5:26 PM1,441 fresh Covid-19 cases recorded in a day in Uttar Pradesh
Sixteen more people succumbed to COVID-19 in a day in Uttar Pradesh taking the death toll to 8,072 on Sunday, while 1,441 fresh cases pushed the infection tally to 5,65,556. A statement issued by the state government on Sunday said of the 16 fresh deaths, six were reported from the state capital Lucknow, while two were from Varanasi. Of the 1,441 fresh COVID-19 cases reported from the state, Lucknow topped the chart with 209 cases followed by Ghaziabad with 152 cases.
As many as 1,770 COVID-19 patients in the state have recovered from the disease in a day, taking the total number of people discharged so far in the state to 5,37,755. The number of active cases in the state stands at 19,729. Over 1.56 lakh samples were tested for detection of coronavirus infection in the state in a day taking the total number of tests conducted so far to more than 2.14 crore.
4:59 PMWest Bengal's 'Poush Mela' to be called off this year due to Covid-19 restrictions
The annual 'Poush Mela', a heritage cultural event attracting lakhs of travellers to West Bengal's Santiniketan, will not be held this year due to COVID-19 restrictions. The over-a-century-old handicraft, handloom, art and music festival, is usually held in December-end.
"We are not sure about getting the nod from the local administration in view of the COVID-19 situation. Most students, an integral part of Poush Mela, are not coming to the campus.
"Keeping all these factors in mind, we had to take this unpleasant decision for public health safety," a member of Visva-Bharati's executive council said.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting of the executive council. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's father Maharshi Debendranath Tagore had first organised the fair in 1894 and Visva-Bharati, the university founded by the bard, started organising it from 1951.
4:46 PMCoronavirus LIVE: Germany reports 20,200 new Covid-19 cases
Germany reported on Sunday 20,200 more COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the national tally to 1,320,716, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
The country's new COVID-19 deaths in the same period totaled 321, taking nationwide death toll to 21,787, the data showed. To cope with surging COVID-19 infections, Germany's federal and state governments have decided to extend a partial lockdown until Dec. 20.
4:28 PMSaliva-based smartphone platform built for rapid Covid-19 testing
Scientists have developed a portable saliva-based smartphone platform for rapid Covid-19 testing that they claim can provide results within 15 minutes without the resource-intensive laboratory tests. The new technique detailed in the journal Science Advances pairs a fluorescence microscope readout device with a smartphone to determine viral load from a CRISPR/Cas12a assay.
The new test works as effectively as the well-established quantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction method, the experiments in a small number of participants showed.
"We believe this smartphone platform, a similar future application, offers the potential to rapidly expand Covid-19 screening capacity, and potentially simplify the verification of contact tracing, to improve local containment and inform regional disease control efforts," the authors wrote.
3:57 PMCoronavirus LIVE: Odisha reports 393 new Covid-19 cases, five deaths
A total of 393 new COVID-19 cases and five deaths have been reported from Odisha on Saturday, said the State Health Department on Sunday. The total count of cases in the state has increased to 3,23,757. It has 3,214 active cases. With 405 recoveries in the last 24 hours, the number of discharged patients has increased to 3,18,683. The death toll has gone up to 1,807.
Meanwhile, with 30,005 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the total cases in India crossed the 98-lakh mark and reached 98,26,775, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's (MoHFW) data on Saturday.
3:22 PMCovid-19 positive Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij shifted to Rohtak hospital
Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij, who had tested positive for coronavirus recently, has been shifted to the PGIMS hospital at Rohtak from the civil hospital here after he complained of discomfort, doctors here said on Sunday. Doctors said the minister was shifted on Saturday night. Ambala's Civil Surgeon Dr. Kuldeep Singh said a team of doctors at the Rohtak hospital was monitoring his condition.
Vij, who had last month got one shot of the two-dose trial of the COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin after he offered to be a volunteer, had on December 5 tested positive for the coronavirus.
The 67-year-old BJP leader had offered to be the first volunteer in the phase three trials for Covaxin, an indigenous potential vaccine being developed by Bharat Biotech against COVID-19. He was administered the dose on November 20 at the Civil Hospital in Ambala Cantonment, about 50 km from Chandigarh. Bharat Biotech had said that clinical trials of the vaccine are based on a two-dose schedule, given 28 days apart. The vaccine efficacy will be determined two weeks after the second dose, it said.
2:54 PMIndia's active Covid-19 caseload falls to 3.62% of total cases: Health Ministry
Steadily following the trend set over the past few weeks, India's COVID-19 active caseload has fallen to 3.62 per cent of the total cases, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday. The trend of registering more daily recoveries than the daily cases has led to a continuous contraction of India's active caseload, which presently stands at 3,56,546 as on date. While 30,254 persons were found to be COVID-19 positive in the country in a span of 24 hours, 33,136 new recoveries were registered during the same period. This has led to a net decline of 3,273 cases from the total active caseload in a day, the ministry said.
India reported one of the lowest cases per million population in the world (158) in the last seven days; much lower than many other countries of the Western Hemisphere, it underlined.
"The total recovered cases stand at 93,57,464 as on date. The gap between recoveries and active cases is steadily increasing and it has crossed 90 lakh (90,00,918) as on date," the ministry highlighted. It said 75.23 per cent of the new recovered cases are contributed by 10 states and union territories.
2:19 PMHimachal Pradesh records 79 new Covid-19 cases; state tally 49,030
As many as 79 new coronavirus cases were reported in Himachal Pradesh on Sunday, taking the state's count to 49,030 total positive cases. According to the state health department's midday COVID-19 bulletin, there are 7,094 active cases and 41,094 cases have recovered. So far, 797 people have died to the virus.
With 30,254 new COVID-19 infections reported in the last 24 hours, India's total cases have risen to 98,57,029, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
With 391 new deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the toll has mounted to 1,43,019.The total number of active cases is at 3,56,546 while the total discharged cases are at 93,57,464 with 33,136 new discharges in the last 24 hours.
1:52 PM'Serious concerns' over Covid-19 re-infections in Pakistan
Pakistan health officials have raised "serious concerns" over the growing incidence of coronavirus re-infections at various health facilities across the country, the media reported on Sunday.
The first death from coronavirus re-infection in Pakistan was reported in October this year when a senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Rashid Rabbani, passed away after contracting the viral infection again after testing positive for the disease in May, Geo News reported.
Officials at renowned hospitals including the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and the Indus Hospital Karachi are fully convinced that people are getting re-infected with the novel coronavirus and reporting to the hospitals with the severity of the disease for the second time.
1:23 PMFrance reports 13,947 new Covid-19 cases
France recorded 13,947 new new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing the nationwide tally to 2,405,255, according to Health Ministry. Besides the new cases on Saturday, the country also confirmed 194 new fatalities from the virus, taking the national death toll to 57,671, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying.
Due to a night-time curfew and nationwide lockdown introduced in October, France's number of new infections decreased to around 10,000 per day from nearly 50,000 in late October, and pressure on hospitals has eased. The number of people with Covid-19 decreased 6 per cent last week, compared to a 31 per cent fall a week earlier, indicating "a high risk of the virus resurgence in the coming weeks", the country's Public Health Agency said in a report.
1:19 PMCovid-19 complications include kidney, lung and cardiovascular issues, study reveals
According to new research, a larger study of patients in the USA has revealed that individuals who contracted Covid-19 suffered from several complications like kidney, lung, and cardiovascular issues due to the disease.
As per the research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), using de-identified outpatient and inpatient medical claims from a United States health database, researchers identified 70 288 patients who had a Covid-19-related health visit between March 1 and April 30, 2020.
More than half of all patients were admitted to the hospital, and approximately 5% were admitted to the intensive care unit. The median age was 65 years, and 55.8 percent were female. The authors looked at all possible diagnostic codes and identified those that increased in frequency after the onset of Covid-19.
12:56 PM11 new Covid-19 cases push Mizoram's tally to 4,035
Eleven more people, including four security personnel, have tested positive for Covid-19 in Mizoram, pushing the tally to 4,035, an official said on Sunday. Of the 11 fresh cases, five were reported from Aizawl district, three from Serchhip, two from Lawngtlai and one case from Lunglei district, he said. Two army personnel, who have returned to Mizoram on vacation and two Border Security Force (BSF) jawans were among the newly infected people, he said.
Only one patient has developed symptoms of Covid-19, while the rest 10 patients were asymptomatic, he said. The state now has 192 active cases, while 3,836 people have recovered from the virus. The Covid-19 recovery rate in Mizoram is 95 per cent and the infection rate is 2.46 per cent. Mizoram has reported seven Covid-19 deaths so far and all the victims were from Aizawl district. The state has tested 1,64,236 samples for Covid-19 till date, including 1,034 on Saturday.
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