The New Delhi district authorities on Monday issued a show-cause notice to Etihad Airways for allegedly violating the Centre's guidelines for international passenger arrivals at the IGI airport here, amid concerns over the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
Out of two cases of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus that have been detected in Bengaluru, one is a South African national who has left the country after testing negative, while the other is a local with no travel history, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike said on Thursday.
Experts feel the figures are modest for a count of the size of 1.3 billion and "much more number of tests" are needed to combat COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
Experts said the strain has not propelled a surge in cases like Omicron, but advised strict adherence to COVID-19-appropriate behaviour.
Amid rising cases of Covid, the Centre on Friday asked eight states including Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to maintain a strict watch and take pre-emptive action in any area of concern to control any emerging spread of infection.
The Union health minister said of the total active COVID-19 cases in the country, 1.5 per cent are on oxygen support and 2.34 per cent are in ICUs.
Seropositivity was the highest in the age group of 18-45 years (43.3 per cent), followed by those between 46-60 years (39.5 per cent) and it was the lowest among those aged above 60 (17.2 per cent).
The spending on a typical RT-PCR test would take up 23 per cent of the monthly income of an average Indian, compared to 2 per cent in China. This is one of the deepest cuts in the pocket of an individual, in comparison to 14 other countries, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
'Mortality or hospitalisation has not increased in South Africa because of the new variant.' 'There is nothing to show so far that it is more infectious.' 'I am of the opinion that at the moment, there is no reason to panic.'
It said clinical trials of the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) showed that it helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.
These decisions were taken by the ministry based on the fresh recommendations by The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) and have also been communicated to the states and union territories, an official statement said.
Amid growing concerns over the spurt in COVID-19 cases in China and some other countries, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the focus is to ensure that no unknown variant of the virus enters India and at the same time there is no impediment to travelling.
They include a woman who came from Nigeria along with her two daughters to meet her brother in adjoining Pimpri Chinchwad area, the official said.
A rise in the number of daily COVID-19 cases and mortality has been observed in Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, indicating the pandemic is moving eastwards, the Union health ministry said.
The Navy and the Coast Guard continued the search for the nine missing personnel from the barge and 11 from Varaprada even as hopes of finding more survivors of the Cyclone Tauktae fury receded, an official said.
According to sources, around 10 crore doses of the Sputnik V vaccine is likely to be imported for emergency use in the country in the next six to seven months.
The CoWIN portal will be made available in Hindi and 14 regional languages by next week, while 17 more laboratories will be added to the INSACOG network to monitor the variants of COVID-19, the health ministry said on Monday.
Cases with the Omicron variant have already been detected in Karnataka and Gujarat.
The Corosure Kit has received ICMR approval with the highest score and DCGI approved with a very high sensitivity and specificity.
Chikungunya cases in the national capital have sharply risen to over 1,000 this season.
The diagnostic test kit developed by the Thiruvananthapuram institute can detect coronavirus in 10 minutes, and the sample to result time will be less than two hours, Vardhan tweeted. A total of 30 samples can be tested in a single batch on a single machine, he said.
'This health emergency has brought a lot of people together with the common purpose of getting Feluda to play detective as quickly as possible.' 'As a scientist, if we can make a small difference in people's lives, we are happy'
It took 64 days for COVID-19 cases in India to touch the (May 19) one lakh-mark from 100 cases, and another fortnight to cross two lakh cases on June 3. It took 10 days for the tally to touch the three lakh-mark and another eight days for the cases to climb to four lakh.
The doubling time of coronavirus cases has slowed down to 13.9 days in the last three days.
Also, the recovery rate in COVID-19 patients has progressively improved from 13.06 per cent to over 25 per cent in the country over the last 14 days. Addressing a press briefing, Joint Secretary in the ministry Lav Agarwal said the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases in several states is better than the national average.
For the first time in Tamil Nadu, a lion has died of coronavirus while nine others in the pride have tested positive for the infection at a zoo near Chennai, an official said.
These dedicated COVID-19 facilities will have a capacity of 1,06,719 isolation beds and 12,024 ICU beds reserved for such patients in the country.
The ICMR said people having symptoms like fever, cough, sore throat and runny nose and residing in hotspots or cluster areas and in evacuee centres will now be tested for coronavirus infection.
While the numbers of fresh COVID cases and active cases are going up, the administration is focussing on testing, contact-tracing and treatment.
Those infected with the virus may have mild fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain or headache.
At 8 million a month, times two doses, it will take us 17 years to administer the vaccine to our 800 million adults. The rollout must speed up twenty times, asserts Naushad Forbes.
Given the robust and statute-based death registration system in India, while some cases could go undetected as per the principles of infectious disease and its management, missing out on the deaths is unlikely, the Union health ministry said.
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.
At least 85 people have died of coronavirus with the confirmed cases crossing 4,500 in the US.
The phase 3 trial findings indicate that Covaxin induces a robust antibody response with no severe vaccine-related adverse events or deaths reported among the trial participants, the authors of the study said.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
Earlier, the advisory from the Tokyo Games organisers had said that athletes from Group 1 countries, including India, must be tested every day, for seven days, prior to departure to Japan.
Serum Institute is investing $200 million to create capacities for the COVID-19 vaccine. Sohini Das profiles its 39-year-old CEO.
Pulling up the Delhi government, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad asked why it waited till the court intervened to take steps such as reducing the number of people attending weddings to 50 to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
While the new COVID cases and total active cases are going up, the administration is focusing on testing, contact tracing and treatment.
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