Anybody over 50 years of age or with co-morbidities can get a date, place and time of choice for getting the vaccine shots.
In the 'Additional guidelines for quarantine of returnees from abroad/contacts/ isolation of suspect or confirmed cases in private facilities', released on Thursday evening, the ministry said there are large number of facilities such as hotels, service apartments and lodges which are "unoccupied due to impact of COVID-19 on travel and tourism".
The vaccination drive was only one important part of India's globally recognised pandemic management and response strategy, observes Dr Vinod K Paul.
With the threat of a third Covid-19 wave looming large, companies are scrambling to protect employees and keep operations safe--from a no-jab-no-entry-at-workplace policy to ramping up vaccination, it's an all-out effort to prevent the scale of devastation seen in the first two waves. At least two top steel companies--Tata Steel and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India)--are pushing for vaccination certificates for entry into work premises. AM/NS India, a joint venture between world's leading steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, and Japan's Nippon Steel, is set to make vaccination the certificate a requirement from July 1.
According to the 'SOP for partial reopening of Schools for students of 9th to 12th classes on a voluntary basis, for taking guidance from their teachers: In the context of COVID-19', a seating arrangement has to be made to ensure a distance of 6 feet between chairs, desks etc and the teaching faculty will ensure that they themselves and students wear masks throughout the conduct of the teaching/guidance activities.
This comes ahead of the resumption of the functioning of metro rails across the country from September 7.
'Why does a State that sees a national security issue at every turn not recognise the seriousness of the data from sensitive databases being breached?'
'No linen, blankets and curtains shall be provided inside the train. Passengers are advised to carry their own linen,' an order by the Railways said. The order also said that there would be no provision of 'tatkal' and 'premium tatkal' accommodation and there will be very few stoppages during the journey.
A total of 15,25,631 tests have been conducted so far across 332 government and 121 private laboratories.
A limited number of activities will remain prohibited across the country, irrespective of the zone, including travel by air, rail, metro and inter-state movement by road, running of schools, colleges, and other educational and training/coaching institutions.
After being closed for over five months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, metro services will be resumed in three stages from September 7-12, but stations located in containment zones will remain closed.
The hack may have been done by a rogue Twitter employee, or it may have been a smart hack into the Twitter system, or a social hack where someone conned Twitter's employees into giving them access,' suspects Devangshu Datta.
'People on the wait list will be accommodated for vaccination when the scheduled beneficiaries don't turn up.'
Launching its biggest ever repatriation exercise, India on Thursday airlifted 363 of its citizens, including nine infants, stranded in the United Arab Emirates due to the international travel lockdown over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many states like Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were opposed to opening up of their airports in view of rising cases of the coronavirus infection.
A total of 1,177 passengers are booked on the New Delhi-Bilaspur special train, which departed at 4 pm, while 1,122 passengers are booked on the New Delhi-Dibrugarh special train that departed at 4:45 pm.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with the inoculation of healthcare workers, while the vaccination of the frontline workers started from February 2.
Beside RIL's Jio Switch and Jio Browser, smaller Indian app companies who have been overwhelmed by TikTok are again seeing a big rush - even though till the second week of June they might not have been even listed in the top 100 apps in the country.
The GoM was told that six states -- Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal -- account for 86 per cent of the deaths caused by COVID-19 and 32 districts account for 80 per cent of such fatalities, the Union health ministry said.
International air travel of passengers has been permitted in a limited manner under the Vande Bharat mission. Further opening-up will take place in a calibrated manner.
Those who took first flights from the Indira Gandhi International Airport included paramilitary personnel, army men, students, and migrants, who failed to book a ticket on the special trains being run by the railways. Many said they shelled out more to reach the airport as there were limited public transport options available.
While in a statement issued earlier, the Railways had said that these trains will be fully non-air conditioned, on Wednesday it said that these will have both AC and non-AC classes and fully reserved coaches.
Gandhi also called upon the government to immediately put money into the hands of the poor and provide a financial package to the industry to help revive the economy.
The video conference, which began at 11 am, comes amid indications that the central government may extend the nationwide lockdown with some possible relaxations even as Punjab and Odisha have already announced extending the lockdown beyond April 14 when the current spell of 21-day shutdown across the country ends on Tuesday.
Out of the 12 deaths reported in the last 24 hours some are related to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said in a daily media briefing.
The bouquet of Covid-19 tests that most diagnostic labs are offering include antibody tests (blood tests), rapid antigen tests (point of care tests that detect the presence of an antigen from a nasal or throat swab in case of SARS-CoV-2), and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.
In a significant directive, the home ministry said that state governments shall not impose any local lockdown outside the containment zones without prior consultation with the central government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called for developing a template by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to effectively deal with the challenges of extremism and radicalisation.
The PM said there was a need to 'fight' rumours that the lockdown could be reimposed.
'The aim of issuing these guidelines is to instil COVID appropriate behaviour to contain the spread of the disease while allowing social and economic activity'
In a stern two-page letter to West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said stricter enforcement of lockdown norms was necessary to contain the spread of coronavirus in the state.
Asked during a press briefing if special trains and private vehicles will also be allowed to transport these people as demanded by some states and others, Joint Secretary in the Union home ministry Punya Salila Srivastava said the orders issued at present were for 'using buses and for group of persons'.
In an order, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said buses shall be used for transport of such groups of stranded people and these vehicles will be sanitised and will have to follow safe social distancing norms in seating.
Metro rail services were closed on March 22 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
'In states where all shops are allowed to function and pedestrians are allowed to move around, there is no reason to presume that vendors are not allowed to operate. But ambiguity surrounding the operation of street vendors de jure has led the police to harass them de facto,' say Bhuvana Anand, Jayana Bedi and Prashant Narang.
Beauty technicians and hairstylists in PPEs. Constant disinfection of instruments such as scissors and combs, Disposable neck-wraps and fresh towels. That's what beauty may look like now, reports Amrita Singh.
The fatality rate is down to 3.1 per cent and the recovery rate has improved to 37.5 per cent, he said.
Featuring India's most revered cricketers such as Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar, the BCCI has created a new video to promote wearing masks in public places and help the country battle the coronavirus pandemic. The 'Team Mask Force' has been created to spread awareness about wearing masks in public places.
Harvard Global Health Institute Director Dr Ashish Jha noted that the number of cases in India may be higher than what the data suggests because while testing has been improving, it has not been rolled out in a way that will capture all low-symptomatic patients.
The death toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,466 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country.
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