Covid LIVE: Karnataka sees 16,068 new cases in a day; 14,152 in Maharashtra

Coronavirus live updates: India reported 132,364 fresh Covid-19 infections today, taking the caseload tally to 28,572,359. Death toll stands at 340,702. Stay tuned for corona-related news

12:48 PM

Pre-Covid level normalcy to return next year for airlines: Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri

Pre-Covid level normalcy to return next year, touch 400,000 passengers a day: Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri

12:37 PM

Our assessment is second wave will be confined to April-June: RBI Guv

Our assessment is second wave will be confined to April-June: RBI Guv

 

11:54 AM

Coronavirus in India: RBI creates liquidity window of Rs 15,000 crore to help hotels, tourism

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced creating a special liquidity window of Rs 15,000 crore with a tenor of 3 years at the repo rate to provide liquidity support to the contact-intensive sectors hit by Covid-19.

 

The special liquidity window encourages banks to provide fresh lending support to hotels, restaurants, tourism, aviation ancillary services, and other services including private bus operators, car repair services, rent-a-car service providers, event/conference organizers, spa clinics, and beauty parlours/saloons.

 

These sectors have seen the biggest impact due to the second wave as authorities started imposing lockdown measures to curb the spread of the virus. Read on...

11:39 AM

India's contribution to global scientific knowledge helping in Covid-19 prevention: Fauci

US President Joe Biden's top medical adviser Anthony Fauci said that India's contribution to global scientific knowledge is well known to all and the knowledge is already helping in Covid-19 prevention and care.

 

Speaking at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) webinar on health cooperation, Fauci said: "Please accept my sincere empathy for the extremely difficult health crisis India is currently facing. As you know, the US was in a similar position several months ago before our vaccines became available."

 

Underlining the critical role of science in dealing with such a crisis, he said that the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has a long history of collaboration with its counterpart agencies in the Indian government.

11:08 AM

Thane coronavirus update: Case count rises by 675, death toll by 38

With the addition of 675 coronavirus positive cases, the infection count in Thane district of Maharashtra mounted to 519,682, an official said on Friday.

 

These cases were reported on Thursday, he said.

 

As the virus claimed the lives of 38 patients during the day, the death toll in the district rose to 9,370.

 

The Covid-19 mortality rate of the district is 1.80 per cent, he added.

 

In neighbouring Palghar district, the Covid-19 case count has gone up to 111,004, while the death toll is 2,129 another official said. Read on...

11:00 AM

Singapore Red Cross sends Rs 38 crore for coronavirus relief to India

Singapore Red Cross (SRC) is sending nearly SGD 7 million (approx Rs 38 crore) to its counterpart in India for distribution to hospitals and medical institutions fighting the country's worst health crisis, its secretary general and CEO Benjamin Williams has said.

 

Williams received a SGD1 million cheque of donations collected by the Singapore Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) and the Little Indian Shopkeepers and Heritage Association (LISHA).

 

"Singaporeans have the heart to donate," said LISHA Chairman C Sankaranathan at the cheque presentation ceremony on Thursday. Read on...

10:56 AM

Kerala coronavirus update: State announces Rs 20,000 crore second coronavirus package

Announcing a Rs 20,000 crore package to tide over the crisis induced by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kerala Finance Minister K N Balagopal presented the maiden budget of the second Pinarayi Vijayan government here on Friday.

 

Besides the financial package, he also set aside Rs 1,000 crore to provide free vaccination for everyone aged above 18 years.

 

An additional 500 crore would be spent to ensure related equipment and facilities for free vaccination, he said. Read on...

10:53 AM

RBI Monetary policy LIVE: Rates unchanged; FY22 GDP forecast cut to 9.5%

The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) six-member monetary policy committee, headed by Governor Shaktikanta Das, on Friday kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged amid coronavirus uncertainty and fears over inflation.
 

The repo rate (lending rate) will continue at 4.00% and reverse repo rate (RBI’s borrowing rate) at 3.35%. With this, the repo rate has remained unchanged for a sixth consecutive time. Read on...

10:47 AM

India coronavirus update: 132,000 new cases, 2,713 fatalities recorded

India reported 1,32,364 new coronavirus infections taking the country's total tally of Covid-19 cases to 2,85,74,350, while the recovery rate crossed 93 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

 

The Covid-19 death toll climbed to 3,40,702 with 2,713 fresh deaths, while the active cases were recorded below 20 lakh for the fourth consecutive day, the data updated at 8 am showed.

 

A total of 20,75,428 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of Covid-19 in the country to 35,74,33,846. The daily positivity was recorded at 6.38 per cent. It has been less than 10 per cent for 11 consecutive days, the ministry said.

9:47 AM

Coronavirus in India: Latest update by MoHFW

Active cases: 1,635,993 (Net reduction: 77,420)

Deaths: 340,702 (Net increase: 2,713)

Cured: 26,597,655 (Net increase: 207,071)

Total cases: 28,574,350 (Net increase: 132,364)

Total vaccination: 224,109,448 (Increase over previous day: 2,875,286)

9:28 AM

Crude oil prices slip on patchy coronavirus vaccine rollout concerns

Oil prices dropped on Friday as concerns about the patchy roll-out of anti-coronavirus vaccinations around the globe tempered optimism earlier in the week that demand for fuels was recovering from the depths of the pandemic.

 

Brent crude was down 29 cents, or 0.4%, at $71.02 a barrel by 0057 GMT, after falling 4 cents on Thursday following a gain to the highest since May 2019. The contract is on track for a gain of nearly 2% this week.

 

U.S. oil also fell 29 cents, or 0.4%, to $68.52, having dropped 2 cents in the previous session, while heading for a gain of more than 2% this week.

 

"We continue to view oil demand recovery as largely a function of vaccinations," JPMorgan Chase commodities analysts said in a note. Read on...

9:18 AM

Study finds mass, diversity of SARS-CoV-2 virions person carries during infection

A multi-institutional study estimates that during peak infection with SARS-CoV-2 a person carries between 1 billion and 100 billion virions with a total mass of no more than 0.1 milligrams.

 

The study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) suggests that the sum of all virions currently found in human hosts may amount to an estimated mass ranging between 100 grams and 10 kilograms.

 

Additionally, the results suggest that the genetic diversity of virions in a single infected host likely covers all possible single nucleotide substitutions, according to the authors.

 

The authors of the paper are: Ron Sender, Yinon M. Bar-On, Shmuel Gleizer, Biana Bernshtein, Avi Flamholz, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo.

9:15 AM

RBI Monetary Policy LIVE: Accommodative stance

Another key question is how long the central bank will continue with the accommodative stance and if it will provide a time-bound guidance on how long the policy will continue? The central bank had last year indicated that the accommodative stance would continue at least untill the financial year (2020-21) and onto the next year until growth returns on a durable basis. However, in April--which was the first policy of the current financial year--the central bank refrained from indicating a timeframe on how long it intends with such a policy stance.

Economists said that the central bank is not likely to hike rates at least for the current financial year since growth revival is contingent on how fast the country is able to vaccinate a large part of the population. The government recently indicated that the aim is to vaccinate the entire population by the end of 2021. Covid-19 vaccinations are expected to pick up from the middle of July.

 

9:13 AM

Colombia eases coroanvirus lockdown measures despite 3rd Coivd peak

Colombia moved Thursday to reactivate its economy by easing several lockdown measures even though it is still fighting a third peak in the pandemic, which has been aggravated by a month of crowded anti-government street protests.

 

The Health Ministry said that Colombia will no longer require a negative coronavirus test from travellers entering the country by air and that students will return to classrooms once the vaccination of teachers is completed in July.

 

The ministry also announced that concerts, large sporting events and nightclubs at 25% capacity will be allowed in cities with less than 85% occupancy of ICU beds. This could rise to 50% of capacity in cities that have vaccinated 70% of their population in the first stage, which includes older adults, health workers, teachers and patients with chronic diseases.

 

Colombia, with 50 million inhabitants, has received 14 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca, and it has applied 10.3 million doses, according to government figures.

9:01 AM

Trump says he was right about 'China Virus coming from Wuhan Lab' remark

Former US President Trump on Thursday (local time) said that he was right about 'China Virus coming from Wuhan Lab'.

 

"Now everyone, even the so-called 'enemy', are beginning to say that President Trump was right about the China Virus coming from Wuhan Lab," said former US President Donald Trump.

 

He also called for imposing fine on China for the death and destruction they have caused due to this 'lab leak'.

 

"The correspondence between Dr Fauci and China speaks too loudly for anyone to ignore. China should pay USD 10 trillion to America, and the world, for the death and destruction they have caused!" added Trump. Read on...