On the basis of feedback from the teams, the ministry has written to the states highlighting the areas of concern, including sub-optimal containment operations and contact tracing, skewed testing and shortage of health workers. Authorities need to work in these areas, it said.
This was the fourth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases in the country have increased by more than 26,000.
Dr Rai, who is also a principal investigator of the Bharat Biotech Covaxin clinical trial at AIIMS, said that COVID-19 preventive measures like wearing masks, hand hygiene should be followed till there is an effective vaccine.
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.
Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu reported one case each, officials said.
The data gaps are inhibiting sound decisions. We need to know seroprevalence, infection, and vaccination rates. This is required in 200 cities of India, every week, suggests Ajay Shah.
Vaccine major Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, has demonstrated an interim vaccine efficacy of 81 per cent in the Phase 3 clinical trials.
In a letter to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the Congress general secretary said that the situation is getting serious and the battle against the pandemic cannot be fought just by publicity and managing news.
More than 6.5 crore vaccine doses have been administered across the country so far to frontline workers, healthcare workers, those above 60 and for people aged above 45 with specified co-co-morbid conditions.
'However, the importance of children in transmitting the virus remains uncertain,' the scientists cautioned in the study. 'Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause infection and disease in animals, capable of rapid mutation and recombination, leading to novel viruses that can spread from animals to humans,' they said.
'It is a political failure, and not a medical failure.'
Effective prevention and following good hygiene is the best way to tackle the virus.
"Omicron has been detected in all countries where we have good sequencing and it's likely to be in all countries around the world. It is quickly, in terms of its circulation, overtaking Delta. And so Omicron is becoming the dominant variant that is being detected," Kerkhove said during a virtual questions and answers session.
Vice President Mike Pence said Trump had authorised a ban on entry of foreign nationals who travelled to Iran in the last 14 days. The United States also advised its citizens not to travel to parts of South Korea and Italy, from where reports of coronavirus have appeared.
The number of recoveries continued to surge with 2,13,830 patients cured so far, while there were 1,68,269 active cases, according to the updated official figures at 8 am.
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 court noted that the daily number of new COVID-19 cases received for November 10 was at 8,593 and "still counting" and the number of containment zones in the city were 4,016.
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.
'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.'
The country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fourth consecutive day. India went past Russia on Sunday to become the third worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with healthcare workers getting inoculated and vaccination of the frontline workers started from February 2.
'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.'
'By the time actual action began, it was already too late.' 'The virus was raging.'
'There is no data to show this virus is more deadlier.'
This is the sixth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 45,000.
He asked the people to shun the argument that they 'want to enjoy before the third wave of coronavirus' and stressed that there should be no compromise in following COVID-19 protocols.
With these states imposing lockdowns anew, the health ministry emphasised that the restrictions should be utilised to focus on containment, surveillance and testing in the containment and buffer zones as the key strategy for early detection of cases and fatality management.
The NTAGI has also stated that those having laboratory test proven SARS-CoV-2 illness should defer COVID-19 vaccination for six months after recovery, the sources said.
President of Public Health Foundation of India, Professor K Srinath Reddy said that India may see COVID-19 cases peaking as early as in two months if there are strong public health measures and people take all precautions like wearing face masks and maintaining physical distance.
This was the sixth consecutive day when coronavirus cases increased by more than 14,000. Consequently, India has added 92,573 cases since June 20, and over 2.82 lakh this month alone since June 1.
A third wave of COVID-19 -- if it occurs -- is unlikely to be as severe as the second wave given the extent of spread of coronavirus infections that has already taken place in the country, according to a study.
Maharashtra is in the beginning of a second COVID-19 wave, a central team report has said, highlighting that there is very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts, and there is no adherence to COVID appropriate behaviour among people in rural and urban areas in the state.
"It is unrealistic to expect that COVID-19 pandemic can be eliminated at this stage given that community transmission is already well-established across large sections or sub-populations in the country," the report said.
Both manufacturers have sought funds in excess of Rs 150 crore under the department of biotechnology's Mission Covid Suraksha scheme. Announced last November, the scheme has an outlay of Rs 900 crore to help develop Covid vaccines, from the clinical development stage to setting up production sites.
The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
The highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 has mutated further to form the 'Delta plus' or 'AY.1' variant but there is no immediate cause for concern in India as its incidence in the country is still low, scientists in New Delhi said.
The Union health ministry on Friday said while there is no evidence to suggest that existing vaccines do not work on the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, some of the mutations reported may decrease the efficacy of the jabs.
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.
Referring to a judgement, the top court asked authorities not to arrest mechanically in cases where the maximum sentence is up to seven years of jail term.
The capital recorded 2,373 fresh coronavirus cases taking the tally to 92,175. With 61 deaths, the fatalities now stand at 2,864.
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