Coronavirus India Updates: Tally Crosses 2.26 Lakh, Adds Nearly 10,000 Cases In A Day

As India recorded a daily jump of over 8,000 coronavirus cases for the fifth day on Thursday, the Centre told the Supreme Court that a large number of make-shift hospitals will have to be built in the near future to accommodate the constant rise in the number of newly infected people.

The Centre also contended that though hospitals are responsible for implementing the Infection Prevention and Control activities, the final responsibility lies with the health care workers to protect themselves from Covid-19. It further said mandatory quarantine for 14 days after rostering duty of health care workers of 7/14 days is not justified and warranted.

“It is most respectfully submitted that number of cases of Covid-19 are constantly increasing and at some point of time in near future, apart from existing hospitals, large number of temporary make-shift hospitals will have to be created in order to accommodate Covid-19 patients requiring admission, medical care and treatment,” the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a written affidavit.

The affidavit was filed before a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MR Shah on a plea that questioned the Centre's new Standard Operating Procedure of May 15 for frontline Covid-19 health care workers by which it ended the 14-day mandatory quarantine for them.

The court allowed petitioner and private doctor Dr. Arushi Jain's counsels advocate Mithu Jain and Arjun Syal to file the rejoinder affidavit to the Centre's reply within a week and posted the matter for June 12.

The ministry in its reply affidavit said health care workers are properly protected by Personal Protective Equipments in workplace settings and carry no additional risk to their families or children.

It said grievances raised by the petitioner alleging infirmities in the May 15 guidelines of the health ministry are completely presumptuous, vacuous, ill-founded and sans any empirical or medical evidence.

Source: PTI

With a trend of steady decline in Covid-19 cases in Mumbai, the average daily growth rate of infections has gone down, claimed officials of the city civic body, spearheading the metropolis's response to the pandemic.

According to a top Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation official, as per the data till June 2, the average daily growth of Covid-19 cases went down from more than 8 per cent a a few days ago to 3.64%.

Till June 2, a total of 41,986 Covid-19 cases and 1,368 deaths were recorded in the city, the worst-hit by the disease in Maharashtra. According to the BMC, it has conducted over 2.08 lakh tests till June 2, of those only 20.18% people tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

"Even the Covid-19 case doubling rate has gone up to 19 days," said the official.

According to BMC's health department data, in the past one month, the maximum number of cases, 1,739, on a single-day were detected on May 22, while the minimum, 404, was recorded on May 13.

According to the officials, due to aggressive screening, testing and contact tracing of suspected Covid-19 patients, the civic body has been successful in keeping the spread of the pandemic under control.

Source: PTI

Total 43,86,376 samples have been tested till now, of which 1,43,661 samples have been tested in the last 24 hours: ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) pic.twitter.com/NalVcOcV5K

— ANI (@ANI) June 5, 2020

Brazil has reported 1,473 more Covid-19 deaths, the biggest 24-hour increase in the country's death toll since the outbreak began. That's equal to more than one death per minute, and means the country now has the world's third highest death toll.

For the second straight night, the health ministry delayed release of Thursday's data until 10 p.m. local time, after Brazil's widely watched evening news program ended. Thursday was the third straight day with a new daily high for Brazil's coronavirus deaths.

Brazil has reported more than 34,000 deaths from the virus so far, meaning it surpassed the amount in Italy and trails only the U.K. and U.S. Experts consider the tally a significant undercount due to insufficient testing.

Source: AP Via PTI

The state government has announced weekend shutdown in 11 districts to reduce the frequency of people coming out of their homes in June. It means people will be at their homes for full 8 days in the month of June: Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik (04.06.2020) #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/twaLgilPKB

— ANI (@ANI) June 5, 2020

Police personnel check vehicles at Delhi-Gurugram border as people commute through the route. pic.twitter.com/2sFUha7xaF

— ANI (@ANI) June 5, 2020

Global Update

Brazil surpassed Italy as the country with the third most fatalities in the world from the coronavirus. Even as the pandemic is easing in some countries, the virus continues to spread, adding about 100,000 cases a day as new hot spots emerge from Latin America to India.

A study that said a malaria drug backed by U.S. President Donald Trump raised the risk of heart side effects and death has been retracted by the authors.

Cases pass 6.6 million; deaths exceed 389,000.

Track all the news updates on the new coronavirus situation in India here.