Coronavirus LIVE Updates: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a press conference on Friday said the current increase in Covid-19 cases was due to the pollution crisis in the city. He said measures were being taken to curb the poor quality in the capital, and assured that the Covid-19 situation was set to get better within 7 to 10 days.
India’s Covid-19 tally reached above the 87 lakh-mark on Friday as Delhi recorded 7,053 fresh COVID-19 cases in a day taking the infection tally in the national capital to over 4.67 lakh on Thursday, with 104 more fatalities in a same period, the highest in over five months, reports state. It pushed the death toll to 7,332, authorities said. These fresh coronavirus cases were detected from 60,229 tests, including 19,752 RT-PCR, conducted the previous day. Delhi recorded a positivity rate of 11.71 per cent amid the festive season and rising pollution in the city, according to the bulletin issued by the health department. Of the total tests conducted the previous day, 40,477 were rapid-antigen tests, while at 19,752, it was the highest number of RT-PCR tests conducted in a day till date, the bulletin said. The national capital had recorded its highest single-day spike of 8,593 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, while 85 deaths linked to the disease were recorded on that day. On Thursday, 104 more fatalities, the highest in a day in over five months, were recorded, pushing the death toll in Delhi to 7,332. The city had registered 93 deaths on June 16. Delhi recorded 71 fatalities from COVID-19 on Monday, 79 on Saturday and 77 on Sunday.
Here are the latest updates on the Covid-19 pandemic:
◕ Active Caseload Drops Below 4.85 Lakh | India’s active Covid-19 cases remained below five lakh for the third consecutive day at 4,84,547, which comprise 5.55 per cent of the total caseload, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday. This has been made possible by the trend of COVID-19 recoveries exceeding new cases, which has ensured a total net reduction of the active caseload, it underlined. In contrast to 44,879 new infections reported in a span of 24 hours, 49,079 cases have recovered in the last 24 hours, which continues India’s trend of having daily high recoveries that outnumber the daily new cases.
◕ No Social Distancing During Diwali? People flocked markets in big numbers this week, with little to do social distancing witnessed despite new Covid-19 cases coming up in the country each day. SEE PICTURES
◕ A Potential Covid-19 Vaccine Could be Available in Australia by Third Quarter of 2021 | Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt on Friday said a potential COVID-19 vaccine, being developed by the University of Queensland, could be available for all Australians in the third quarter of 2021. He said the vaccine development was ahead of schedule and it was “doing its job”. The vaccine was found to produce virus-neutralising antibodies and had a substantial effect on the elderly, Hunt said. “That is particularly so in the elderly, and that is an especially important outcome, given the global vulnerability to elderly…from COVID-19,” he told a press briefing. Biotech firm CSL has completed the manufacturing of the vaccine candidate to allow the third stage of clinical trials to begin.
◕ Five Die of Coronavirus in Bihar | Five more persons died of COVID-19 in Bihar on Thursday, raising the death toll to 1,167, while 523 fresh cases took the tally to 2,25,499, the health department said in a bulletin. Altogether 536 patients also recovered from the disease, taking the total number of cured people to 2,17,958, the bulletin said. The recovery rate is now 96.66 per cent. The number of active cases currently is 6,374 in the state.
◕ After Europe, Covid-19 Restrictions Make a Comeback in the US | The mayor of the United States’ third biggest city Chicago issued a new stay-at-home advisory on Thursday, as the country’s Covid-19 outbreak shattered records in the absence of a national strategy by President Donald Trump. Lori Lightfoot called on the Midwestern city’s 2.7 million people to go out only for essential tasks or to attend work or school, to scrap Thanksgiving plans and to avoid travel. “Every single one of us needs to step up and ‘Protect Chicago’ right now, or 2020 could go from bad to worse,” said an explanatory note on the city’s website.
◕ US Airlines to End Year with 90,000 Fewer Workers | Hit with a collapse of demand, US airlines will end the year with the lowest number of workers since at least 1987, 90,000 fewer than when Covid-19 hit, an industry federation said Thursday. Airlines for America said the number of full-time equivalent positions will drop to 370,000 at the end of December from 460,000 in March, a drop of nearly 20 percent. As coronavirus cases explode, approaching the worst days of the pandemic, authorities have stepped up restrictions.
◕ UK Sees Covid-19 Cases Jump | The United Kingdom posted its biggest one-day jump in laboratory-confirmed coronavirus infections Thursday as the government reported 33,470 new cases. That was 10,520 more than the number of positive tests reported Wednesday and pushed the total number of cases in the UK since the pandemic began to almost 1.3 million. More than 50,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the country, which is Europe’s deadliest toll.
(With inputs from PTI and AFP)
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