'Today, let us reaffirm our commitment to strive to realise Gandhiji's dreams. His watchwords, truth and nonviolence, will continue to remain relevant for the whole world. He also taught us that rights and duties are but the two sides of the coin - indeed, the true source of rights is duty. Today we recall his lessons in compassion too - compassion not only for our human neighbours but also for our other neighbours, namely, flora and fauna, rivers and mountains.'
Growth might be impacted by up to 0.30 per cent in the March quarter as normal economic activities come under pressure due to restrictions being imposed by more states to curb rising Omicron cases, economists at the country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank said on Tuesday. The economists said they were earlier estimating Q4 growth to come at 6.1 per cent, which can get impacted by 0.2-0.3 per cent because of the Omicron threat. "With states imposing Covid-related restrictions (night curfew on movement of people, restaurants allowed at 50 per cent capacity, offices to operate at 50 per cent capacity in various states), economic activity is likely to get impacted in Q4FY22," they said.
Noting that various mathematical models meant for predicting coronavirus waves have repeatedly failed to give reliable results due to a small sample size, the Centre on Tuesday said it is closely following the virus trajectory globally, given the emergence of its new variants.
"Protocol is very clear. Once any international traveller test positive, apart from following the routine protocol of containment and treatment, we are sending their samples to genome sequencing," said Mallikarjuna.
The government on Friday warned about the declining compliance to mask usage in the country amid concerns over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and urged people to follow COVID-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated to prevent surge in cases.
'This means that there is a higher likelihood of individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 to be reinfected with the Omicron variant'
XE, the latest mutant of Omicron may be more transmissible than the previous ones, the World Health Organization has said.
'Unless some serious steps like complete closedown are taken, it will have disastrous consequences.'
The expose, which was in Chinese, said that the Chinese Communist Party was covering up the COVID-19 crisis and there was a human-to-human transmission of the virus.
Early indications of Covid infections plateauing have been reported in some places but the trend needs to be observed, the Union government said on Thursday whilst noting that 400 districts have logged weekly Covid positivity of over 10 per cent.
For the first time in Maharashtra, four patients of B.A.4 sub-lineage and three cases of B.A.5 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant of coronavirus have been found, the state health department said on Saturday.
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.
A group of public health experts, including doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences and members from the national taskforce on COVID-19, have said that mass, indiscriminate and incomplete vaccination can trigger emergence of mutant strains and recommended that there is no need to inoculate those who had documented coronavirus infection.
According to Rajeev Jayadevan, co-chairman, national Indian Medical Association Covid Task Force, the current scenario qualifies as a wave.
The ministry, however, said it could not be sufficiently established yet if these variants were behind the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in some states.
Maharashtra has recorded a 17.7 per cent rise in coronavirus cases compared to last week, according to a state health department bulletin.
The research would lead to a better understanding of metabolic reprogramming and aid the development of better therapeutics to deal with the viral pandemics, an institute spokesperson said on Wednesday.
In a letter to states and UTs, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan stressed on monitoring and reporting of district-wise influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) cases in all health facilities on a regular basis for detecting the early rising trend of cases.
The health minister said states have also been advised to increase the whole genome sequencing of all positive cases for timely detection of newer variants, if any.
They agreed to continue technical exchanges to help end the epidemic worldwide as soon as possible, it said.
A day earlier confusion was created due to misinterpretation of revised guidelines by a civic official who had said that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had made rapid RT-PCR test compulsory for all the international passengers landing at the Mumbai airport, sources said.
State Health Minister Rajesh Tope ordered a probe.
The WHO has countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database.
Tope, however, stressed that there was no need to panic as the count of active cases in the state still stood below 1,000, while the number of cases per million in the state was far less than other states.
During a virtual meeting with health ministers and senior officials of states in view of the recent surge in coronavirus cases in some parts of the world, he said, "The Centre and states need to work in tandem and in a collaborative spirit as was done during the previous surges for Covid prevention and management."
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday asked the public not to panic about COVID-19, but be alert and follow the directives issued by the government from time to time.
The Canadian government announced that this new requirement will come into effect on January 5, at which point travellers aged two and older will need to provide proof of a negative test before leaving for Canada.
In a bid to stem the spread of the contagion, the authorities in Beijing have conducted the nucleic acid test on 29,386 people who had visited the Xinfadi wholesale market since May 30, Gao Xiaojun, spokesman for the Beijing Health Commission, said on Monday. The market became a hotspot after it reported several new COVID-19 cases. Out of all the samples, 12,973 came negative and the rest are awaiting results, Gao told the media.
China has reported a spike in COVID-19 infections in Zhejiang Province which registered 138 locally-transmitted confirmed cases stated to be that of new Delta strain "sub-lineage AY.4", prompting authorities to bar millions of people in the eastern province from travelling.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday advised all the MPs to wear masks and follow the Covid protocol completely, in view of the increasing cases of COVID-19 in many countries across the world.
A woman who returned to Chandigarh from South Africa two days ago allegedly broke home quarantine and went to a five-star hotel in Chandigarh, prompting the authorities on Friday to order strict action against her for violating COVID protocols for travellers.
The chronic inflammatory disease is affecting people globally.
"To make sure there isn't a Covid surge in the country, PM Modi has asked us to be careful. The government is also preparing if at the Covid cases increase. Today, mock drills are conducted across Covid hospitals in the country to make sure people get proper treatment," Mandaviya said.
After a long hiatus of more than 20 months, the government had on November 26 announced the resumption of scheduled international commercial flights from December 15.
Amid a spike in Covid-19 cases, the Centre on Monday reviewed with states and Union territories the preparedness for pandemic management and the progress of vaccination.
The Centre had on Thursday asked all states and union territories to conduct rigorous screening and testing of all international travellers coming from or transiting through South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana, where the B.1.1.529 variant has been detected.
When a person gets an infection even after being vaccinated against it, it is called a breakthrough case.
'There are a few states which are reporting higher numbers of cases indicating possible localised spread of infection,' Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has said in a letter to these states.
According to some experts, there is not much difference in the number of seasonal flu cases and that of COVID-19, even though they stressed that surveillance for newer variants should continue in the off chance of a new lineage of coronavirus catching the country off guard.
The total COVID-19 tally includes 9,287 cases of the Omicron variant.
