The move comes in view of rising cases of the infection, weekly positivity rates and weekly deaths in some districts.
The average daily recovered cases are now more than 55,000 and active cases are just 25 per cent of the total COVID cases.
The body of Sehrai, 77, was handed over to his family on Wednesday evening and taken in a police escort to Kupwara in north Kashmir, at least 350 km from Jammu, where he would be buried at his ancestral graveyard in accordance with the COVID-19 guidelines.
'At the current time, we should be vaccinating all those who are potentially going to get more severe illness, before we start vaccinating very young individuals.'
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.
According to the latest health department bulletin, the positivity rate has also jumped to 9.55 per cent, amid the festive season and the rise in pollution level.
India procured around 5 lakh rapid antibody test kits from the two Chinese firms, Guongzhou Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostics, and they were distributed to several states reporting rising cases of the coronavirus infection.
Two dogs -- two-year-old cocker spaniel Casper and one-year-old Jaya, a 'chippiparai', which is an indigenous breed from Tamil Nadu -- have been trained to detect COVID-19 by sniffing samples of sweat and urine, senior Army officials said.
I believe that UP has been doing this consistently -- of grossly under-reporting the Covid-positive cases. Nothing else explains the glaring differences in UP's positivity rates versus other badly affected states, says Omkar Goswami.
The ICMR has approved over 200 labs (both public and private) for COVID-19 testing through-PCR machines.
Local trains will be allowed to operate with 50 per cent capacity till 7 pm, while all shopping malls and markets will be allowed to remain open till 10 pm but with half their capacities, he said.
Delhi recorded 954 cases on Monday, according to a health department bulletin. The bulletin said the number of tests conducted too was the lowest in July.
'This year, we know the virus. Last year we didn't know anything about it.' 'The best part is that for the Indian population there has been some amount of cross protection.'
Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal claimed that India has been doing better than many other countries on the outcome ratio, which is the number of recoveries from coronavirus infection versus the number of deaths.
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.
While the United States' share in global COVID-19 cases is 22.4 per cent, those who have recuperated there comprise 18.6 per cent of total worldwide recoveries, according to data presented by Bhushan.
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram and Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Mohammed Salim were among the prominent politicians who tested positive for COVID-19 as a rapid spike in cases took the tally in the country to over 18 lakh on Monday.
'All actions for COVID-19 should be the same as for other routine health conditions.' 'There is no need to report the matter in the media all the time; not on front page please.'
The Centre on Saturday strongly advised 12 states and Union Territories reporting a surge in coronavirus cases to significantly increase testing and ensure people follow COVID-appropriate behaviour, noting that one infected person could spread infection to an average of 406 individuals in a 30-day window without restrictions.
Covid deaths at home, on the way to hospital or in private centres are not being counted in Bihar's official list of dead.
A coronavirus positive woman allegedly managed to give the slip to authorities in New Delhi after her arrival from London and reached Andhra Pradesh by train only to be picked up by authorities and admitted to a hospital.
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.
'The only way to contain this is to see that a lesser number of people are affected.'
With the Omicron variant of coronavirus slowly spreading its tentacles in the country, a number of states enhanced surveillance to trace, track and quarantine contacts of COVID-19 positive persons while Delhi began genome sequencing of samples of all infected people and has prohibited Christmas and New Year gatherings.
As daily testing of samples of blood and throat and nose swabs crossed two lakh for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, over 14,000 new coronavirus cases were registered in the country for the fifth day in a row to take the total count to 4,56,183, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
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.
We knew from the moment the pandemic took hold that this would be a long haul -- at least 12 to 18 months. Nothing should have changed that assessment, says Mihir S Sharma.
In a review meeting through video conference with chief ministers and representatives of seven states with a high burden of COVID-19 cases, Modi said having micro containment zones will help states in dealing with the spread of the infection and also allow normal activities to continue.
A senior Delhi government official when asked about the spiralling number of COVID-29 cases, and whether there could be another lockdown, however, said, cases have increased as testing has been ramped up, "so, it is not that cases are rising alarmingly, and hence there is no chance of going back to lockdown".
'In the second wave, probably due to the mutants, probably due to COVID-19-inappropriate behaviour, we are seeing it coming in the younger population, say from ages 30 to 50.' 'Also, we've seen that sometimes they deteriorate pretty rapidly and therefore we may need to keep a closer watch on the symptoms and on the oxygen levels at home.'
The chief minister said the Delhi government was implementing from November 19 its decision to reserve 80 per cent of ICU beds in private hospitals for COVID-19 patients.
A total of 27,920 people have been cured of the disease with 1,685 in the last 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to 34.06 per cent, the ministry said.
'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.'
'If we take such an approach, we may find ourselves in a tough situation.' 'COVID-19 doesn't spread through water or air or mosquito; it only spreads from person to person.' 'We should make wearing a mask as part of our life.'
'By the time actual action began, it was already too late.' 'The virus was raging.'
'He will keep saying that I won't do it, but he still comes and does it; that's part of who he is.' 'He is certainly a prankster.'
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