Covishield vaccine’s price was reduced to ensure maximum reach, says SII’s Adar Poonawalla; over 60 test Covid positive at Gujarat law university: Top Corona Updates

Coronavirus Pandemic April 12 News: Adar Poonawalla, the Chief Executive Officer of Serum Institute of India (SII), has said that the decision to slash the price of Covishield vaccine for the precautionary doses was taken after consultation with government officials. Poonawalla told ANI that this was done so that the booster doses would be affordable and accessible to maximum number of Indians.

Even as experts wait for INSACOG’s report on Gujarat’s claim of detecting XE variant, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya chaired a crictial meeting on the futire course of India’s battle against the novel coronavirus today. The meeting was attended by Covid task force chief DR VK Paul and ICMR Director General among others. Mandaviya has asked the local authorities to amp up the booster drive across the country.

India’s Covid trajectory seem to be on a decline with Tuesday reporting 796 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours. The daily health bulletin says that 16 Covid deaths were registered across the country. The active cases in India stand at 10,889 as the country witnessed a reduction of 169 cases, the official data states. The national daily positivity rate stands at 0.20 per cent.

While the key indicators show a better situation for India in terms of the pandemic, one of the factors that people are not accounting for is low level of testing. The ICMR data states that over 4 lakh tests were conducted across the country on Monday. This is far lower scale of testing in the country. In comparison to this, at the time of Covid peak, the country was carrying out around 20 lakh cases every day. So, does a smaller number of daily tests are linked to low daily case count? More scrutiny is needed on this.

Meanwhile, the National Capital region is reporting steady increase in cases. After the reports of Covid cases detected in Ghaziabad schools, now Noida schools have gone online after 13 students and teachers were tested positive for Covid-19.

Talking about neighbouring China, Shanghai is cautiously allowing some people to step out as it unlocks the region. A Reuters report quoting China’s national health authority says that the country has registered over 23,000 asymptomatic coronavirus cases. China doesn’t count the asymptomatic infections in its main tally.

In Europe, Germany remains the Covid hotspot. The Robert Koch Institute says that Germany detected 1,62,790 new Covid infections. This was a sharp increase in comparison with Monday numbers.

The number of students who have been detected with coronavirus in the Gandhinagar-based Gujarat National Law University over the last six days has touched 64 after nine more students tested positive, a health department official said on Tuesday. According to a PTI report, all those infected are university students who met physically for the first time after offline classes resumed on April 4, Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation Medical Officer of Health Dr Kalpesh Goswami said.

(With agency inputs)