Coronavirus India Updates: 'Unlock 4' Guidelines Announced Even As Covid-19 Tally Crosses 34 Lakh

Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said the state is gradually facing financial stress because of huge expenditure incurred while dealing with the Covid-19 situation, including treatment of the patients.

He announced the withdrawal of some of the free services offered to Covid-19 patients like reaching them to their homes after discharge from hospitals and levied charges on dedicated cabins. Also all paying cabins in government hospitals, which had been made free for Covid-19 patients, will resume being charged ones from now on to mitigate the financial crisis of the state.

(Source: PTI)

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Saturday claimed that coronavirus cases in the coastal state were on the rise since Ganesh Chaturthi, and this was because people violated safety norms during the festival.

There has been a spike in cases, as people did not wear masks or follow social distancing norms during the festivities, Sawant said.

"We have noticed that the number of Covid-19 cases have increased after Ganesh Chaturthi. Daily count was hovering around 150 cases per day before the festival, but now there has been a rise," Sawant said.

(Source: PTI)

Besides, the National directive for Covid-19 management to be followed throughout the country, while ensuring social distancing. Shops need to maintain adequate social distancing among customers. The MHA to monitor the effective implementation of national directive.

India's Covid-19 recoveries have crossed 26 lakh, pushing the recovery rate to 76.47%, which the centre said has been made possible due to the strategic policy of "testing aggressively, tracking comprehensively and treating efficiently" in supervised home-isolation, facility-isolation and hospitals.

The case fatality rate has also been low when compared to the global average. It is on a continuous decline and currently stands at 1.81%, the ministry underlined on Saturday.

(Source: PTI)

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was admitted to AIIMS in New Delhi on Aug. 18 for post-Covid care, has recovered and is likely to be discharged in a short time, hospital authorities said on Saturday.

On Aug. 2, Shah, 55, had said on Twitter that he had tested positive for Covid-19. He had undergone treatment for the coronavirus infection at Medanta Hospital and was discharged after he tested negative for the disease.

According to an earlier statement by AIIMS, he was admitted to the hospital on Aug. 18 following complaints of fatigue and body aches, days after his discharge.

(Source: PTI)

Telangana logged 2,751 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the tally to 1,20,166, while the death toll rose to 808 with nine more fatalities.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation recorded 432 fresh positive cases, followed by Karimnagar (192), Rangareddy (185), Nalgonda (147), Khammam (132), Medchal Malkajgiri (128), Nizamabad (113), Suryapet (111) and Warangal Urban (101) districts, a state government bulletin said on Saturday.

• All 33 districts in the state reported positive cases in double digits.

• Aggressive testing continued in the state with as many as 62,300 samples being tested on August 28.

• Cumulatively, 12,66,643 samples have been tested.

• The samples tested per million population was 34,117.

• The case fatality rate in the state was 0.67%, while it was 1.81% at the national level.

• The total number of people who have recovered from the infectious disease so far stood at 89,350 while 30,008 were under treatment.

• The recovery rate in the state was 74.3 per cent in the state, while it was 76.49 per cent in the country.

(Source: PTI)

With coronavirus cases increasing in the national capital, authorities have formed enforcement teams in each district of Delhi to ensure strict implementation of Covid-19 guidelines.

Each enforcement team will have an executive magistrate, and revenue and police personnel, said an official, adding that awareness teams have also been formed to encourage people to follow anti-coronavirus measures.

The move comes days after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that stringent enforcement of Covid-19 guidelines would be ensured and had said everyone should wear a face mask and maintain social distancing at public places.

(Source: PTI)

Tamil Nadu has achieved a recovery rate of 85.45% with 3,49,682 people having been cured of the coronavirus, the "highest" in the country, Chief Minister K Palaniswami said on Saturday.

The state's mortality rate was a "very low" at 1.7%, he said. In a video-conference meeting with District Collectors to review the lockdown, Palaniswami said his government had so far spent Rs 7,162 crore towards controlling the pandemic, treatment and relief measures.

Currently, there are 58,840 beds in Covid hospitals, 77,223 beds in Covid-19 special centres, and 26,801 beds with oxygen facilities. Apart from these, there are 4,782 beds in intensive cre units and 5,718 ventilators have also been kept ready. With 146 testing facilities for Covid-19, including 83 private units, the government has so far tested 45.73 lakh people in the state, he said.

(Source: PTI)

The BCCI on Saturday revealed that two players are among a total of 13 who have tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of the IPL after it came to light that over a dozen members of the Chennai Super Kings contingent have been infected by the dreaded virus in Dubai.

The two players who have tested positive include a white-ball T20 specialist seamer for India and a top-order India A batsman. The board did not reveal any names. The tournament will start on Sept. 19 and will be played across three cities in the U.A.E.

"All the affected personnel as well as their close contacts are asymptomatic and have been isolated from other team members. They are being monitored by the IPL medical team," the BCCI press release said.

A total of 1,988 RT-PCR Covid-19 tests were carried out between Aug. 20 and 28 across all participant groups in the U.A.E., it said.

(Source: PTI)

The rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in New Delhi has led to an increase in the demand for beds in hospitals in the city, according to government data.

• On July 30, the occupancy of beds reserved for coronavirus patients was 18%, with only 2,958 out of 16,038 beds being occupied.
• It was 23.40% on Aug. 11. It increased to 28% on Aug. 29, with 4,004 out of 14,135 beds occupied, according to data shared by the hospitals on Delhi Corona app.
• Out of 1,229 coronavirus intensive care unit beds with ventilator support, 473 (38%) were occupied. The occupancy was 33% on July 30.

Delhi has recorded an increase in the number of new cases over the last few days. The number of new cases had hovered around 1,000 in the beginning of August, but the daily case load rose to 1,450 on Aug. 23 and 1,840 on Aug. 27 -- the highest single-day spike in 49 days.

(Source: PTI)

The recovery rate of Covid-19 patients in West Bengal reached 80.86% on Friday after 3,286 people were discharged from various hospitals of the state, a bulletin issued by the health department said.

So far, 1,24,332 people have recovered from the disease in West Bengal, it said.

The death toll rose to 3,073 after 56 more people succumbed to the novel coronavirus, while the state's caseload went up to 1,53,754 as 2,982 fresh cases of infection were reported.

The number of active cases is now 26,349.

(Source: PTI)

Global Update:

Globally, cases crossed 2.46 crore, leaving over 8.35 lakh dead as of Saturday morning.

Infections rose further across Europe, as Italy and Spain reported the most cases since the spring peak. German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the situation would get tougher as the summer ends.

U.S. President Donald Trump argued voters can’t trust Joe Biden to navigate the pandemic and defended his response to the virus that has killed more than 180,000 Americans.

Track all Covid-19 related news and updates in India, here.