Anushka Sharma spent a day at Udaipur's animal rescue and care centre, Animal Aid Unlimited.
Shortage of ICU beds, oxygen, ventilators, vaccines, doctors, nurses and crematorium space in India has dominated headlines around the world in the past few weeks with Covid-19 cases surging beyond control and the government failing to deliver. Yes, election rallies, Kumbh Mela, blatant flouting of social distancing and mask protocols coupled with a messy vaccination process are said to be responsible for the health crisis of colossal proportions that India is facing today. But an analysis of Budget speeches made by finance ministers over 75 years also offers a glimpse of how low on the priority list healthcare has featured for the political class and policy-makers, which is a significant reason for the current situation.
'If your oxygen saturation is okay and is maintained after the six-minute walk test -- which has been described all over the world -- and you do not have an unrelenting fever, then you can even be managed at home.'
Our government has failed the country on several counts. All this must change for India to redeem itself in six months, says Naushad Forbes.
After losing his driver to Covid, Ahmedabad engineer Shivam Dhruva felt the need to build an app that will provide latest medical updates at the click of a button, free of cost.
'India's cases of death per million population is 14.27 while the global average is more than its four times, at 68.29'
'The only way to contain this is to see that a lesser number of people are affected.'
He asked the people to shun the argument that they 'want to enjoy before the third wave of coronavirus' and stressed that there should be no compromise in following COVID-19 protocols.
Addressing a press briefing, Health Ministry's Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said the government has taken early preemptive action to identify COVID-19 hotspots in the country.
Testing only those with symptoms is not such a great idea. A lot of asymptomatic people are also positive. Its also important to do some amount of random testing in the clusters. You need to do lot more testing. The more you test, the more positives you get. Only redeeming feature is that the number of those getting into ICU or dying is not huge, she said.
'Where did this fungus suddenly come from and get all over the country?'
'When it has to be a simple girl's role, somehow people feel I cannot do it.'
According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre, more than 4,000 people in the US have died due to COVID-19 and nearly 190,000 have been infected by it.
One reason for the surge in cases is the spread of infection at large weddings. Weddings turned out to be super spreaders.
The Delhi high court had directed the Centre on Tuesday to show cause as to why contempt should not be initiated against it for failing to comply with its order.
The recoveries have surged to 20,37,870 in the country, while there are 6,76,514 active cases of COVID-19, according to the data updated at 8 am. The record high recoveries have ensured that active cases of coronavirus infection, the 'actual caseload' of the country, currently comprises less than 1/4th (only 24.45 per cent) of the total cases.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday said it appeared that the Centre wanted people to die as according to the new protocol on use of Remdesivir for Covid-19 treatment, the drug was to be given only to those on oxygen support.
Maharashtra is the worst affected state with 59,546 cases.
'There can be potential hotspots for spread of infection like industrial clusters with closed work environment, people coming from high prevalence areas, other high density areas such as slums, prisons, old age homes etc'
The Technical Education minister, who tested positive for COVID-19 on July 18 and is the first minister in the state to succumb to the disease, breathed her last at the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPIMS).
