The Centre told the Bombay high court on Tuesday that a door-to-door COVID-19 vaccination programme for senior citizens, specially-abled, bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound people is currently not possible, but it has decided to start 'near-to-door' inoculation centres.
Experts, however, have raised concern over the decision, saying the move is akin to treating symptoms instead of the underlying causes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked states to make full use of the expanded COVID-19 testing capacity and saving lives a top priority as India recorded the highest ever spike of 2,003 coronavirus deaths after Maharashtra and Delhi added earlier fatalities not attributed to the disease.
Satara, Sangli, Panvel have stopped vaccination while Buldhana has only one day's vaccine doses left in stock, said Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope.
Two cases of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus have been detected in Karnataka, the Union government said on Thursday while asking people not to panic but follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated without delay.
The central government said the railways and civil aviation ministry must suspend all concessional travel on trains and flights, except for students, patients and disabled people.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
While some experts believe that a large part of India is still vulnerable to the virus that could trigger a third wave, others feel the country is not likely to be engulfed by another deadly wave unless a new variant emerges.
Based on this price, state governments, private hospitals, industrial establishments, etc would be able to procure vaccine doses from the manufacturers.
India will share the development story of Co-WIN, the digital platform that helped it launch and implement a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination programme, with more than 20 countries that have shown interest in adopting the portal to run their own inoculation drives.
Epidemiologists worry there's little or no data being shared on mortality by age group and contacts traced, which makes it difficult to understand how the effects of Covid-19 might be different in the Indian population, reports Ruchika Chitravanshi
The COVID-19 case fatality rate has reduced from around 3.33 per cent in mid-June to 2.25 per cent.
'But will there be matching action as far as tribals are concerned on the ground?'
The experts agreed that the lockdown has helped in slowing down spread of the virus but insisted that the situation has not reached a plateau and that there was an urgent need to upgrade healthcare facilities to deal with the crisis.
In order to bring uniformity, the need for following the existing framework for either imposition of restrictions or allowing relaxations based on the burden of disease and strain on healthcare infrastructure still remain important.
"Pregnancy doesn't increase the risk of acquiring SARS-COV-2 infection but appears to worsen the clinical course as compared to non-pregnant women'
Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Friday cited recent remarks of the health ministry to assert that the inoculation exercise in India will be completed by December this year.
As the SARS-CoV2 evolves and mutates further, it is necessary to be prepared for new waves, Principal Scientific Adviser K VijayRaghavan cautioned on Wednesday, even as he said ferocity of the second wave of coronavirus in the country was not predicted.
Addressing a press briefing, health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said currently there are no approved therapies for COVID-19 and there is not enough evidence to claim that plasma therapy can be used for treatment of the disease.
In a video issued by the Health Ministry, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) answered commonly asked questions regarding the dosage of the vaccine saying that two doses of the vaccine will have to be taken 28 days apart and protective levels of antibodies generally would develop two weeks after the second dose.
Singh stressed that if Punjab was able to meet its target of administering two lakh shots a day, then its current supplies will last only three days.
The apex health research body on Tuesday validated the 1,000th testing laboratory, ramping up the capacity for detection of COVID-19 in the country. Currently, three lakh samples can be tested per day, an official said.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said one of the major reasons for the surge in cases was people becoming lax towards following COVID-appropriate behaviour and urged them take up mass awareness campaigns to re-instill the importance of such measures among the masses.
Each of the larger states may need less than Rs 10,000 crore each to finance the exercise.
'We were lucky, in many ways, that we got the disease late.'
The Centre on Saturday directed the states and UTs that no fresh registrations of healthcare and frontline workers will be allowed since some ineligible beneficiaries were getting their names enlisted for vaccination against COVID-19, under this category, in violation of rules.
People aged 45 and above account for about 88 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in India making them the most vulnerable section, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday, a day after the government opened up vaccinations for all those in the age bracket from April 1.
Talking about the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Agarwal said, "If the Tablighi Jamaat incident had not taken place and we compare the rate of doubling -- that is in how many days the cases have doubled, we will see that currently it is 4.1 days (including Jamaat cases) and if the incident had not taken place and additional cases had not come then the doubling rate would have been 7.4 days."
'We have to take all preparations because the third wave is likely to start from September-October onward'
Expressing concern over the COVID-19 situation, the chief minister urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to widen the vaccination ambit to cover those younger than 60 as the mutant has been found to be infecting young people more, an official statement quoting him said.
Ramesh Menon, the veteran journalist suggests Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi what he should do if he wants to win 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The outcome ratio of COVID-19 -- the ratio of recoveries and deaths of closed cases -- was recorded at 90:20.
'The government is just laying foundation stones everywhere.' 'It has hardly inaugurated anything.'
On the Sensex chart, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj FinServ, SBI, IndusInd Bank, Dr Reddy's, Tech Mahindra, ITC and Kotak Bank were the prominent gainers - rising up to 7.29 per cent. NSE Nifty climbed 102.40 points to end at 15,737.75.
Experts in Singapore, which is seeing a surge in Omicron cases, have warned that the new and supposedly more contagious variant is likely to replace Delta over the coming weeks as the dominant global variant, with the virus being fitter and having a reproductive advantage.
The advisory stressed on capacity building, saying identified human resource needs to be trained online using online training programs developed by the ministry.
Though COVID-19 will wreak more damage to the finances of the Indian population, the insurance sector is unlikely to get hurt.
The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India may peak by February 3, 2022, claims a modelling study by researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
There is an upward trend in the recovery rate which was recorded at 62.42 per cent on Friday.
Confirming the visit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing on Monday that China supported scientists around the world to conduct a global study on the origins and transmission routes of the virus.
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