Covid LIVE: Maharashtra sees 41,434 new cases; Omicron tally reaches 1,009

Maharashtra capital Mumbai sees 20,318 new Covid cases in a day

9:03 AM

Delhi | Water-logging at an underpass in Pul Pehlad Pur, following overnight rainfall in the city

8:55 AM

Australia’s Daily Covid Cases Surpass 100,000 for First Time

Australia reported more than 100,000 new Covid-19 cases for the first time in a single day, as home test results were included and some restrictions were reintroduced to ease pressure on a health system stressed by the fast-spreading omicron variant.

 

Victoria state reported 51,356 cases on Saturday, more than double the day before, as it started counting results from rapid tests for the first time. Some 26,428 of the positive results came from the newly admitted tests, which were taken over the past week, according to Health Minister Martin Foley.

 

In New South Wales, cases climbed to 45,098, with 1,795 people hospitalized. The states recorded nine deaths each. Australia recorded 116,024 cases Saturday with one jurisdiction yet to report.

 

8:49 AM

Coronavirus LIVE: Mumbai reports 20,971 new Covid-19 cases

Mumbai reported 20,971 cases on January 7 out of which 17,616 or 84 per cent are asymptomatic.

8:43 AM

Global Covid caseload tops 302.6 mn

Amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 302.6 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.47 million and vaccinations to over 9.37 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Saturday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 302,679,314 and 5,478,980, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,373,736,128.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 59,166,756 and 836,477, according to the CSSE.

8:27 AM

Public gatherings restricted to 100 people in Goa, says CM Pramod Sawant

Amid the rise in COVID-19 cases in Goa, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced that public gatherings in the poll-bound coastal state has been limited to 100 people in outdoor venues and 50 per cent of the sitting capacity or maximum 100 in cases of indoor venues.

"Maximum 100 people will be allowed at the venue at any one point in time. However, people coming in and going out of the venue will not be counted to calculate the capacity limit," said Sawant.

The restrictions have been imposed to prevent large gatherings in marketplaces, public meetings, political meetings, beaches, etc.

8:27 AM

US President Joe Biden says he doesn't think Covid-19 is here to stay

US President Joe Biden on Friday (local time) said that he doesn't think that the COVID-19 is here to stay, but added that he does think it will remain around the world.

"No, I don't think COVID is here to stay, but having COVID in the environment here and in the world is probably here to stay," Biden said at the White House briefing, according to The Hill.

"COVID as we're dealing with it now is not here to stay, the normal doesn't have to be. We have so many more tools we developed and we continue to develop that can contain COVID and other strains of COVID," the President added, according to The Hill.

8:08 AM

Citi to fire unvaccinated workers

Citigroup Inc., the first major Wall Street bank to impose a strict vaccine mandate, will place office workers who don’t comply by Jan. 14 on unpaid leave, according to a message to staff seen by Bloomberg. Their last day of employment will come at the end of the month.

8:06 AM

Hong Kong Birthday Bash Lands 30 Officials in Quarantine

More than two dozen Hong Kong officials have been ordered to quarantine due to possible Covid exposure, as a scandal over a large birthday party they attended despite the government’s own pandemic warnings widened.

 

All of the some 170 guests at a celebration thrown for a representative for a mainland Chinese agency were being sent to the government quarantine camp in Penny’s Bay, health official Chuang Shuk-kwan said at a press briefing Friday. Some of Hong Kong’s most senior politicians and more than 20% of its new “patriots-only” legislature will be confined to 200-square-foot (20-square-meter) rooms with no wifi access, just as the government fights an outbreak of the infectious omicron variant.

8:05 AM

Too early to determine if additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine needed: Singapore health minister

Singapore's Health Minister Ong Ye Kung has said it is "too early" to determine if further doses of the COVID-19 vaccine would be required.

"It is too early to answer that question. If we look at an endemic disease like Influenza, people take annual vaccines to protect themselves. This is because the Influenza virus keeps mutating so a new vaccine dose is necessary every year," he said on Friday.

"So, whether we need future COVID-19 vaccine doses, depends on how fast the protection from three doses wanes, and whether the virus keeps mutating," Channel News Asia quoted the minister as saying.

7:49 AM

Gujarat High Court to function in virtual mode till further orders as COVID-19 cases rise

In view of rising cases of COVID-19, Gujarat High Court on Friday said that it will function in virtual mode till further orders.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there are 14,346 active COVID cases in the state presently.

Meanwhile, the Gujarat government on Friday announced a night curfew between 10 pm and 6 am in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Gandhinagar, Junagadh, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Anand, and Nadiad.

7:41 AM

Indonesia reports 518 new Covid-19 cases, 5 more deaths

Indonesia has confirmed 518 new Covid-19 cases, raising the country's tally of infections to 4,265,187, according to the country's Health Ministry.

The ministry reported that the death toll from Covid-19 in the country rose by five to 144,121, while 214 more people recovered from the disease during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,115,572, Xinhua news agency reported.

7:39 AM

Singapore reports 777 new Covid-19 cases, 283,991 in total

Singapore has reported 777 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, bringing the total tally of the disease in the country to 283,991.

Of the new cases, 366 were in the community, 15 were in migrant worker dormitories and 396 were imported cases, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the statistics released by the Ministry of Health (MOH).

There were 535 new Omicron cases confirmed on Monday, of whom 251 were local and 284 were imported, the ministry said.

7:22 AM

No new registration required for precautionary dose of COVID-19 vaccine: Centre

There is no requirement for new registration for the beneficiaries of precautionary COVID-19 vaccine dose, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.

The precautionary COVID-19 vaccine dose will be given to healthcare and frontline workers, and those over 60 years of age with co-morbidities from January 10.

The eligible population who have taken two doses of COVID-19 vaccine can directly take an appointment or walk-in to any COVID vaccination centre.

7:21 AM

India will have Omicron wave peak by next month, says US-based health expert

India will witness a peak in the number of COVID-19 cases by next month with the expectation of reporting five lakh cases per day, a US-based health expert said, adding that however "the severity of the variant will be less this time in the country than Delta variant."

Dr Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Chair of the Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington said: "You are entering the Omicron wave, as many countries around the world are, and we expect that there will be more cases per day at the peak than you had in April last year for the Delta wave, but Omicron is much less severe."

"So, while you will have many cases and set records probably for cases. It should be less of an impact on the severity of the disease. We currently have in the models that we will release later, we expect about five lakh cases at the peak, which should come in during the next month," he added.

7:17 AM

Coronavirus LIVE: 173 passengers test positive on arrival in Amritsar from Rome

Another 173 passengers who arrived on a chartered flight from Italy have tested positive for Covid-19. The flight, which landed at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport, in Amritsar, Punjab had 285 people on board a EuroAtlantic Airways flight chartered by SpiceJet from Rome. This is the second incident, where most passengers have tested positive. On January 6, 125 out of 179 passengers who returned to Amritsar from Rome tested positive. The infected patients will be shifted to isolation wards set up in hospitals across the city, ABP News reported.