 variants and Influenza types and their public health implications.

This review meeting comes against the backdrop of a spike in Influenza cases in the country and a rise in COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks. “The PM highlighted that COVID-19 there is a need to monitor the status across the country on a regular basis,” said a statement issued by the union health ministry.

India has been witnessing a slight rise in new Covid-19 cases with average daily cases reported as 888 and weekly positivity reported as 0.98 per cent in the week ending March 22. However, 1.08 lakh daily average cases have been reported globally during the same week.

For the past few months, India is reporting a high number of Influenza-like illnesses, especially H1N1 (Swine flu) and H3N2 (Influenza A virus subtype), and Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) cases.  Two deaths were reported in the country due to influenza caused by the H3N2 virus. PM Modi directed officials for the effective monitoring of these cases and oversee that testing for Influenza, Coronavirus and Adenovirus are being followed up with states.

The Prime Minister was informed about the monitoring and availability and prices of 20 main Covid drugs, 12 other drugs, 8 buffer drugs and 1 influenza drug, the statement said.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary to PM PK Mishra, Member (Health) NITI Aayog Dr V K Paul, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, Advisor PMO Amit Khare, and other senior officials.

China reports nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths in a month

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Weeks after insisting it was not necessary to put out the exact Covid fatality count from the latest wave of infections, China on Saturday revealed its data for a little over a month, which took the global community’s breath away. Its National Health Commission (NHC) revealed the country had recorded as many as 59,938 Covid-related deaths between December 8 and January 12.

While the sudden burst of glasnost was certainly welcome, the toll is expected higher as the NHC data is on deaths at hospitals alone.

The jaw-dropping figure was in contrast to the few dozen deaths that had officially been recorded for December despite visual evidence of hospitals overflowing with patients and crematoriums being overrun by the Covid surge in the country.

China’s official toll has now gone up to just 65,210 since the coronavirus first broke out in its city of Wuhan in December 2019, indicating the extent of its data doctoring.

The World Health Organisation had on Wednesday rapped China for heavily underreporting the number of Covid deaths from the current wave. On the positive side, the peak of the latest wave appears to have passed based on the decline in the number of patients visiting fever clinics, NSC official Jiao Yahui said.

The daily number of people going to those clinics fell by 83% on Thursday, he said (see box).

“The number of elderly patients dying from illness is relatively large, which suggests that we should pay more attention to them and try our best to save their lives,” said Jiao.

Amid the Covid wave, when China reopened its borders to international travellers on January 8, a host of countries, including India imposed mandatory Covid tests on arrivals from China. Beijing retaliated by suspending the issuance of new visas to fliers from South Korea and Japan.

COVID-19: Covovax to get approval as booster in 10-15 days, says SII CEO Adar Poonawalla

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Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla (Photo | PTI)

PUNE: Serum Institute of India chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla on Sunday said its Covovax vaccine will get approval as a booster in the next 10 to 15 days, adding it works very well against the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event at Bharti Vidyapeeth University here, Poonawalla, when asked about states and districts not getting Covishield vaccines, said there are ample stocks with the Union government for supply.

“Covovax will be approved as a booster in the next 10-15 days. It is actually the best booster because it works very well against Omicron, more than Covishield,” said Poonawalla.

He said everyone was looking at India, not just in terms of healthcare but because the country managed to take care of a huge and diverse population and also helped 70 to 80 nations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This was all possible because of the leadership of our Central government, our state governments, healthcare workers, manufacturers, all of whom worked together with one common goal,” he said.

On the occasion, Poonawalla was conferred with the first Dr Pantangrao Kadam Memorial Award at the hands of NCP Chief Sharad Pawar and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in an event to mark the birth anniversary of the late minister and education baron from western Maharashtra.

Appealing to students who wished to pursue education abroad, he said there was no place like India to fulfil dreams due to the presence of institutions like Bharti Vidyapeeth and others.

“Even if you have to go abroad, come back as soon as possible,” he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping breaks silence over China’s war with Covid

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BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping urged officials on Monday to take steps to protect lives in his first public remarks on Covid-19 since Beijing dramatically loosened hardline containment measures this month.

Having mostly cut itself off from the rest of the world during the pandemic, China is now experiencing the planet’s biggest surge in infections after abruptly lifting restrictions that torpedoed the economy.  Studies have estimated that around one million people could die over the next few months.

Many in the population are now grappling with shortages of medicine, while emergency medical facilities are strained by an influx ,  “At present, Covid-19 prevention and control in China are facing a new situation and new tasks,” Xi said in a directive, according to state broadcaster CCTV. 

“We should launch the patriotic health campaign in a more targeted way… fortify a community line of defence for epidemic prevention and control, and effectively protect people’s lives, safety and health,” Xi said. Hospitals and crematoriums across the country have been overflowing with Covid patients and victims, while China’s National Health Commission on Sunday announced it would stop publishing daily nationwide infection and death statistics.

The decision to scrap the daily virus count comes amid concerns that the country’s blooming wave of infections is not being accurately reflected in official statistics.

Beijing has admitted the scale of the outbreak has become “impossible” to track following the end of mandatory mass testing, as people are now not obliged to declare test results to authorities. And last week, Beijing narrowed the criteria by which Covid-19 fatalities were counted—a move experts said would suppress the number of deaths attributable to the virus. 

The winter surge comes ahead of two major public holidays next month, in which millions of migrant workers are expected to travel to their hometowns to reunite with relatives.
Authorities are bracing for the virus to hit under-resourced rural areas hard.

US warns of possible attack in Islamabad amid security fears after suicide bombing

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ISLAMABAD: The US Embassy in Islamabad on Sunday warned its staff of a possible attack on Americans at a top hotel in Pakistan’s capital as the city was already on high alert following a suicide bombing earlier in the week.

The US government is aware of information that “unknown individuals are possibly plotting to attack Americans at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad sometime during the holidays,” the embassy said in a security alert. The advisory banned its American personnel from visiting the popular hotel over the holidays.

The US mission also urged all personnel to refrain from non-essential travel in Islamabad during the holiday season.

The embassy directive came two days after a suicide bombing in a residential area of the capital killed a police officer and wounded ten others. The explosion happened when police stopped a taxi for inspection during a patrol. According to the police, a rear seat passenger detonated explosives he was carrying, blowing up the vehicle.

Militants with the Pakistani Taliban, who are separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s rulers, later claimed the attack.

Islamabad’s administration has since put the city on high alert, banning public gatherings and processions, even as campaigns are ongoing for upcoming local elections. Police have stepped up patrols and established snap checkpoints to inspect vehicles across the city.

A suicide bombing targeted the capital’s Marriott Hotel in September 2008, in one of the deadliest such incidents in the capital. Attackers drove a dump truck up to the hotel’s gates before detonating it, killing 63 people and wounding over 250 others.

China’s COVID-19 surge raises odds of new coronavirus mutant

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BEIJING: Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?

Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.

“China has a population that is very large and there’s limited immunity. And that seems to be the setting in which we may see an explosion of a new variant,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Every new infection offers a chance for the coronavirus to mutate, and the virus is spreading rapidly in China. The country of 1.4 billion has largely abandoned its “zero COVID” policy. Though overall reported vaccination rates are high, booster levels are lower, especially among older people. Domestic vaccines have proven less effective against serious infection than Western-made messenger RNA versions. Many were given more than a year ago, meaning immunity has waned.

The result? Fertile ground for the virus to change.

“When we’ve seen big waves of infection, it’s often followed by new variants being generated,” Ray said.

About three years ago, the original version of the coronavirus spread from China to the rest of the world and was eventually replaced by the delta variant, then omicron and its descendants, which continue plaguing the world today.

Dr. Shan-Lu Liu, who studies viruses at Ohio State University, said many existing omicron variants have been detected in China, including BF.7, which is extremely adept at evading immunity and is believed to be driving the current surge.

Experts said a partially immune population like China’s puts particular pressure on the virus to change. Ray compared the virus to a boxer that “learns to evade the skills that you have and adapt to get around those.”

One big unknown is whether a new variant will cause more severe disease. Experts say there’s no inherent biological reason the virus has to become milder over time.

“Much of the mildness we’ve experienced over the past six to 12 months in many parts of the world has been due to accumulated immunity either through vaccination or infection, not because the virus has changed” in severity, Ray said.

In China, most people have never been exposed to the coronavirus. China’s vaccines rely on an older technology producing fewer antibodies than messenger RNA vaccines.

Given those realities, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, said it remains to be seen if the virus will follow the same pattern of evolution in China as it has in the rest of the world after vaccines came out. “Or,” she asked, “will the pattern of evolution be completely different?”

Recently, the World Health Organization expressed concern about reports of severe disease in China. Around the cities of Baoding and Langfang outside Beijing, hospitals have run out of intensive care beds and staff as severe cases surge.

China’s plan to track the virus centers around three city hospitals in each province, where samples will be collected from walk-in patients who are very sick and all those who die every week, Xu Wenbo of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said at a briefing Tuesday.

He said 50 of the 130 omicron versions detected in China had resulted in outbreaks. The country is creating a national genetic database “to monitor in real time” how different strains were evolving and the potential implications for public health, he said.

At this point, however, there’s limited information about genetic viral sequencing coming out of China, said Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

“We don’t know all of what’s going on,” Luban said. But clearly, “the pandemic is not over.”

Union Health Minister to hold meeting with Indian Medical Association today

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Mansukh Mandaviya

NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya is scheduled to hold a virtual meeting with the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Monday.

The IMA informed that Mandaviya will hold the meeting via video conferencing at 4 pm regarding the Covid-19 situation and preparedness.

On Saturday, Mandaviya said that the government has been working to control the spread of Covid-19 and urged the people to wear masks and follow covid appropriate behaviour.

“We are working on alert mode to control the spread of Covid-19 and are conducting environmental, sewage and human surveillance. Virus RNA was found in the sewage samples in Delhi and Mumbai,” Mandaviya had said.

He further urged the people to wear masks, avoid crowded places and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday decided to hold mock drills at all health facilities across the country on December 27 in the wake of the COVID alarm due to a surge in infection in many countries.

This is to ensure readiness in the availability of oxygen support, and ICU beds among other preparedness measures in case of a surge of COVID cases in India.

According to the Ministry, the objective of the exercise is to ensure the operational readiness of these health facilities for the management of COVID.

Detailing the focus on the parameters during the mock drills, it said that the main focus will be on the bed capacities including isolation, oxygen-supported and ICU beds at the health facilities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also chaired a high-level meeting on Thursday (December 22) to assess the COVID-19 situation in the country and cautioned against complacency while laying stress on testing and strengthening the surveillance measures, especially at international airports.

He emphasized COVID-appropriate behavior at all times, especially in view of the upcoming festive season, including wearing masks in crowded public places.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Health Miniter Mansukh Mandaviya and NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Parameswaran Iyer were among others who participated in the meeting.

Agra man tests positive for COVID-19 after returning from China

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AGRA: A 40-year-old man, who returned from China two days back, has tested positive for COVID-19 following which he has been isolated at his home here, Chief Medical Officer Arun Srivastava said on Sunday.

His samples will be sent to Lucknow for genome sequencing, he said.

“The man has been isolated at his home and teams of the health department have been asked to conduct tests of his family members and those who came in contact with him,” Srivastava added.

The man returned to Agra from China via Delhi on December 23 following which he was tested at a private lab.

The report came out positive for Covid, he added.

This the first Covid positive case in the district detected after November 25, officials said.

Amid a surge in Covid cases in some countries, including China, the Centre has ramped up its anti-coronavirus measures.

The Centre had said RT-PCR test would be made mandatory for passengers from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand and asked states to conduct a mock drill on December 27 to ensure readiness of health facilities including medical oxygen generation plants.

Meanwhile, the health department in Agra began screening and collecting samples of foreign tourists at Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Akbar’s Tomb here.

Besides, samples are also being collected at the Agra airport, railway station and Inter Bus Terminal (ISBT), officials said.

“Sample collection at Sarojani Naidu Medical College, District Hospital and Primary and Community Health Centres in rural Agra have been initiated with priority.

Those who have symptoms of cold, cough and fever can visit the health centres to undergo Covid test,” CMO added.

Srivastava added, “Residents are being asked to wear masks and maintain social distance at public places. They have been advised to use hand sanitiser and follow Covid guidelines to avoid the infection. Besides, residents are advised to get their precautionary dose of COVID-19.”

People can contact on the health department’s helpline numbers 0562-2600412, 9458569043 regarding any queries on the disease, officials said.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on Thursday reviewed the COVID-19 situation in the state and directed officials to monitor the new coronavirus variant, ramp up testing and conduct genome sequencing of fresh cases.

He had also asked them to make people aware about wearing masks in crowded public places such as hospitals, buses, railway stations and markets.

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