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A three-member central team reached here on Sunday to take stock of the Covid-19 situation in Bihar, which has witnessed a surge in novel coronavirus cases, an official said.
The team sent by the Union Health Ministry is being led by Luv Agarwal, who is a joint secretary in the ministry. The director of the National Centre for Disease Control Dr. SK Singh, and Associate Professor of Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi Dr. Neeraj Nishchal are also part of the team.
The team will hold meetings with authorities of the health department and other officials concerned to discuss ways to contain the spread of the disease, the official said.
(Source: PTI)
The Covid-19 tally in Uttar Pradesh rose to 49,247 on Sunday with the highest single-day jump of 2,211 fresh cases, while the death toll reached 1,146 after 38 fatalities were reported in the state, according to a statement.
According to the union Health Ministry's update at 8 a.m., the total tally in the state stood at 47,036.
Eight fatalities were reported from Kanpur, four from Bareilly and three from Rampur, the statement issued by the Uttar Pradesh government said.
Lucknow, Prayagraj, Sambhal, Gonda, Ballia and Hamirpur reported two deaths each, while Meerut, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Bahraich, Gorakhpur, Etawah, Maharajganj, Bhadohi, Jhansi and Mahoba registered one casualty each.
Among the new cases, 392 are from Lucknow, followed by 168 from Kanpur, 125 from Gautam Buddh Nagar, 104 from Jhansi and 100 from Prayagraj.
(Source: PTI)
The West Bengal government has added 63 areas to the list of 'broad-based' containment zones in the state, increasing the count to 739, amid the strict lockdown clamped in all such places to stem the spread of the coronavirus disease, a senior official said on Sunday.
The number of such zones in Kolkata has increased to 32 from 24, with the metropolis continuing to record the maximum number of Covid-19 cases in the state every day, he said.
The government has recently clubbed containment zones and the buffer zones around them to constitute a 'broad-based' containment zone.
Currently, North 24 Parganas district has the highest number of containment zones at 113 with the addition of 18 more areas, while South 24 Parganas has 67, up by 12, according to the state government's website 'Egiye Bangla'.
No new area was added to the list of containment zones in Howrah and the number of such areas in the district stood at 85. Eleven new zones each were added to Nadia and Purba Burdwan, taking the number of such areas to 65 and 82, respectively.
(Source: PTI)
There is no question of extending the ongoing week-long lockdown in Bengaluru, newly appointed commissioner of the city civic body N Manjunatha Prasad said on Sunday, amid speculations it may be continued for another fortnight in view of rising cases.
The government has imposed complete lockdown in Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural districts among a few others since 8 p.m. of July 14 till 5 a.m. on July 22.
(Source: PTI)
Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar on Sunday recorded one more coronavirus-related fatality, while 125 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in the district, official data showed.
The death toll has now reached 39, while the total number of Covid-19 cases in the district rose to 4,144, according to the data released by the Uttar Pradesh Health Department for a 24-hour period.
The number of active cases stood at 973, as 99 more patients got discharged from hospitals after recovery since Saturday, the data showed.
(Source: PTI)
A study conducted jointly by researchers at IIT-Bhubaneswar and the AIIMS in the city has shown that the spread of Covid-19 may pick up pace during peak monsoon and winter with a fall in the mercury.
The rainfall, decrease in temperatures and cooling of the atmosphere, coupled with progression towards winter, may environmentally favour the spread of Covid-19 in the country, according to the study led by V Vinoj, assistant professor of the School of Earth, Ocean and Climatic Sciences at IIT-Bhubaneswar.
The report titled "Covid-19 spread in India and its dependence on temperature and relative humidity" took into account the pattern of the coronavirus outbreak and the number of such cases in 28 states between April and June.
The study, which is in its pre-print stage, shows that the temperature and relative humidity have a significant impact on the disease growth rate and doubling time.
"It suggests that a one-degree-Celsius rise in temperature leads to a 0.99 per cent decrease in cases and increases the doubling time by 1.13 days, implying a slowdown of the virus spread," he told PTI. The study also found that an increase in relative humidity tends to decrease the growth rate and doubling time of coronavirus cases by 1.18 days.
(Source: PTI)
Bank unions have raised concerns over lack of regular sanitisation and adherence to social distancing norms at various bank branches in Maharashtra, putting lives of employees at risk from Covid-19.
Unions have written a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray seeking his intervention in issuing directives to banks and local authorities for safety of bank employees.
"Despite standard operating procedure prescribed by the central government as also state government and local administration, banks are not complying with regular sanitisation of branches," United Forum of Bank Unions said in the letter.
Banks are not deploying security guards at the entrance of bank branches to manage the crowd, it said, adding in Mumbai alone, more than 15 bank employees have lost their lives and more than hundred are infected by the coronavirus.
The United Forum of Bank Unions is an umbrella body of nine unions, including All India Bank Officers' Confederation, All India Bank Employees Association and National Organisation of Bank Workers.
(Source: PTI)
India's Covid-19 case fatality rate is "progressively falling" and is currently at 2.49%, which is one of the lowest in the world, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday.
There are 29 states and union territories with a case fatality rate lower than India's average, with five of them having a fatality rate of zero, and 14 having less than 1%.
The focused efforts of the central government and state and union territories on efficient clinical management of hospitalised cases have ensured that India's case fatality rate has fallen below 2.5%, the ministry said.
With effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standardised clinical management protocols based on holistic standard of care approach, the case fatality rate has significantly dipped, it said.
(Source: PTI)
Seven Indian Drugmakers Race To Develop Covid-19 Vaccine
Parliamentary panels have started scrutinising the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country a little over three months after Parliament was adjourned ahead of its schedule due to the virus and a shorter time frame to hold the standing committee meetings would not have been possible given the present situation, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said on Sunday.
In a Facebook post hailing the media's role during the pandemic, the vice president also said Parliament is "on course" for holding the Monsoon session.
"Given the corona-induced social distancing norm, the logistics of seating of MPs required detailed deliberation and planning. The government also recently reached out to both the presiding officers (Naidu and Birla) on holding the Monsoon session."
With the easing of restrictions on domestic air travel in May and to a lesser degree on rail travel, the department-related standing committees of both houses of Parliament have resumed their meetings this month, he said.
(Source: PTI)
Tamil Nadu came under an intense lockdown, the third successive Sunday of full curbs without any relaxations to help fight Covid-19 and roads everywhere wore a deserted look as people stayed indoors.
Barring milk supply and health care services, all other activities came to a halt and markets were closed down. Shops, including those selling essential commodities, were shut. But for cargo trucks, other vehicles went off the roads.
For sanitary workers, it was business as usual as they continued their clean-up work, and personnel of civic bodies conducted door-to-door surveys to detect people with flu-like symptoms, and fever camps were also held.
State-run low cost Amma canteens functioned. Check posts were set up at key intersections in towns and cities and at district borders as part of measures to effectively implement the complete shutdown.
(Source: PTI)
As many as 129 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Indore in the last 24 hours, taking the tally in Madhya Pradesh's worst-hit district to 6,035, an official said on Sunday.
There has been a rapid rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the state's industrial hub during the last 10 days.
"Out of 1,957 samples tested in the last 24 hours, we have found 129 new patients," Indore's Chief Medical and Health Officer Praveen Jadia said.
In the last four months, 292 patients in the district have died of coronavirus, while 4,238 people have recovered after treatment, he said.
(Source: PTI)
Odisha's Covid-19 caseload crossed the 17,000-mark on Sunday with 736 more people testing positive for the infection, while five fresh fatalities pushed the death toll due to the disease in the state to 91, a health official said.
The fresh cases reported from 25 districts have taken the state's total tally to 17,437, he said.
Of the 736 new cases, 481 were reported from quarantine centres, while the remaining were contacts of other Covid-19 patients, the official said.
Three of the five fresh fatalities were reported from Ganjam, the worst-hit district in the state. Sundergarh and Jagatsinghpur reported a death each, the official said.
(Source: PTI)
Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday reported 41 new cases of Covid-19, taking the state's tally to 650, a senior health official said.
Most of the new cases were detected in the Capital Complex with 18 people testing positive, followed by 10 in Lower Siang, six in Papum Pare, three in Lower Dibang Valley and two cases each in West Kameng and Lower Subansiri districts, he said.
The cases in Lower Siang and Lower Dibang Valley districts were detected at quarantine centres. One case each in West Kameng and Lower Subansiri districts were also detected at quarantine centres, said State Surveillance Officer, L Jampa.
The Capital Complex has recorded most of the cases in the state at 216, followed by Changlang (37), Namsai (27), East Siang (21), Lower Subansiri and Lower Siang with 14 cases each.
Capital Complex Deputy Commissioner, Komkar Dulom, declared seven buildings in Naharlagun and one in Itanagar as containment zones for a period of 28 days. Papum Pare's Deputy Commissioner Pige Ligu declared Chiptua village in Doimukh sub-division as containment zone after six cases were detected there.
The Arunachal Pradesh government has extended the total lockdown in the Capital Complex for another two weeks in the wake of the spurt in infections in the region, Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar said. The restrictions, which were imposed till Monday evening, have been extended till 5 a.m. on Aug. 3.
A total of 38,042 samples have been tested in the state so far.
(Source: PTI)
With the Covid-19 graph continuing its spike, a startup, incubated at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, has developed a wearable hand band that helps in maintaining social distancing by sending out alarm in case of proximity with another person.
Known as the Veli Band, the device has been developed by Qual5 India Pvt., a startup co-founded by a woman entrepreneur, mentored and funded by IIM-K's business incubator and entrepreneurship development centre, LIVE, an IIM-K press release said.
Veli Band helps implement social distancing and location/contact tracing which can help organisations comply with social distancing norms during the current pandemic situation.
The band momentarily vibrates, sounds buzzer, and flashes LED simultaneously to notify wearers that another band is within 3 feet (1 metre), reminding them of the need to maintain social distance.
The device, to be worn on the wrist, can anonymously keep track of interactions with other devices and thus not only help in maintaining a safer workplace but also aid in tracking employee movements in real time. The band comes with a rechargeable battery and uses Bluetooth Low Energy technology for detection.
(Source: PTI)
Two more persons have tested positive for Covid-19 in Mizoram, taking the northeastern state's caseload to 284 on Sunday, a health official said.
The new patients are from Aizawl and they had recently returned from other states, he said.
Aizawl district has the highest number of active cases at 77, followed by Lunglei (16), Lawngtlai (13), four in Serchhip, three each in Siaha and Champhai and one in Mamit district, the official said.
Kolasib, Khawzawl, Hnahthial and Saitual districts are presently virus-free, he added.
(Source: PTI)
The Karnataka government held inter-state travellers responsible for the spurt in Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru in the past few days, saying those from hotspot states like Maharashtra could have brought the infection.
When the lockdown was eased, people from various parts of the country, including high prevalence states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, came to Karnataka, State Minister for Medical Education K Sudhakar told PTI.
The minister, however, ruled out community spread of the disease in Bengaluru. The government's "vigilant approach" has slowed down the spread of the virus by two months in the city, he said.
(Source: PTI)
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