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COVID-19 India Update:India add new 45,892 new COVID-19 cases, 817 deaths

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New Delhi: India recorded a single-day rise of 45,892 new COVID-19 cases, taking its infection tally to 3,07,09,557, while the count of active cases increased slightly to 4,60,704 after being on a consistent downward trend for nearly 55 days, according to the Union Health Ministry on Thursday.

The death toll has climbed to 4,05,028 with 817 new fatalities being reported.

The number of active cases comprises 1.50 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 97.18 per cent, data updated by the ministry at 8 am showed.

An increase of 784 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours, it showed.

Also, 18,93,800 COVID-19 tests were conducted in the country on Wednesday, taking the total number of such examinations so far to 42,52,25,897, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.42 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for 17 consecutive days, the ministry said.

The weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.37 per cent, according to the health ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,98,43,825, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.32 per cent, the data stated.

The total number of vaccine doses administered so far has reached 36.48 crore under the nationwide vaccination drive.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5, 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and one crore on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of two crore infections on May 4 and three crore on June 23.

The 817 new fatalities include 326 from Maharashtra, 148 from Kerala and 75 from Karnataka.

A total of 4,05,028 deaths have been reported so far in the country. This includes 1,23,857 from Maharashtra, 35,601 from Karnataka, 33,196 from Tamil Nadu, 25,005 from Delhi, 22,666 from Uttar Pradesh, 17,850 from West Bengal and 16,141 from Punjab.

The Health Ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

Delta 8 times less sensitive to vaccine antibodies

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NEW DELHI: The Delta variant of novel coronavirus is eight times less sensitive to antibodies generated by vaccines as compared to the original strain that came from China’s Wuhan, according to a new study.The study, which was conducted on more than 100 healthcare workers (HCWs) at three centres in India including Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), found that the B.1.617.2 Delta variant not only dominates vaccine-breakthrough infections with higher respiratory viral loads compared to non-Delta infections but also generates greater transmission among the fully vaccinated HCWs. The collaborative study, “Sars-Cov-2 B.1.617.2 Delta Variant Emergence and Vaccine Breakthrough: Collaborative Study”, from India with scientists from Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease is yet to be peer-reviewed.

“From this study, it appears that we have miles to go before we sleep in case of Covid-19 pandemic. Mutations are bound to happen if we lower our guard and allow ourselves to fall prey to this virus, giving it an opportunity to multiply,” said Dr Chand Wattal, chairperson of the Institute of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, SGRH.

“This is a straight eye-opener to the fully vaccinated people that you cannot lower guard in the name of vaccination. The virus is on the prowl, still looking for its prey. This mutant has come back with enhanced spike proteins for attachment to the lung epithelial cells which have provided it with a much higher capacity to infect many more people than the Wuhan strain,” he said.

The data also indicates that the dominance of the Delta variant in India has been most likely driven by a combination of evasion of neutralising antibodies in previously infected individuals and increased virus infectivity resulting in the second wave, the study said.

Covid-19 India Update 34,703 new cases in the last 24 hours lowest in 111 days

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NEW DELHI: India reported 34,703 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest in 111 days, informed the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday.

Total recoveries touched 2,97,52,294, including 51,864 patients who recovered during the last 24 hours. As per the ministry, the daily recoveries continued to outnumber the daily new cases for the 54th consecutive day. With this, the recovery rate has increased to 97.17 percent.

Also, the weekly positivity rate remained below 5 percent and is currently at 2.40 percent. Further, the daily positivity rate is at 2.11 percent, less than 3 percent for 15 consecutive days.

Testing capacity also has substantially been ramped up and 42.14 crore total tests have been conducted so far.

India commenced its COVID-19 vaccination drive on January 16 this year. Till date, 35.75 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under nationwide vaccination drive.

As per the Indian Council of Medical Research, cumulative total samples tested up to July 5 are 42,14,24,881 including 16,47,424 samples tested yesterday. 

Centre rushes teams to six states reporting high number of Covid cases

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NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday deputed multi-disciplinary teams to Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Manipur in view of the high number of COVID-19 cases being reported by these states.

The two-member high level team to these states comprises a clinician and a public health expert, the statement said.

The teams will visit the states immediately and monitor the overall implementation of COVID-19 management, especially in testing, including surveillance and containment operations; Covid Appropriate Behaviour and its enforcement; availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators, medical oxygen etc., and COVID-19 vaccination progress.

The teams will monitor the situation and also suggest remedial actions, the statement said.

The Central teams will assess the situation and suggest remedial actions on public health activities to the respective state governments.

The team to Manipur will be led by Dr L Swasticharan, Additional DDG and Director EMR; team to Arunachal Pradesh will be led by Dr Sanjay Sadhukhan, Professor AIIH&PH; for Tripura Dr RN Sinha; for Kerala Dr Ruchi Jain, Public Health Specialist Gr. II, RoHFW; for Odisha Dr.

A Dan, Public Health Specialist AIIH&PH and for Chhattisgarh Dr Dibakar Sahu, Assistant Professor, AIIMS Raipur.

As an ongoing effort to strengthen efforts of various state and UT Governments for Covid management, the Central Government has been deputing Central teams from time to time to visit various states and UTs.

These teams interact with the state and UT authorities and get a first-hand understanding of the challenges and issues being faced by them so as to strengthen their ongoing activities and remove bottlenecks, if any, the statement said.

Covid-19 Update:India 46,617 new cases national recovery rate crosses 97 per cent

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NEW DELHI: India saw a single-day rise of 46,617 new coronavirus infections, taking the tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,04,58,251, while the national recovery rate has crossed 97 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

Over 34 crore vaccine doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive so far, it said.

The active cases have further declined to 5,09,637, comprising 1.67 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 97.01 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

A net decline of 13,620 cases has been recorded in the total number of active COVID-19 cases in a span of 24 hours.

Also, 18,80,026 tests were conducted on Thursday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 41,42,51,520, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.48 per cent.

It has been less than five per cent for 25 consecutive days, the ministry said.

Weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.57 per cent, according to the health ministry.

Recoveries continue to outnumber daily new cases for 50th consecutive days.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,95,48,302, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 per cent, the data stated.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.

The 853 new fatalities include 252 from Maharashtra, 124 from Kerala, 102 from Tamil Nadu and 94 from Karnataka.

A total of 4,00,312 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 1,22,197 from Maharashtra, 35,134 from Karnataka, 32,721from Tamil Nadu, 24,981 from Delhi, 22,601 from Uttar Pradesh, 17,735 from West Bengal and 16,072 from Punjab.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

Delta variant to become dominant strain of COVID-19 in coming months: WHO

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GENEVA: The World Health Organization has said the Delta variant of COVID-19 is now present in nearly 100 countries as per conservative estimates, and warned that in the coming months the highly transmissible strain will become the dominant variant of the coronavirus globally.

Given the increase in transmissibility, the WHO warned that the Delta variant is “expected to rapidly outcompete other variants and become the dominant variant over the coming months.”

The world body noted that the tools that exist today to combat the coronavirus “individual, community level-public health and social measures, infection prevention and control measures that have been used since the beginning of the pandemic” remain effective against current variants of concern (VOCs), including the Delta variant.

“Although the increased transmissibility of VOCs (Variants of Concern) means that measures may need to be maintained for longer periods of time, particularly in a context of low vaccination coverage, these measures must be targeted, time-bound, reinforced and supported by member states,” it added.

Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Delta variant is the -most transmissible- of the variants identified so far and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations.

“I know that globally there is currently a lot of concern about the Delta variant, and WHO is concerned about it too. Delta is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations,” Ghebreyesus had said.

He had noted that as some countries eased public health and social restrictions, there was a corresponding increase in transmission around the world.

As per latest figures, cases of the Alpha variant have been reported in 172 countries, territories or areas, Beta in 120 countries (one new country), Gamma in 72 countries (one new country) and Delta in 96 countries (11 new countries).

For the first time in several weeks, the highest numbers of new COVID-19 cases were not reported from India.

The update noted that at 521,298, the highest numbers of new cases were reported from Brazil during the June 21-27 week, followed by India (351,218 new cases, a 12 percent increase over the previous week), Colombia (204,132 new cases, 5 percent increase), Russia (134,465 new cases, 24 percent increase) and Argentina (131,824 new cases, 11 percent decrease).

The South-East Asia Region reported over 573,000 new cases and over 13,000 new deaths, a 5 percent and a 33 percent decrease respectively compared to the previous week.

“There is a slight overall decrease in the number of cases reported this week, mostly due to the decrease in the number of cases reported in India,” the update said, adding that a number of countries, including Myanmar (112 percent increase), Indonesia (60 percent increase) and Bangladesh (48 percent increase), reported large increases in the number of newly reported cases for this week.

In the region, the highest numbers of new cases were reported from India (351,218 new cases; 25.5 new cases per 100,000; a 21 percent decrease), Indonesia (125,395 new cases; 45.8 new cases per 100,000; a 60 percent increase), and Bangladesh (36,738 new cases; 22.3 new cases per 100,000; a 48 percent increase).

The highest numbers of new deaths were reported from India (9038 new deaths; 0.7 new deaths per 100,000; a 45 percent decrease over the previous week), Indonesia (2476 new deaths; 0.9 new deaths per 100,000; a 39 percent increase), and Bangladesh (624 new deaths; 0.4 new deaths per 100,000; a 45 percent increase).

“Well into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global situation remains highly fragile. While at the global level, trends in cases and deaths have been declining in recent weeks, there is significant variation by region, by country and within countries,” the update said.

It said in all WHO regions, there are countries reporting sharp increases in cases and hospitalisations.

There are a number of factors contributing to this, including the emergence and circulation of more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2, increased social mixing and mobility, uneven and inequitable vaccination; and considerable pressure to lift public health and social measures, the WHO said.

Covid-19 India Update: India 45,951 new cases 817 fresh fatalities in last 24 hours

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NEW DELHI: India logged 45,951 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,03,62,848, while daily fatalities remained below 1,000 for the third consecutive day, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

According to the data published at 7 am, cumulatively 33.28 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive.

The active cases further declined to 5,37,064 comprising 1.77 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.92 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

As many as 19,60,757 tests were conducted on Tuesday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 41,01,00,044 while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.34 per cent.

It has been less than five per cent for 23 consecutive days, the ministry said, adding the weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.69 per cent.

Recoveries continue to outnumber daily new cases for the 48th consecutive day.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,94,27,330 and the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 per cent, the data stated.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.

The 817 new fatalities include 231 from Maharashtra, 118 from Tamil Nadu and 104 from Karnataka.

A total of 3,98,454 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,21,804 from Maharashtra, 34,929 from Karnataka, 32,506 from Tamil Nadu, 24,971 from Delhi, 22,577 from Uttar Pradesh, 17,679 from West Bengal and 16,033 from Punjab.

The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

Covid-19 Update India: India records 37,566 new cases another drop in daily tally

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NEW DELHI: The single-day rise in fresh cases was recorded below 40,000 after 102 days, bringing the COVID-19 infection tally to 3,03,16,897, while the daily fatalities remained below 1,000 for the second consecutive day, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.

According to the data published at 7 am, 32.90 crore cumulative vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

The number of active cases has further declined to 5,52,659, comprising 1.82 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.87 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.\

A net decline of 20,335 cases has been recorded in the COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

Also, 17,68,008 tests were conducted on Monday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 40,81,39,287, while the daily positivity rate has declined to 2.12 per cent .

It has been less than 5 per cent for 22 consecutive days, the ministry said.

The weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.74 per cent.

Recoveries continue to outnumber daily new cases for the 47th consecutive day

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,93,66,601, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 per cent, the data stated.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7; 30 lakh on August 23; 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28; 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed one crore on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of 2 crore on May 4 and 3 crore on June 23.

Bangladesh announces strict countrywide shutdown to check spread of COVID-19

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DHAKA: Bangladesh on Friday announced a strict countrywide shutdown until further notice to check the spread of COVID-19, as it reported 108 deaths from coronavirus, the second highest single-day toll since the pandemic’s outbreak in the country.

“Other than emergency services, all government and private offices will remain closed. No one will be allowed to go out of home without urgent reasons,” an official order said.

Only goods-laden and emergency vehicles will be allowed to operate during the lockdown, it said.

The death toll due to COVID-19 reached 13,976 while the total number of positive cases touched 8,78,804 with 5,869 new cases in the last 24 hours, according to the latest data by the Health Ministry.

The country recorded the highest 112 deaths on April 19 this year.

The health authorities’ report came hours after the Public Administration Ministry said they awaited a government decision to enforce a two-week long nationwide shutdown in line with the National Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) on COVID-19.

“We are ready to enforce the shutdown anytime. It (enforcement) will be tougher than that of last year,” Junior Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain told reporters.

NTAC said they have recommended a “strict countrywide lockdown” when no offices other than emergency services would operate as their experts were convinced that the worsening situation could not be controlled without a nationwide shutdown.

Bangladesh is experiencing an increase in the COVID-19 infection rate, with the latest report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) noting that out of the country’s 64 administrative districts 43 were at “very high risk” while 15 others, including Dhaka, were at “high risk”.

Health officials said the Delta variant of the coronavirus has spread to Dhaka, mounting pressure on health facilities here.

The northern and southwestern regions bordering India have also reported cases of Delta variant.

Authorities last week ordered a lockdown in seven central districts surrounding Dhaka in an effort to isolate the capital from the rest of the country to prevent community transmission in view of rising infection cases in bordering regions.

But experts said the Delta variant made its way to the capital through community transmission and the doctors said the number of COVID-19 patients was increasing every day at hospitals.

The country’s biggest state-run health facility, Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), said 80 per cent of their COVID-19 patients were residents of the capital city and the number is increasing every day.

“The number of COVID-19 patients is increasing everyday at DMCH and 80 per cent of them are residents of Dhaka city. This means infection rate is increasing in the capital,” DMCH Director Brigadier General Md Nazmul Haque told the state-run BSS news agency.

Haque said the current number of COVID-19 patients in DMCH was nearly four times higher than that of last month and feared if this trend continued “all general and ICU beds in the city will be fulfilled within 10 to 12 days”.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital reported a nearly identical picture with its additional director Nazmul Karim Manik saying pressure (of coronavirus patients) is mounting gradually and most of them are from Dhaka.

Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) Director Prof Dr Tahmina Shirin said districts bordering India are more exposed to the Delta variant compared to Dhaka.

“The Delta variant is largely responsible for the recent spike of the coronavirus cases. We must check people’s movement in border districts to contain the community transmission,” Shirin said.

DGHS officials said the situation in districts with borders with India particularly in southwestern Khulna region continued to worsen and at places the COVID-19 positivity rate were found to be 100 per cent.

India achieves milestone of conducting 40 crore COVID-19 tests: ICMR

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NEW DELHI: India has achieved the milestone of conducting 40 crore COVID-19 tests, with the average of more than 18 lakh tests per day in the month of June, the ICMR said on Saturday. India has tested 40,18,11,892 samples across the country till Friday, it said.

Prof Balram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR said exponential increase in testing has led to early identification, prompt isolation and effective treatment of COVID-19 cases. These have eventually resulted in a sustained low fatality rate.

“This testing milestone is testimony to the fact that India has been successful in implementing the strategy of 5T approach ‘Test, Track, Trace, Treat and use of Technology’ efficiently, which will enable us to contain the spread of the pandemic,” the statement quoted Bhargava as saying.

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