As cases of 'black fungus' among COVID-19 patients in the country rise to cross 7,000, the Centre on Thursday urged all states and union territories to declare it as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act to ensure mandatory surveillance to tackle the 'new challenge'.
Modi, Shah and Nadda have created a strategy to boost the BJP and the government's image.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
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The health ministry said that 86 per cent of the total active cases were recorded in 10 states of the country.
Three more positive cases of novel coronavirus have been reported in India.
Kejriwal will also interact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with his counterparts including West Bengal, Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka, where the coronavirus cases are on a much higher side, on June 17.
However, the number of confirmed cases reported by states rose by over 500 to cross 3,000 with at least 90 dead. While Maharashtra, Telangana and Delhi disclosed several new cases of the deadly virus infection, government officials said the numbers have risen in last few days mostly due to one event -- referring to the Tablighi Jamaat's religious gathering in the national capital attended by thousands of people last month.
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.
As the virus continued to spread its tentacles across India, several parts, including Kashmir valley headed towards a virtual lockdown with the administration restricting movement of people in several parts and banning all public transport in Srinagar city.
The Union health ministry said West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh reported a casualty each on Monday, taking the total number of deaths to nine in the country due to COVID-19.
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.
India-born Nobel laureate Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has been confirmed as president elect of Britain's prestigious Royal Society.
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.
'Testing is a very good strategy if only symptomatic people are transmitting the disease.' 'Here asymptomatic people, with minimum, trivial symptoms, are transmitting too.' 'Testing, treating, tracing contacts and quarantining them -- yes, it will work up to a certain extent.' 'But more important is physical distancing, hand hygiene, cough etiquette and cocooning, protecting with reverse quarantining the most vulnerable people, senior citizens, people with other major medical problems.' 'To me, that makes much more sense.'
The dichotomy between richer and poorer states is largely in consonance with the diversity in state level disease burden in the country.
'He came back from the US only to work for his country.' 'He has invested his fortunes to build this company and is married to his work.' 'Rarely does one see such commitment.'
The vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D, showed a "strong immune response" in animal studies, and the antibodies produced were able to completely neutralise the wild type virus, Zydus said. The 12 institutes have been asked by the ICMR to fast track clinical trials of the vaccine as it is being considered as one of the top priority projects which are being monitored at the topmost level of the government.
She is the first woman lawyer to enter the top judiciary directly.
Experts believe that under-reporting is likely to cause an underestimation of the spread of the disease.
"Also, 35 per cent deaths were recorded in the age group of 45-60 years, 10 per cent in the age group of 26-44 years and one per cent each in the age group of 18-25 years and below 17 years," the health secy said.
'We don't know how complicated things will get with the onset of the monsoon.'
President Ram Nath Kovind presented Padma awards to 73 individuals, some posthumously, at a ceremony held in the Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Monday.
In its daily briefing, the government also reported Goa is now free of coronavirus.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh puts it succinctly: "Arun Jaitley was every non-BJP person's favourite BJP-ite."
The death toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,466 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country.
To build one's political and ideological arguments on the dead bodies piling up outside our crematoriums is despicable and breaches the basic tenet of human civility, argues Vivek Gumaste.
This is the fifth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 50,000 in the country.
The IMD has said temperatures in most parts of the country from March to May would be 'above normal'.
'Strengthen hospital capacity, look after patients who need care, primarily ICU care...' 'Train doctors, get PPE, get ventilators, have treatment protocols in place.'
Addressing a daily media briefing to give updates on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said most of the Markaz event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent).
'In countries like Japan, one out of 11.7 tests turns out to be positive, which is among the highest in the world. Italy tests 6.7 persons for one positive test while the USA tests 5.3 persons and the United Kingdom 3.4'
'More than 1,000 start-ups are created from colleges, and more start-ups are coming up every year.'
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.
'Our preparation is based on ICMR projections, whatever preparations we have to make.' 'If they project around 70,000 is the maximum number of hospital cases by mid-May or May 30, we are preparing accordingly -- how many people will need hospitalisation.'
In its morning update, the Union health ministry said the total number of positive cases has reached 2,16,919 with a record spike of 9,304 new cases since Wednesday 8 am across the country, while the death toll has increased to 6,075 with 260 more fatalities in this period. A PTI tally of figures announced by different states and union territories, as of 9.50 pm, showed a higher number of confirmed cases across the country at 2,17,389 and the death toll at 6,233.
The lockdown in India has been a timely, graded, proactive and pre-emptive public health measure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and has been part and parcel of the government's overall strategy, Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, and Chairman, Empowered Group 1, said at a media briefing on the COVID-19 situation.
Authorities also said the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients was improving consistently in India and it was in a much better position in handling the pandemic, which has seen more than 63 lakh people testing positive for this virus since its emergence in China last December and over 3.7 lakh having lost their lives.
The government's focus is on containing and controlling coronavirus the ministry of external affairs said on Thursday and advised Indians to stay put wherever they are and travel only under compelling reasons.
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