Coronavirus HIGHLIGHTS: Over Half Crore Vaccines Administered On Thursday; Cumulative Coverage Crosses 30.7 Cr Mark
Coronavirus HIGHLIGHTS, Thursday June 24: After a gap of seven days, Maharashtra on Wednesday crossed the 10,000 single-day case mark and reported 10,066 Covid-19 infections, taking its tally to 59,97,587, said the state health department.
Delhi recorded eight deaths and 109 fresh cases of coronavirus infection on Thursday as the city's positivity rate dipped to 0.14 per cent.
On Wednesday, Delhi recorded 111 COVID-19 cases and seven fatalities, while the positivity rate stood at 0.15 per cent.
There have been some media reports alleging non-transparent allocation of Covid-19 vaccines to States. These allegations are completely without any basis, and not fully informed: Union Health Ministry.
Distribution of Covid19 vaccine is done on the parameters- population of a state, Caseload or disease burden, and State’s utilisation efficiency. The allocation is negatively affected by the vaccine wastage: Union Health Ministry.
Itanagar: At least 252 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Arunachal Pradesh, pushing the tally in the state to 33,916, a health department official said on Thursday.
The Capital Complex Region reported the highest number of fresh cases at 53, followed by Lohit (23), West Kameng (21), Changlang and Namsai (19 each), Upper Subansiri (15), East Kameng and East Siang (14 each) and Papumpare (10), State Surveillance Officer Dr Lobsang Jampa said.
The remaining cases were registered in several other districts.
The death toll remained at 160 as no new fatality due to the infection was reported in the past 24 hours, the SSO said.
Of the fresh cases, 238 were detected through rapid antigen tests and seven each through RT-PCR and TrueNat methods.
At least 233 patients were cured of the disease on Wednesday, taking the total number of recoveries in the state to 31,189, Jampa said.
The recovery rate among coronavirus patients in the state stands at 91.96 per cent.
Arunachal Pradesh now has 2,567 active cases.
The Capital Complex Region, comprising Itanagar, Naharlagun, Nirjuli and Banderdewa areas, has the maximum number of active cases at 464, followed by West Kameng (280), Changlang (191), East Siang (176), Namsai (160) and Lohit (143).
Altogether, 7,32,078 samples have been tested for Covid-19 in the state so far, including 5,273 on Wednesday, Jampa said, adding that the positivity rate stands at 4.77 per cent.
State Immunisation Officer Dr Dimong Padung said that 5,21,760 people have been inoculated since the beginning of the vaccination drive in January. (PTI)
More than 30 crores (30,33,27,440) vaccine doses have been provided by Centre to States/UTs so far. Of this, the total consumption, including wastages is 28,43,40,936 doses as per data available at 8 am today: Union Health Ministry stated.
More than 1.89 crore (1,89,86,504) balance and unutilized Covid vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered. More than 21,05,010 vaccine doses are in the pipeline and will be received by the States/UTs within the next 3 days, it informed
TMC MP Mimi Chakraborty earlier claimed that she has busted a fake Covid vaccination drive in Kolkata
"I was approached by a man who introduced himself as an IAS officer & said he was running a special drive for transgenders & specially-abled persons & requested for my presence," she said.
"I took Covishield vaccine at the camp to motivate people for taking jabs. But I never received a confirmation message from CoWIN. I lodged a complaint with Kolkata Police & the accused was arrested. He was using a car with a blue beacon & fake sticker," she added.
Kolkata Police have responded to the same and said: "We haven’t come across any vial having an expiry date. Seized vials will be sent for testing to find out if they are genuine or not. Accused will be interrogated in this regard".
The case regarding fake Covid vaccination drive in Kolkata has been transferred to the Kolkata Police Detective Department/
Kolkata: Amid a warning that children might be infected during the possible third wave of coronavirus, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that priority would be given to inoculate women having children aged up to 12 years.
She also said that the state would start inoculating at least four lakh people on an average daily from Thursday.
"We are giving importance to the third wave. The second wave has increased the number of infections. We have decided to prioritise inoculating the mothers of children aged zero to 12 years old, so that the child does not get the infection from the mother," she said.
At least two crore people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in the state till now, Banerjee said.
"We have decided to start vaccinating at least four lakh people from tomorrow," the chief minister said.
The West Bengal government has decided to have at least 26,000 Covid-19 beds for women in state-run as well as private medical facilities.
Besides, around 10,000 general beds have been earmarked for mild and moderate pediatric cases in the age group of 90 days to 12 years and 20 per cent of special newborn care unit (SNCU) beds for Covid positive patients aged between 1 day and 90 days.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, 38 people succumbed to the coronavirus taking the toll to 17,475, a health department bulletin said.
The tally mounted to 14,87,363 after 1,925 fresh cases of infection were registered in the state, it said.
In the last 24 hours, 2,017 recoveries have been registered in West Bengal, improving the discharge rate to 97.32 per cent.
The number of active cases now is 22,378, the bulletin said.
Altogether 55,589 samples have been tested in the state on Wednesday, the bulletin said.
During the day, at least 3.33 lakh people were inoculated in the state, a health department official said. (PTI)
Washington: The overall global Covid-19 caseload has topped 179.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 3.88 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Thursday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 179,522,146 and 3,889,680, respectively.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 33,577,488 and 602,833, respectively, according to the CSSE.
In terms of infections, India follows in second place with 30,028,709 cases.
The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (18,169,881), France (5,824,127), Turkey (5,387,545), Russia (5,306,069), the UK (4,683,925), Argentina (4,326,101), Italy (4,255,434), Colombia (4,027,016), Spain (3,773,032), Germany (3,732,469) and Iran (3,128,395), the CSSE figures showed.
In terms of deaths, Brazil comes second with 507,109 fatalities.
Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are India (390,660), Mexico (231,505), Peru (190,906), the UK (128,291), Italy (127,352), Russia (128,719) and France (111,024). (IANS)
New York: New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that the state will end the statewide disaster emergency on Thursday thanks to substantial progress made in combating the Covid-19 pandemic.
New York State declared a state of emergency in early March of 2020 to contain the spread of coronavirus.
A number of laws, rules and regulations were modified or suspended to facilitate emergency purchase, testing, treatment, cleaning and quarantine.
"New York went from one of the worst infection rates to the lowest infection rate in the country, and it was all because of the efforts of New Yorkers who were smart, united and did what they needed to do throughout this entire pandemic," Cuomo said on Wednesday, Xinhua reported.
As of Wednesday, New York State had 0.34 per cent positivity rate in Covid-19 testing with 474 Covid-19 patients hospitalized and 104 people in intensive care units.
The state reported 42,942 accumulative deaths from the pandemic on Wednesday with 71.2 per cent of residents administered with at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Still, the guidance from Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will remain in effect, which includes masks for unvaccinated individuals, as well as all riders on public transit and in certain settings, such as health care, nursing homes, correctional facilities, and homeless shelters. (IANS)
Background
Coronavirus HIGHLIGHTS, Thursday June 24: The Centre has alerted and advised Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh regarding the ‘Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2, currently a variant of concern (VOC), which has been found in some districts of these states.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has communicated to these three states that the Delta Plus variant has been found in the genome sequenced samples received from Ratnagiri and Jalgaon districts in Maharashtra, Palakkad and Pathanamthitta districts in Kerala, and Bhopal and Shivpuri districts in Madhya Pradesh.
The Union government has alerted these states about the recent findings of INSACOG. INSACOG is a consortium of 28 laboratories under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for whole genome sequencing in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
INSACOG is tasked with not just the whole genome sequencing, but also for giving timely inputs on appropriate public health response measures to be adopted by the states and Union Territories.
INSACOG has informed that the Delta Plus variant has characteristics of increased transmissibility, stronger binding to receptors of lung cells and potential reduction in monoclonal antibody response.
The Union Health Ministry has advised Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh that the public health response measures, while broadly remaining the same as have been implemented by them earlier, have to become more focused and effective.
After a gap of seven days, Maharashtra on Wednesday crossed the 10,000 single-day case mark and reported 10,066 Covid-19 infections, taking its tally to 59,97,587, said the state health department.
The state on June 16 had reported 10,107 cases and since then, the daily count has remained below 10,000.
Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday expressed concern over statewide daily cases not remaining below 7,000-8,000 on a consistent basis.
With 163 more deaths, the fatality count increased to 1,19,303, the health department said.
Out of them, 109 deaths occurred in the last 48 hours and 54 in the last week.
Deaths that took place more than a week's ago are being added in the cumulative tally as part of a data reconciliation exercise.
Under the exercise, 345 previously unreported deaths were added to the overall toll figure, the department said in a report.
The state's Covid-19 recovery rate is 95.93 per cent, while the case fatality rate is 1.99 per cent, the report said.
As many as 11,032 patients were discharged during the day, taking the number of recovered cases to 57,53,290 and leaving the state with 1,21,859 active cases, the department said.
The national capital on Tuesday reported 111 new Covid-19 cases, while its daily test positivity rate stood at 0.15 per cent, according to the health bulletin issued by the Delhi government.
With seven more deaths reported in the last 24 hours, Delhi's total death due to Covid rose to 24,940.
During the same time period, 702 people recovered from the disease, taking the national capital's total recoveries to 14,06,629 till date.
Delhi presently has 1,791 active cases, of which 522 are under home isolation.
A total of 76,185 Covid samples were tested in the last 24 hours, including 52,940 through RT-PCR and 23, 245through Rapid Antigen method.
Tamil Nadu on Wednesday reported
6,596 new Covid-19 infections and 166 deaths, taking the total numbers so far to 24,43,415 and 31,746 respectively.
Of the 166 fatalities, 57 were in private hospitals and 109 in government facilities.
The number of people who got discharged today was 10,432 and recoveries till date increased to 23,58,785.
Active cases, including those in isolation, as on today stood at 52,884, according to a bulletin.
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