Topics Coronavirus | World Health Organization | Lockdown
The Goa government on Tuesday announced that it would be providing helpers to cater to the needs of COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment at state-run ESI Hospital in Margao.
This would be the country's first-ever service for safe patient handling, state health minister Vishwajit Rane claimed.
Taking to Twitter, the minister said, "In addition to the treatment of patients, providing drug therapy, nutrition, etc, patients also require assistance in the ward with numerous things, to cater to the same, we have started Patient Handling Services at ESI Hospital for COVID patients."
With single-day addition of 983 new infections, the Covid-19 tally in Maharashtra's Nashik district rose to 81,895 on Tuesday, a health official said.
At least 12 persons died of the infection, taking the toll to 1,463, the official said.
Of the latest casualties, seven were reported from the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) limits and five from other parts of the district.
Among the cases reported so far, 55,077 were from Nashik city, 22,371 from other parts of the district, 3,882 from Malegaon and 545 from outside the district, the official said.
The national capital recorded 39 Covid-19 fatalities on Tuesday, pushing the toll to 5,581, while 2,676 fresh cases took the tally to over 295,000, authorities said.
These fresh cases came out of the 53,591 tests conducted the previous day.
Thirty-nine new fatalities have been recorded, taking the death toll to 5,581,according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.
The active cases tally on Tuesday stood at 22,720.
The bulletin said the total number of cases has climbed to 2,95,236
Union Health Ministry issues SOPs on preventive measures to contain spread of #COVID19 during festivities.
— ANI (@ANI) &7
Festive events permitted only outside containment zones. People residing in containment zones may be encouraged to observe festivals inside their homes and not move out. pic.twitter.com/gLTT0zOl5A
About 48 per cent of total Covid-19 deaths in the country are concentrated in 25 districts of 8 states, out of which 15 districts are in Maharastra alone, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
Addressing a press briefing, Union Health Ministry Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said India has recorded the highest number of recoveries from COVID-19 at over 56 lakh and India has also conducted the second highest number of tests in the world at 8.10 crore.
"New recoveries have been more than new cases over the last two weeks. New cases being reported in last 14 days are below previous highs of 90,000 cases per day," Bhushan said.
Giving figures on Covid deaths, Bhushan said about 48 per cent of total Covid-19 deaths in the country are concentrated in 25 districts of 8 states.
With coronavirus cases here witnessing a decline in the last few days, over 65 per cent of beds for Covid-19 patients in the city hospitals are vacant, data on Delhi Corona app showed.
However, the bed occupancy is higher in private hospitals as compared to government-run facilities.
At the LNJP Hospital, which is the Delhi government's biggest COVID facility, 1545 of 2000 beds are vacant, while the GTB Hospital has a vacancy of 1321 beds against its strength of 1500, according to Delhi Corona app.
Indraprastha Apollo Hospital has 110 out of 300 beds vacant, while only 53 out of 250 beds are unoccupied in Max Smart Saket. At Sir Gangaram Hospital, 60 beds are vacant out of 200 beds earmarked for coronavirus patients.
Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday recorded 738 fresh Covid-19 cases, while 16 deaths took place in the past 24 hours, taking the tally to 80,476 and the death toll to 1,268, officials said.
Srinagar district reported the highest number of 183 new Covid-19 cases, followed by 91 in Jammu district, they said.
"The Union Territory recorded 738 fresh Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours -- with 290 in Jammu and 448 in the Kashmir Valley," they said.
There are 13,712 active coronavirus cases, while 65,496 patients have recovered so far, the officials said.
At least 275 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Tripura on Tuesday, pushing the tally in the state to 27,308, a health department official said.
The death toll rose to 298 with two more people succumbing to the infection, he said.
West Tripura district, of which state capital Agartala is a part, has accounted for 161 of the 298 Covid-19 deaths, the official said.
Tripura currently has 4,879 active coronavirus cases, while 22,108 people have recovered from the disease.
Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar registered 247 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, taking the district's infection tally to 14,163, official data showed.
The district's active cases count rose to 1,434 from 1,345 on Monday even as 158 more patients were discharged, according to the data released by the UP Health Department for a 24-hour period.
The district has so far recorded12,673 recoveries, seventh highest in the state, according to the data.
The death toll stands at 56 with a mortality rate of 0.39 per cent, it stated.
The recovery rate of Covid-19 patients in Gurugram is steadily improving and now the district's recovery rate has increased to 88.23 per cent as compared to 86.71 per cent last week.
Health officials said due to increased awareness among residents and several awareness campaigns organised by the district administration and health department, the recovery rate of corona-infected patients is constantly improving.
They further said that while the recovery rate has increased in Gurugram district, the threat of the coronavirus pandemic has not been completely eradicated.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 tally in Gurugram rose to 22,204 as 266 more people tested positive for the disease on Tuesday, according to the daily health bulletin.
Meghalaya's Covid-19 death toll reached 60 with one more person succumbing to the disease on Tuesday, while 270 new infections took the tally to 7,037, a senior official said.
Health Services Director Aman War said that 115 patients were also cured of the disease, pushing the number of recoveries to 4,606.
The Northeastern state now has 2,371 active cases, he said.
East Khasi Hills district, of which state capital Shillong is a part, reported 195 of the fresh cases. The remaining 75 cases were registered in nine other districts.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said the national capital is past the peak of the second wave of coronavirus and the situation has been controlled to a large extent.
He said the city government increased the testing exponentially to detect the infection.
"Delhi hit the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 on September 17 when 4,500 cases were reported across the city. The situation has been controlled to a large extent," the chief minister said.
"I hope the second wave will slowly pass," Kejriwal told reporters here.
Testing in Delhi hit the 60,000 a day-mark in September compared to around 20,000 tests per day in August.
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday said political leaders have a "greater responsibility" to follow Covid-19 guidelines of social distancing and wearing masks, so that they don't send a wrong message to the public.
Rupani's statement came even as several instances have emerged of senior leaders from the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress participating in functions, rallies and addressing large gatherings without following safety norms.
"Everybody should follow rules related to social distancing and wearing masks, and they should do so of their own accord in their fight against coronavirus. It is not that we are arresting common man and not politicians (for flouting these rules)," the chief minister said.
"Political leaders have a bigger responsibility. They should follow the rules properly so that no wrong message is conveyed to the public," Rupani said, and urged the public to support the administration's efforts to contain the viral spread.
The White House has blocked new Food and Drug Administration guidelines on bringing potential vaccines for COVID-19 to market that would almost certainly have prevented their introduction before the Nov. 3 election.
At issue was the FDA's planned instruction that vaccine developers follow patients enrolled in their trials for at least two months to rule out safety issues before seeking emergency approval from the agency. A senior administration confirmed the move Monday evening, saying the White House believed there was no clinical or medical reason for the additional requirement.
The White House action was first reported by The New York Times.
The intervention by Trump officials is the latest example of the administration undercutting its own medical experts working to combat the pandemic that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has been attempting to shore up public confidence in the FDA's vaccine review for weeks, vowing that career scientists, not politicians, will decide if the shots are safe and effective for mass vaccination.
The average daily COVID19 positivity rate has been coming down. New recoveries have been more than new cases in the recent days: Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Union Health Ministry on COVID19 situation https://t.co/JkSqqzRRQ7
— ANI (@ANI) &7
India is expected to overtake China as the world's largest cooking gas LPG residential sector market by 2030, Wood Mackenzie said on Tuesday.
"Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) demand in the residential sector will continue to see sustainable growth at a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3 per cent, reaching 34 million tonnes (MT) in 2030 as households' dependence on solid biomass diminishes in the long run supported by rising average household incomes and urban population," it said in a report.
Driven by environmental and health concerns, the government has also been implementing schemes to help lower-income families cope with the cost of switching from dirtier biomass to LPG. Read on...
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday released a protocol for the clinical management of Covid-19, that lists dietarymeasures,yoga andAyurvedicherbs and formulations such as Ashwagandha and AYUSH-64 for prevention of coronavirus infection and treatment of mild and asymptomatic cases.
The 'National Clinical Management Protocol based on Ayurveda and Yoga for Management of Covid-19' was released byVardhanin the virtual presence of Shripad Naik, Minister of State for AYUSH.
"This protocol dealing with preventive and prophylactic measures is a significant step not only in management of Covid-19 but also in making traditional knowledge relevant to solving problems of the modern time," Vardhan was quoted as saying in a statement.
"Unfortunately, Ayurveda did not receive much attention after independence until Prime Minister Narendra Modi took up this cause with the importance it deserves," he said while stressing that Ayurveda had a significant impact in the foundations of modern medicine.
The government on Tuesday removed export curbs on N-95 masks, to promote outbound shipments of the product.
"The export policy of N-95/FFP-2 masks or its equivalent is amended from restricted to free category, making all types of masks freely exportable," the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification.
In August, a monthly export quota of 50 lakh units was fixed for N-95/FFP2 masks or its equivalent for issuance of export licences to eligible applicants.
From revamping infrastructure to meet Covid-19 guidelines to preparing an "effective" time-line for completing syllabus, schools in Delhi-NCR are taking several steps to resume formal classes in a safe environment when they reopen after nearly six months.
While the Centre has allowed graded reopening of schools from October 15, the Delhi government has extended the closure of schools till October 31 in view of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the National Capital Region (NCR), a few schools have reopened for students from classes 9 to 12 to come on a voluntary basis to seek academic guidance. NCR covers the whole of Delhi and certain districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
India's active cases comprise merely 13.75 per cent of the total positive cases of the country standing at 9,19,023 and the country continues to report a trend of steadily declining active cases, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said on Tuesday.
"The declining trend of the percentage active cases is commensurately supported by rising percentage of recovered cases," it stated.
So far, 56,62,490 people have recovered from the novel coronavirus in the country.
According to the statement, a higher number of recoveries has aided the national recovery rate to further improve to 84.70 per cent. 75,787 have recovered and discharged in the last 24 hours whereas the new confirmed cases stand at 61,267.
Florists in the national capital are struggling to earn livelihood despite the recent relaxations announced by the Central government. Gazipur flower market traders are complaining about a drop in sales due to the pandemic.
"Coronavirus lockdown has affected our business adversely. We don't even get 10 per cent of our earlier business. As the effect of demonetisation had started subsiding, we were slowly getting back on track. But then came Covid-19 and it devastated our business. We are forced to dump a big chunk of flowers as we barely make any sales," said the owner of Palni Flower in Gazipur.
The trader further said that even as they are making very little sales, they have no choice but to pay full taxes to maintain their shops. "Now we are pinning our hoping on Navratras that we will get to do some business," he added.
Haryana Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala says, he has tested positive for #COVID19
— ANI (@ANI) &7
(file pic) pic.twitter.com/eNXmfRQORT
Mizoram's Covid-19 tally rose to 2,128 on Tuesday as eight more people, including four security personnel, tested positive for the infection, an official said.
Four new cases were reported in Aizawl district, three in Kolasib and one in Serchhip, he said.
Three Assam Rifles jawans and one Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are among the new patients, the official said.
A wholesaler of medicines was arrested for his alleged involvement in black marketing of remdesivir, a drug used in the treatment of COVID-19, in Gujarat's Rajkot city on Tuesday, police said.
Acting on a complaint, the Rajkot crime branch nabbed Paresh Zalavadia (35), owner of New Ideal Agency, a wholesale pharmacy, said inspector V K Gadhvi.
Earlier, another accused Rajnikant Faldu, a medical representative of a reputed pharma company, was arrested for a similar offence.
Remdesivir is in high demand and dealers are supposed to keep record of sales of the drug, which can only be sold against doctors' prescriptions, the official said, adding that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also keeps a track of these transactions.
A second wave of the coronavirus pandemic risks delaying the euro zone's economic recovery, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday.
"We now fear that the containment measures that have to be taken by authorities will have an impact on this recovery, so instead of that V shape that we all long for and hope for, we fear that it might have that second arm of the V a little bit more shaky," she told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in a pre-recorded conversation.
World stock markets neared a more than two-week high on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump's return to the White House from hospital where he was treated for Covid-19, and expectations of a new US stimulus package being agreed rose.
Europe saw a stuttering start with London's FTSE dipping and not much traction from France, Italy or Germany, despite a "remarkable" jump in German industrial orders.
Wall Street and most of Asia rallied overnight after Trump's return from the Walter Reed Medical Center military hospital outside Washington eased nerves about possible disruption to next month's Presidential election.
Gold, bonds and the dollar suffered losses amid the modestly improved risk appetite, though Wall Street futures had slipped into the red and oil was losing its strong overnight momentum.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has suspended all its court works, including virtual hearing and filing, after some of its staff tested Covid-19 positive.
Earlier, one staff member posted in its record section had tested positive on September 30, which necessitated the suspension of work on October 1 in order to carry out the sanitisation of the NCLAT premises and required judges and other staff to undergo testing.
After that test, four more staff members, out of which three are from the record section, tested positive for COVID-19 on October 4, 2020.
"Now, therefore, a fresh exercise of sanitisation/disinfection has to be undertaken and the record lying in the record room has to be subjected to the process of disinfection/sanitisation before laying before the benches.
"Hence, as directed by acting chairperson, the court work (virtual hearing) and filing etc, in the NCLAT will remain suspended till October 6, 2020," said an NCLAT notification issued by the Registrar on October 4.
The Covid-19 case count in Maharashtra's Thane district rose to 1,82,776, after 1,277 more persons tested positive for the infection, a district official said on Tuesday.
Apart from the latest cases detected on Monday, the district also recorded 27 casualties that took the toll to 4,616, the official said.
Currently, the recovery rate in the district stands at 88.35 per cent, while the morality rate is 2.53 per cent, he said.
As many as 16,669 patients are undergoing treatment for the infection in the district, he added.
Although Kalyan has recorded 44,064 Covid-19 cases so far, it has improved its recovery rate to 90.24 per cent and brought down the death rate to 1.94 per cent, the official said.
Seasonal influenza vaccine development and mass production may lead to future efforts targeted at developing and evaluating vaccine strategies for Covid-19, say researchers.
In the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the research team evaluated whether existing flu trial networks could offer primary and secondary prevention strategies for patients with cardiovascular disease at risk of complications from Covid-19.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that influenza kills as many as 6,50,000 people every year globally, citing influenza as a top 10 leading cause of death among people of all ages, especially those with one or more comorbidities like cardiovascular disease.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said the national capital is past the peak of the second wave of coronavirus and the situation has been controlled to a large extent.
Kejriwal said the Delhi government increased the testing to detect the infection exponentially.
"Delhi hit the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 on September 17 when 4,500 cases were reported across the city. The situation has been controlled to a large extent," he said.
The chief minister also said that 10,000 beds are now unoccupied in hospitals.
"I hope the second wave will slowly pass," Kejriwal said.
India's 9,19,023 active cases of COVID-19 constitute "merely" 13.75 per cent of the total caseload as on date and the country continues to report asteadily declining trend of percentage of active cases, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
So far 56,62,490 people have recovered from the disease in the country and exceed active cases of coronavirus infection by 47,43,467 as on date, it stated.
"The declining trend of the percentage of active cases is commensurately supported by the rising percentage of recovered cases," the ministry underlined.
Higher number of recoveries has aided the national recovery rate to further improve to 84.70 per cent, the ministry said.
At least 2,673 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Odisha on Tuesday, taking the tally to 2,38,003, while 16 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 940, a health department official said.
Of the new cases, 1,554 were reported from various quarantine centres and 1,119 were detected during contact tracing, he said.
Khurda district, of which state capital Bhubaneswar is a part, registered the maximum number of new cases at 448, followed by Cuttack at 214 and Nuapada at 159.
"Regret to inform the demise of sixteen #COVID-19 positive patients while under treatment in hospitals," the Health and Family Welfare Department said on Twitter.
Of the 16 fatalities, four were reported from Balasore, three from Khurda, two from Cuttack and one each from Angul, Boudh, Mayurbhanj, Nawrangpur, Nayagarh, Puri and Subarnapur districts.