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Amid COVID peak, Maharashtra falls short of vaccine doses

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Maharashtra might have to stop its coronavirus immunisation drive after a few days because of a shortage of vaccine doses, according to state Health Minister Rajesh Tope. He said Maharashtra needs a stable supply of 40 lakh doses of Covid vaccines each week.

“Currently, we have 14 lakh vaccine doses which will get over in 3 days. We’ve asked for 40 lakh more vaccine doses per week,” Tope said while speaking to reporters.

“Many districts will run out of the stock today or tomorrow. The Centre is aware of the situation and (we) have also communicated in writing,” he said, adding, “I’m not saying that the Center is not giving us vaccines but the speed of delivery of vaccines is slow.”

Nearly 82 lakh people have been vaccinated so far in Maharashtra since the roll-out of the inoculation drive.

An official statement on Tuesday said Maharashtra had received 1.06 crore doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, out of which 88 lakh doses have been used while the wastage stood at three per cent.

Maharashtra on April 6 crossed the 50K mark, reporting 55,469 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the state health department stated. This is the second-highest spike since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The total number of cases in the state now stands at 31, 13,354. As of April 6, there are 4,72,283 active cases in the state, and the death toll stands at 56,330.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, taking into consideration the surging cases, has put the state under weekend lockdowns and night curfews. He has also implemented other strict measures to curb the spread of the virus.

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As India sees second covid wave, govt make big announcement regarding vaccination drive

As India continues to see surge in Covid-19 cases, with many states experiencing the second wave of infections, the Union Cabinet Tuesday decided to further open up the vaccination, making every person above the age of 45 years eligible for a vaccine shot from April 1.

From April 1, anyone above the age of 45 years can either register online or on the spot for vaccination.

Earlier, only senior citizens and people in the age group of 45-60 with specific comorbidities were eligible for Covid-19 vaccination.

“I appeal to every citizen who is 45 or above to register for vaccination. This decision has been taken by cabinet on the basis of the advice of the coronavirus Task Force and experts,” Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

India recorded 40,715 coronavirus cases in a day, taking the nationwide infection tally to 1,16,86,796, while the active caseload at 3,45,377 registered an increase for the 13th day in a row, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday.

Vaccination drive in India rolled out with two vaccines – Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin — on January 16 with healthcare workers. Frontline workers were declared eligible for the shots February 2 onwards.

The COVID-19 death toll of the country increased to 1,60,166, with 199 daily new fatalities, it said.  The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,11,81,253, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.37%, the data stated.

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COVID-19: Second wave begins? Here’s what states are doing?

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India saw its sharpest-ever rise in Covid-19 cases this week, with recorded infections rising by 67% and the country logging 1 lakh cases more than the count in the previous week.The country recorded over 2.6 lakh fresh cases in the week, making it the worst surge of the pandemic till date.

Maharashtra on Sunday reported 30,535 fresh COVID-19 cases, the highest rise in a single day, the state health department said.

With this, the state’s overall tally of the infections mounted to 24,79,682 while 99 fatalities pushed the count to 53,399, it said.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat today said he has tested positive for COVID-19. The chief minister took to Twitter to inform the people about his COVID-19 test report and said he has tested positive for the pandemic but he is alright and has no complications.

The capital city of Mumbai on Sunday recorded 3779 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. This is the highest number of cases reported from Mumbai since the beginning of the pandemic.

Karnataka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Sunday said that the second wave of the coronavirus had begun and sought people’s cooperation to contain the disease. “We are at the beginning of the second wave of coronavirus. Let us all join hands to control it because the next three months are crucial for us,” Sudhakar told reporters in Bengaluru as the coronavirus cases started shooting up.

So, amid such a tense situation, here’s what states are doing to control the situation.

Several states and Union territories have imposed restrictions, including full lockdown and night curfew. State governments, including those in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, have tightened existing restrictions in major cities of several states.

The Punjab government has further tightened the guidelines in the 11 districts most affected by the pandemic. All educational institutions, except medical colleges, have been closed in these 11 districts till March 31. Examinations will also be postponed during this period. Night curfew has been imposed from 9pm to 5am in Mohali, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ropar, Moga, SBS Nagar and Fatehgarh Sahib.

The Goa government will take strict action against restaurants, hotels or entertainment areas that do not follow the rules related to Covid-19. A minister of the state government said that to prevent the spread of the virus, it is extremely important for everyone to wear masks and maintain social distance.

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Number of new Covid-19 cases at 12,923 – more than 7 million vaccinated thus far

As shown by the Union health ministry’s dashboard on Thursday morning, in the preceding 24 hours, India reported 12,923 new cases of Covid-19 as the country’s overall tally rose to 10,871,294. However, in a slight departure from the recent trend, the country’s new active cases witnessed a spike at 1,051- as they rose marginally to 142,562 or 1.30% of total cases, as per the health ministry.

As per the latest health ministry figures, the total number of recoveries rose to 10,573,372 or 97.27% of the national tally as 11,764 more patients were discharged in the last 24 hours. Also, in the same period, 108 fresh fatalities were reported, taking India’s Covid-19 related death toll to 155,360 or 1.43% of total cases. India’s previous single-day death count was 94, while 78 fatalities were reported before that.

Also See: New Mutants of Coronavirus

On the vaccination front, more than 7 million people have been vaccinated thus far, the dashboard further showed, with 7,017,114 having been inoculated against the disease. India began what is the world’s largest vaccination drive against Covid-19 on January 16. Oxford University-AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech International Limited’s Covaxin are being used in the vaccination drive.

Also on Wednesday, the GOI-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that the country’s new positive cases were from 699, 185 samples tested by it on February 10. ICMR added that the total number of tests in India, currently stands at 204,023,840.

These latest numbers come in a month when India recorded less than 10,000 daily new Covid-19 cases twice; 8,635 cases were reported on February 2 and 9,110 infections were recorded on February 11. Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have the highest Covid-19 caseloads in the country. The top two states, Maharashtra and Kerala, also have the highest number of active cases, with the southern state topping the tally on that front. Kerala and Maharashtra have more than 64,000 and 36,000 active cases respectively, with Karnataka at third with 5,894 infections.

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Covid19: Gujarat and MP impose night curfew as the caseload in the country crosses the 90 lakh mark

In order to check the rise of Covid-19 in the state, the Gujarat government on Friday announced that night curfew from 9 PM to 7 AM, will be imposed in Rajkot, Vadodara, and Surat everyday. This decision comes a day after the government had announced a “complete curfew” in Ahmedabad city from Friday night till Monday morning with only allowing the opening of milk and medicines shops.

Madhya Pradesh government followed suit, and announced that it will impose night curfew from 10 PM to 6 AM in five cities including Bhopal, Indore, Ratlam, Vidisham and Gwalior to curb the rise of Covid-19 cases.

In a parallel development, today, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij was administered a trial dose of potential coronavirus vaccine Covaxin in Ambala. The human trial of Covaxin had begun at Rohtak’s Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in July.

India’s COVID-19 caseload, in the meantime, has surpassed the 90-lakh mark on Friday with 45,882 new cases, while the recoveries surged to 84.28 lakh pushing the national recovery rate to 93.6 percent, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The data updated at 8 am showed that the total coronavirus cases mounted to 90,04,365 and the death toll climbed to 1,32,162 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 584 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.46 percent. As indicated in the data, there are 4,43,794 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 4.92 percent of the total caseload.

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Covid-19 cases emerging again at an alarming rate in European nations resulting in lockdowns being reimposed

With the USA and India being the worst-hit countries in the world by Covid-19, Europe has been emerging as a new hotspot for the disease outbreak after having controlled the situation once before. The number of fresh cases of Covid-19 recorded daily has been increasing at an alarming rate, regarding which the national authorities have introduced some new restrictions to control the outbreak.

As a matter of fact, last week the total number of cases recorded in the European Union and UK together was higher than the daily count of Covid-19 cases in the USA alone. On an average, Europe has been recording 80,000 fresh cases daily as per the recent data.

After the national lockdown restrictions had been lifted in Europe during the summer, the number of cases recorded daily had eventually fallen. However, recently these numbers have been on a rise, making the situation uncontrollable.

European nations like the Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Germany, France, and Italy have observed a continuous rise in daily cases for the past one month. Last week, the majority of the European nations recorded the maximum number of Covid-19 cases in a day particularly on October 14 and 15.

As a consequence, renewed versions of a nationwide lockdown have been announced in the UK and other European countries to avoid facing another massive outbreak, which would worsen the situation.

Curfews have been implemented in Paris and other cities in France. Italy has made it necessary for its residents to wear masks at all times, when outside their homes. It was initially the worst-hit nation by Covid-19 during the early months of the pandemic. It is also considering banning parties and large gatherings to practice social distancing. Madrid, the capital of Spain has been locked down completely.

In addition to this, revised restrictions have been implemented in London, UK. Restaurants and bars have been closed until further notice in Berlin, Germany. Bars have also been shut in Brussels, Belgium. In Ireland, restaurants, and bars are only allowed to serve food and beverages outside with certain restrictions, along with introducing a ban on social gatherings.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.

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Covid-19: million cases added in a week, India crosses 60 lakh mark

According to Union health ministry update on Monday morning, 82,170 fresh cases of the coronavirus disease (in the last 24 hours) has been recorded in India, due to which the nationwide tally has been pushed above 60 lakhs.

In just 11 days, the latest million cases came.

The health ministry data showed that out of the 60,74,703 cases, 50,16,521 patients have been cured or discharged from hospitals while 9,62,640 are still active.

In the last 24 hours, at least 1,039 people succumbed which pushed the death toll to 95,542.

Meanwhile, 3,292 new cases of the disease have been recorded in Delhi which pushed the number of infections in the national capital to 2,71,114. Delhi reported more than 40 deaths due to Covid-19 for the second consecutive day on Sunday.

This has increased the number of death up to 5,235 in the national capital.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the health ministry said that India recorded 10 lakh recoveries in the last 11 days.

“India’s total recoveries cross the landmark milestone of 50 lakh. The rise from 1 lakh in June ‘20 has been steep. The last 10 lakh recoveries were added in just 11 days,” the health ministry said on Twitter.

Recovered cases have outpaced active cases by over, it added.

The accumulative total samples tested till September 26 is 7,12,57,836. On 26th September, 9,87,861, samples had been tested, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

In terms of Covid-19 cases after the US, India is the second- worst hit country, while it is in the third spot in terms of fatalities globally after the US and Brazil.

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After successful trials, Russia to soon launch first ever COVID-19 vaccine

Amid rising COVID-19 cases, there has come a ray of hope as Russia’s Sechenov University is claiming to have developed one of the world’s first coronavirus vaccine.

The researchers claimed that Russia might be one of the first countries in the world to develop a coronavirus vaccine as it has completed the tests on volunteers.

The Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University conducted human trials on a group of a total of 38 volunteers in two batches. It seems that the vaccine has proved to be effective and the volunteers are safe. They will soon be discharged from the facilities in two batches – Wednesday, 15 July and five days after that on Monday, 20 July.


According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are three phases in the development of a vaccine. During Phase I, small groups of people receive the trial vaccine. In Phase II, the clinical study is expanded and the vaccine is given to people who have characteristics (such as age and physical health) similar to those for whom the new vaccine is intended. In Phase III, the vaccine is given to thousands of people and tested for efficacy and safety.

In the Russian vaccine trials, the first stage of research on the vaccine began on 18 June when a group of 18 volunteers were vaccinated. The second stage had 20 volunteers and they were vaccinated on 23 June.

According to a report, the Russian scientists are hopeful to launch the world’s first coronavirus vaccine by mid-August. Officials add that mass production of the same by the drugmakers may begin by September 2020.

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New Zealand confirms two new cases of coronavirus

Ending it’s 24-day streak of no active cases in the country, New Zealand confirmed two new cases of coronavirus.

New Zealand on Tuesday said that it has two new cases of the coronavirus, both related to recent travel from the U.K.

New Zealand has recorded its first new cases of coronavirus when two women who arrived in the country from Britain were found to be infected.

Last week New Zealand lifted all social and economic restrictions except border controls. However, strict border restrictions remained in place – with only citizens and essential workers allowed in.

Although, earlier Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned that new cases may come up in the future as New Zealanders return home, and some others were allowed in under special conditions.

The newest cases bring New Zealand’s total number of cases since the outbreak began to 1,506. The death toll remains unchanged at 22.