Coronavirus LIVE: Govt Expresses Concern Over Rise In Covid Cases In 22 Districts Across 7 States
Coronavirus LIVE Updates: Govt has expressed concern over rise in daily new Covid cases in 22 districts across seven states including Kerala, two in Maharashtra, and rest spread across the Northeast.
Background
Coronavirus LIVE Updates, Wednesday 28 July: Even as the average daily new Covid-19 cases are declining consistently, the Centre expressed concern over 22 districts showing a rising trend in daily new cases in last four weeks along with an increase in number of districts reporting positivity rate of above 10%. Seven of these districts are in Kerala, and two in Maharashtra, with the rest spread across the Northeast.
Meanwhile, two Covid cases of UK strain and five cases of Delta strain have been reported in Darjeeling district. One (Delta strain) case in Kalimpong.
RAI urges Maharashtra govt to consider reopening of malls, shopping centres
Retailers Association of India (RAI) on Wednesday said the prolonged closures of malls in Maharashtra due to COVID-19 have 'impacted' around 2 lakh jobs and asked the state government to allow them to operate with necessary safeguards.
The closure has put the entire ecosystem that depends on the malls in "serious jeopardy" and is not only hurting businesses but also livelihoods of people working there, RAI said in a statement.
"The prolonged closures have impacted the estimated 50 malls in Maharashtra that employ more than 2 lakh people, generate a business of (around) Rs 40,000 crore and contribute Rs 4,000 crore in GST, per month," the retailers' body said.
RAI further said, "It has also afflicted all the businesses associated with malls -- on an average, a mall has 200 retail stores operating in it and over 5,000 business entities associated with it as suppliers and vendors. Restarting malls will help ensure the survival of this ecosystem."
Puducherry reports less than 100 daily cases
Puducherry reported 97 fresh cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours ending 10 am on Wednesday, taking the overall infection count to 1,20,627. The new cases were identified at the end of examination of 5635 samples and were spread over Puducherry 74, Karaikal 16, Yanam 2 and Mahe 5.
The active cases were 923 of whom 189 were in hospitals and the remaining 734 were in home isolation. While 96 patients recovered and were discharged from hospitals today the overall recoveries were 1,17,627.
The test positivity rate was 1.72 percent while fatality and recovery rates were 1.49 percent and 97.75 percent respectively, the Director of the Department of Health S Mohan Kumar said. On the vaccination front, 37,785 health care workers and 22,962 front line workers have been inoculated against the pandemic so far. He said 4.86 lakh people belonging to the senior citizens category or those above 45 years with co morbidities have been inoculated.
In all 6.86 lakh people including those who received the second dose of vaccination have been inoculated in the Union Territory. Meanwhile, the Health Department announced a three-day free vaccination drive from Thursday.
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