Coronavirus HIGHLIGHTS: Maharashtra Records 20,295 New Cases In Last 24 Hrs, Mumbai Tally Dips To 1,048
Coronavirus HIGHLIGHTS, May 28, Friday: After one month of lockdown, Delhi on Friday reported 1,141 new cases and the daily positivity rate stands below 2 percent from the last week. Against 884 deaths on Thursday, Maharashtra reported 973 fatalities (424 fresh and 549 previous deaths), taking its toll to 93,198. The number of fresh cases remained below the 25,000 level - and fell from 21,273 on Wednesday to 20,740, as the tally rose to 56,92,920 now.
Maharashtra reported 20,295 new COVID cases, 31,964 discharges, and 443 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Active cases: 2,76,573
Total cases: 57,13, 215
Total discharges: 53,39,838
Though the Madhya Pradesh government has approved a phase-wise unlocking of the "corona curfew" restrictions beginning June 1, the weekend lockdown will continue to be in force across the state, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said.
The weekend curfew from 10 PM on Saturdays to 6 AM on Mondays will continue irrespective of unlocking of coronavirus-induced curbs, he said.Weekend lockdown to continue despite unlocking from June 1
The coronavirus positivity rate in Madhya Pradesh was 2.1 per cent as on Saturday and the recovery rate was above 95 per cent, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said.
"From about 76,000 tests, 1,640 persons were found infected, while 4,995 people recovered. While the recovery rate of coronavirus infection rose above 95 per cent, the positivity rate has been reduced to 2.1 per cent," an official release quoted the CM as saying in connection with COVID-19 figures for Saturday.
Triple lockdown in Malappuram district has been withdrawn. The statewide lockdown has been extended till 9th June, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan announced on Saturday.
The announcement comes as 23,513 new COVID19 cases, 28,100 recoveries, and 198 deaths reported in the last 24 hours in Kerala. Active cases stand at 2,33,034, death toll at 8,456. A total of 1,41,759 samples tested in the last 24 hours.
In total, 18,040 oxygen concentrators, 19,085 oxygen cylinders and nearly 7.7 lakh remdesivir vials received as aid from abroad have been delivered or dispatched to states and Union Territories from April 27 to May 28 amid the second wave of COVID-19 infection, the Union Health Ministry said.
Cumulatively, 18,040 oxygen concentrators, 19,085 oxygen cylinders, 19 oxygen generation plants, 15,256 ventilators and BiPAP, around 7.7 lakh remdesivir vials and nearly 12 lakh favipiravir tablets have been delivered and dispatched through road and air from April 27 to May 28.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has announced that children orphaned or those who lost either of their parents to coronavirus will be provided an assistance of Rs 5 lakhs.
A special task force under district collector has already been set up to identify the children whose parents succumbed to the disease and provide them the much needed assistance, an official release said.
"There are no talks on lockdown extension. We will think about it on June 5,": Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa told media persons today.
"There are very few of them (public representatives) who have complained of no drug for Black Fungus. We have spoken to Union Minister Sadananda Gowda. We will have sufficient drugs at the earliest," he said.
"There were few ventilators that needed some repair. We have rectified everything and we will make use of the ventilators at the earliest," he added.
Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya has informed that the production of Remdesivir is ramped up ten times from 33,000 vials/day on 11th April 2021 to 3,50,000 vials/day today: Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers
Government has also increased number of plants producing Remdesivir from 20 to 60 plants within a month. Now the country has enough Remdesivir as the supply is much more than the demand, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers stated.
Meanwhile, it has also informed that the government has decided to discontinue the central allocation of Remdesivir to states. Mansukh Mandaviya has directed the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Agency and CDSCO to continuously monitor the availability of Remdesivir in the country.
There are conversations on the regulatory, legal, commercial and supply chain side, going on b/w companies concerned and entities with authorized people in India. In many cases, Embassy, Ambassador, his colleagues have been dealing with companies: EAM S Jaishankar in Washington, DC on vaccine supply.
"This was something I'd discussed in some detail with Secy Blinken when we were in London. We've seen in the last 2-3 weeks, the supply chain is working more smoothly due to interventions by Ambassador. I think on the American side there's an importance of ramping up production in India," he added.
"My understanding is that in the coming days or weeks, the United States will obviously make its decisions, as to more details and that is something which the other channels which are ongoing will be discussed," he said
In the literal way that's something that only the producer can answer. But we in India, myself personally and MoS Pharmaceuticals and many of our senior officials, we fairly do video conferences with industry, he replied when asked if vaccine production is jammed in India.
New Delhi: The Delhi government has floated a global expression of interest (EOI) for procurement of COVID-19 vaccine on an urgent basis.
Delhi government has invited bidding for global tender for procurement of 10 million doses of vaccine. The last date for bidding is June 7.
The offered COVID-19 vaccine must be duly approved by competent authority of the government of India, the Directorate General of Health Services said in the EOI document.
"The Health and Family Welfare Department of NCT of Delhi intends to procure SARS-Cov2 vaccine on an urgent basis to control and manage the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global Expression of Interest is hereby invited from international manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccine or their authorised agents or from direct importers with appropriate licence to import the vaccine in India," the document read.
The bidders have been asked to submit their offer or expression of interest through e-mail by 5 pm on June 7.
The central government has so far approved three vaccines for use in India -- Covishield, Covaxin and Russia's Sputnik V.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) makes Covishield (under licence from AstraZeneca), while Bharat Biotech makes the indigenously-developed Covaxin.
Delhi has so far received 47.44 lakh doses from the Centre for those aged above 45, and healthcare and frontline workers.
Of this, 44.76 lakh doses have been utilised so far.
The city government had suspended the inoculation exercise for the 18-44 age group on May 22 after it ran out of vaccines for this category.
Till now, 8.17 lakh doses have been procured directly from the manufacturers for the 18-44 age group.
The capital is likely to get around four lakh more doses for this category from the manufacturers in India in June.
According to data shared with the Centre, 52.98 lakh doses have been administered in Delhi since the inoculation exercise started on January 16.
Of this, 36.92 lakh were Covishield doses and 16.06 were Covaxin jabs. A maximum number of 1.41 lakh people were vaccinated on May 10. (PTI)
"Condition of Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan is critical. He is on oxygen support," says Lucknow's Medanta Hospital, as reported by news agency ANI.
Khan had tested positive for Covid-19 on May 9 and was admitted to the hospital.
The senior leader of the Samajwadi Party, who was serving his jail term in the Sitapur District Prison, was taken to Medanta Hospital in Lucknow after his health deteriorated suddenly on Sunday. On April 30, Azam Khan and his son Abdullah were confirmed to be infected with Covid-19.
The Samajwadi Party leader, his wife Tazeen Fatma, and his son were sent to jail in February last year in connection with several cases including land grabbing and encroachment.
India reports 1,73,790 new Covid-19 cases, 2,84,601 discharges & 3,617 deaths in last 24 hrs, as per Health Ministry.
Total cases: 2,77,29,247
Total discharges: 2,51,78,011
Death toll: 3,22,512
Active cases: 22,28,724
Total vaccination: 20,89,02,445
With 2,84,601 patients recovered during the last 24 hours, a total of 2,51,78,011 recoveries reported across the country so far. Recovery rate increases to 90.80%. Weekly positivity rate is currently at 9.84%, daily at 8.36%, less than 10% for 5 consecutive days: Union Health Ministry stated.
At 1.73 lakh daily new cases, a declining trend in new cases is maintained. Active caseload further declines to 22,28,724 with active cases decrease by 1,14,428 in the last 24 hours, it stated.
Kolkata: West Bengal's Covid-19 death toll on Friday crossed the 15,000-mark after 145 more people succumbed to the disease, the health department said.
The tally mounted to 13,43,442 after 12,193 fresh cases of infection were reported in the state.
The total number of fatalities is 15,120 now, the department said in a bulletin.
The state registered 19,396 recoveries improving the discharge rate to 90.70 per cent. The number of people who have been cured of the disease has thus gone up to 12,18,516.
Accordingly, the number of active cases also slipped to 1,09,806.
North 24 Parganas accounted for 42 deaths while Kolkata registered 36 Covid fatalities. The rest of the deaths were reported from several other districts of West Bengal.
Out of the 145 fatalities, 76 were due to comorbidities where Covid-19 was incidental.
The new positive cases included 2,525 from North 24 Parganas district and 1,857 from Kolkata, the bulletin said.
Since Thursday, 59,188 samples were tested for coronavirus in the state taking the total number of such examinations to 1,22,38,301.
Meanwhile, 2,51,642 people were inoculated in West Bengal, a health department official said. (PTI)
"States/UTs must upload the required data of all such children who have become orphan or lost either of their parents to Covid-19 the Bal Swaraj portal under the Covid-Care link," National Commission for Protection of Child Rights wrote to Principal Secretaries of all States/UTs.
Washington: Calling COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines as one of the most important aspects of his discussions with top officials of the Biden administration, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said the endeavour is to expand production of vaccines in India with assistance from the United States.
Jaishankar, 66, is the first Indian Cabinet minister to visit the US under the Biden administration.
The primary focus of the visit obviously was on the relationship with the new administration. It is a very important relationship. Also, to engage with the senior cabinet members here, he told a group of Indian reporters here as he concluded most of his engagements.
There was also of course the COVID-19 context because of the vaccine partnership between India and the US, and also Quad-based discussions on vaccines. That was also one of the important subjects. In fact, in many ways, I would say the most important subject of my discussion, the minister said.
Jaishankar met Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, US Trade Representatives Katherine Tai and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines over the past two days.
He also held meetings with top officials from about a dozen departments of the administration. He also spoke with co-chairs of India Caucus, and Chairman and Ranking Member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Jaishankar said he also met with business leaders in a meeting organised by the US India Business Council and US India Strategic and Partnership Forum, during which one of the key topics of discussion was related to COVID-19.
Apart from that, there was a lot of business interest on what is happening with COVID-19. How is it moving? What could be its economic impact? All this matters to a lot of people who have invested in India, who have employees in India, he said.
The external affairs minister had also attended a series of meetings at the United Nations.
If I were to sort of describe the objectives, one, of course, was to come here and express our appreciation for the very strong solidarity that the United States has shown during the second wave of COVID-19 in India, and to work with the US on the vaccine production issue, because the US in terms of the supply chain, for vaccines, is absolutely indispensable, he said.
You would have seen even in my tweets, in many meetings, that an issue in some form or the other came up, and our endeavour is to expand our production of vaccines in India we will work with the US to make that possible, he told the group of Indian reporters.
On India getting vaccines from the US, Jaishankar said there are ongoing conversations on various aspects of vaccines, ranging from regulatory aspects to legal and commercial ones. A large number of companies have reached out to ensure that their supply chain is smooth, he said.
This was something I had discussed in detail with Secretary Blinken, when we were in London. We have seen in the last two to three weeks the supply chain is working more smoothly. I think some of that is also due to the interventions by the (India's) ambassador (to the US), he said.
In terms of the details of which is the American stock from which President Biden has said that they would be willing to do some supplies, the issue came up at the conceptual level. But my understanding is that, in the coming days or weeks, the US will obviously make its decisions, the minister noted.
He asserted that India and the US are having sustained engagement over the issue.
The minister added that India has indicated a willingness to accept and import vaccines which have been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration. (PTI)
Background
Coronavirus HIGHLIGHTS, May 29, Saturday: After one month of lockdown, Delhi on Friday reported 1,141 new cases and the daily positivity rate stands below 2 percent from the last week.
Delhi's Covid management body, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), which is being chaired by Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal, on Friday decided that lifting of the lockdown will proceed like it was imposed - week-wise.
The Delhi High Court on Friday, during the hearing of pleas in connection with the shortage of medicine for black fungus, observed that the situation is similar to "living hell", and though the court is willing to help patients facing issues with procurement of medicine, but is "helpless".
A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh said: "We are living this hell. Everyone is living this hell. It's a situation where we want to help but we are helpless."
Maharashtra's daily Covid-19 deaths remained on the higher side while the state toll raced beyond the 93,000 mark, but new infections continue to dip, health officials said on Friday.
Against 884 deaths on Thursday, the state reported 973 fatalities (424 fresh and 549 previous deaths), taking its toll to 93,198.
The number of fresh cases remained below the 25,000 level - and fell from 21,273 on Wednesday to 20,740, as the tally rose to 56,92,920 now.
In Mumbai, the new infections dropped below four figures for the second time in a week, from 1,258 on Thursday to 924, while the city tally shot up to 702,522. Fatalities fell from 36 on Thursday to 30, taking the toll in the country's commercial capital to 14,750.
The number of active cases fell below the 3 lakh mark from 301,041 to 289,088 now.
In a clear sign of breaking the chain, recoveries shot up to 52,253 even as new Covid cases declined to 22,823 in a day across Karnataka, said the state health bulletin on Friday.
"With 52,253 patients discharged in the day, recoveries shot up 21,46,621 so far, while 22,823 positive cases on Thursday increased the state's Covid tally to 25,46,821, including 3,72,373 active cases," said the bulletin.
As epi-centre of the pandemic in the state, Bengaluru reported 5,736 fresh cases on Thursday, taking its Covid tally to 11,49,614, including 1,80,697 active cases, while recoveries rose to 9,56,303, with 31,237 discharged during the day.
The infection claimed 401 lives, including 192 in Bengaluru, taking the state's death toll to 27,806 and the city's toll to 12,613 since the pandemic broke out in mid-March a year ago.
J&K on Friday reported 2,803 new Covid cases and 56 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Officials said that 1,009 cases and 30 deaths were reported from the Jammu division and 1,794 cases and 26 deaths from the Kashmir division while 3,637 patients were discharged from different hospitals after recovery.
So far, 284,431 people have been infected with coronavirus in J&K out of which 239,254 have recovered, and 3,795 have succumbed.
The number of active cases is 41,382 out of which 16,142 are from the Jammu division and 25,240 from the Kashmir division.
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