Coronavirus in India Latest Update Highlights: Kerala reports 23,676 new coronavirus cases, 148 more deaths

No fresh death due to COVID-19 was recorded in Rajasthan on Tuesday, even as 11 new cases raised the infection tally to 9,53,715, according to an official report. The death toll from the pandemic stands at 8,954 in the state. Twenty-nine districts out of total 33 in Rajasthan did not record a single new coronavirus case on Tuesday, the report said. (PTI)

Three more people died from coronavirus in Punjab on Tuesday as 43 fresh cases surfaced, taking the state’s infection count to 5,99,204, according to a medical bulletin. So far, the infection has claimed 16,299 lives in the state. The toll includes two deaths which were not reported earlier, as per the bulletin. The number of active cases stood at 463. (PTI)

West Bengal’s COVID-19 tally rose to 15,30,024 on Tuesday as 729 more people tested positive for the infection, while 18 fresh fatalities pushed the state’s coronavirus death toll to 18,170, a health bulletin said. North 24 Parganas district registered the highest number of new cases at 86, while Darjeeling recorded the highest number of fresh fatalities at three. No deaths were reported in Kolkata, and its neighbouring North and South 24 Parganas districts. (PTI)

The authorities in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley on Tuesday extended the ongoing lockdown till August 11 to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The current round of lockdown expires on Wednesday midnight local time and the three districts in the valley — Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur — decided to extend it by another seven days starting from Thursday. As per the prohibitory orders, shops can remain open till 7 pm. People are allowed to go outside by maintaining social distancing and adopting standard health protocols like using hand sanitiser. However, public meetings, social events and demonstrations are not allowed.

Mumbai on Tuesday reported 288 new cases of COVID-19, slightly up from a day ago, taking the total to 7,35,659, while three more patients succumbed to the infection, the city civic body said. On Monday, the city had reported 259 COVID-19 cases and nine fatalities. Also, 412 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative figure of recovered cases to 7,12,729, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a statement. (PTI)

Chhattisgarh govt makes it mandatory for passengers arriving in state by air to produce negative RT-PCR report of COVID-19 test conducted within 96 hours of boarding flight: Officials (PTI)

Jammu and Kashmir recorded 140 fresh COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, taking the number of infected people to 321865, while three fatalities due to the disease in the last 24 hours pushed the toll to 4,384, officials said. Out of the fresh cases, 70 were from the Jammu division and an equal number from the Kashmir division of the Union Territory, the officials said. They said Srinagar district recorded the highest number of 21 cases followed by 19 in Rajouri district. (PTI)

Japan is donating 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Sri Lanka, which has been facing a severe shortage of AstraZeneca vaccine to complete the second dose. The Japanese donation follows a personal request made by Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to the Japan prime minister Yoshihide Suga, said a statement from the president’s office. The first of consignment — amounting to 728,460 doses — was flown into the Indian ocean island nation on July 31, under the COVAX Facility. The next batch of AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive on August 7. (AP)

The COVID-19 tally in Nashik reached 4,02,824 on Tuesday with the addition of 97 cases, while the day also saw three deaths and 102 recoveries, an official said. The toll in the district is 8,523 and the recovery count is 3,93,229, he informed. With 6,481 samples being examined on Tuesday, the number of tests in Nashik went up to 22,87,241, he added. (PTI) 

Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday reported 18 new COVID-19 cases which pushed its caseload to 7,91,880, a health department official said. No fatality on account of the pandemic was reported during the day, so the death toll remained unchanged at 10,513, he added. The recovery count rose to 7,81,228 with 11 patients being discharged from hospitals on Tuesday. There are 139 active cases in the state. With 68,830 samples being examined during the day, the number of coronavirus tests conducted so far went up to 1,46,37,303. (PTI)

Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 6,005 fresh coronavirus positive cases and 177 fatalities, taking the tally of infections to 63,21,068 and the toll to 1,33,215 while 6,799 patients recovered, the state health department said. With the new additions, the tally of recoveries in Maharashtra now stands at 61,10,124, leaving the state with 74,318 active cases with a recovery rate of 96.66 per cent. The case fatality rate is 2.1 per cent, it said. Mumbai reported 291 new cases and three deaths, which raised the overall case-load to 7,35,657 and the count of fatalities to 15,911, the department said in a statement. (PTI)

Uttar Pradesh’s Covid tally rose to 17,08,562 with 65 fresh cases, while two new fatalities took the death toll to 22,765, a bulletin by the Health Department said on Tuesday. One death each has been reported from Maharajganj and Chandauli districts, it said. Eleven fresh cases were reported from Lucknow, seven from Varanasi, five from Allahabad, four each from Kanpur Nagar and Gautam Budhnagar, among others, the bulletin said. (PTI)

Haryana on Tuesday reported two coronavirus-related fatalities, bringing the toll to 9,641, while 26 fresh cases pushed the infection count to 7,69,982, according to a bulletin. The new fatalities were reported from Bhiwani and Charkhi Dadri districts, the health department’s daily bulletin said. Of the fresh Covid cases, 12 were registered in Gurugram and four in Faridabad district. (PTI)

Goa’s coronavirus caseload went up by 101 and reached 1,71,396 on Tuesday, while the day also saw two deaths and 127 recoveries, an official said. The state has so far witnessed 3,152 deaths and the recovery count is 1,67,245, leaving it with 999 active cases, he said. With 4,470 samples being examined in the last 24 hours, the number of tests in Goa went up to 10,68,173, he added. (PTI)

Kerala on Tuesday reported 23,676 fresh COVID cases pushing the total infection count to 34.49 lakh, with the number of people succumbing to the virus touching 17,103 after 148 additional deaths. On Monday, the state had reported 13,984 cases after recording more than 20,000 cases for six consecutive days. As many as 15,626 people have been cured of the infection since Monday, taking the total recoveries to 32,58,310 and the number of active cases in the state to 1,73,221, a state government release said. (PTI)

The Ministry of Science and Technology has allocated over Rs 1,600 crore for COVID-19 related research and product development, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and its public sector undertaking Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) have allocated approximately Rs 1,300 crore for COVID-19 related research and product development, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said in a written response to a question. (PTI)

Jharkhand’s COVID-19 tally rose to 3,47,223 on Tuesday as 23 more people tested positive for the infection, a health bulletin said. The state’s coronavirus death toll remained unchanged at 5,129 as no fresh fatality was reported, it said. Bokaro, Deoghar and Lohardaga districts registered the highest number of new cases at four each, followed by three each in Ranchi and Sahebganj, and two each in Latehar and Pakur. (PTI)

Night curfew and other Covid-related curbs in Uttarakhand have been extended for a week till August 10 without any further relaxation despite a fall in positive cases. The order issued by Chief Secretary Sukhbir Singh Sindhu late on Monday night said the night curfew will remain in force till 6am on August 10. All relaxations given while extending the curfew last week will continue, it said. Government and private schools which were opened for classes nine and 10 on Monday have been asked to strictly follow the Covid standard operating procedure. Similarly, separate SOPs will be issued for opening ITIs, polytechnics, colleges, and medical and engineering institutes. (PTI)

Kerala on Tuesday reported 23,676 fresh COVID cases pushing the total infection count to 34.49 lakh, with the number of people succumbing to the virus touching 17,103 after 148 additional deaths. On Monday, the state had reported 13,984 cases after recording more than 20,000 cases for six consecutive days. As many as 15,626 people have been cured of the infection since Monday, taking the total recoveries to 32,58,310 and the number of active cases in the state to 1,73,221, a state government release said. (PTI)

The US has donated and shipped more than 110 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more than 60 countries, ranging from Afghanistan to Zambia, the White House announced Tuesday. President Joe Biden was expected to discuss that milestone and more later Tuesday in remarks updating the public on the US strategy to slow the spread of coronavirus abroad. The announcement comes amid a rise in infections in the US, fuelled by the highly contagious delta strain of the virus, which led US public health officials last week to recommend that people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 resume wearing face coverings in public indoor settings. (PTI)

Ladakh recorded five fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the tally to 20,345, while the number of active cases in the Union Territory stood at 57, officials said. Ladakh has so far registered 207 coronavirus-related deaths — 149 in Leh and 58 in Kargil — since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. A total of 20,081 patients in the UT have recovered from the infection till date. Of the new Covid cases registered on Monday, four were in Leh and one in Kargil. While a total of 2,977 sample reports in Ladakh including 1267 from Leh and 1713 from Kargil were found negative for the disease, they said. (PTI)

The death of a 20-year-old Indian student in China’s Tianjin city was a homicide and a foreigner has been arrested in connection with the murder, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said here on Tuesday. The suspect’s nationality has not been disclosed, officials said. Aman Nagsen, who hailed from Bihar’s Gaya, was a student of Business Administration in the Tianjin Foreign Studies University. He was found dead on July 29. (PTI)

The national capital reported 50 COVID-19 cases and four fatalities in a day while the positivity rate stood at 0.08 per cent, according to a health bulletin on Tuesday. On Sunday, 51 Covid infections and no death were recorded. This data was revealed on Tuesday as the Delhi government had not releases the COVID-19 bulletin for the day. According to the bulletin, health authorities conducted 64,276 COVID-19 tests on Monday. (PTI)

China’s Wuhan city will test its 12 million residents for the coronavirus after confirming its first domestic cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant.Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, had reported no local coronavirus cases since mid-May last year but on Monday authorities confirmed three cases of the Delta variant. The strain has been found in a handful of provinces and big cities including Beijing over the past two weeks.”To ensure that everyone in the city is safe, city-wide nucleic acid testing will be quickly launched for all people to fully screen out positive results and asymptomatic infections,” Wuhan official Li Qiang told a news briefing.Parts of an industrial and technology zone were sealed off, a measure rarely seen in the city since a lockdown last year.The new cases in Wuhan, along with infections in the nearby cities of Jingzhou and Huanggang since Saturday, were linked to cases in the city of Huaian in Jiangsu province, said Li Yang, vice director of the Hubei province disease control centre.The outbreak in Jiangsu is believed to have begun in the provincial capital of Nanjing in late July, with the Delta variant mostly likely introduced on a flight from Russia, officials have said. – Reuters

The COVID-19 tally of Andaman and Nicobar Islands remained unchanged at 7,539 as no fresh infection was reported in the archipelago on Tuesday, a health bulletin said. One more person was cured of the disease, taking the total number of recoveries to 7,404. The Union territory now has six active cases, while 129 patients have succumbed to the infection to date, of whom 67 have died during the second wave of the pandemic since March 1 this year. The administration has tested over 4.43 lakh samples for COVID-19 to date, it said, adding that the positivity rate stands at 1.70 per cent. A total of 2.97 lakh people have been inoculated, of whom 94,143 have received both doses, it added. – PTI

There are few states where over 3 crore vaccination doses have been supplied. UP has been given 4.88 crore doses, Maharashtra has been given 4.5 crore doses and Gujarat has been given 3.4 crore doses: Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry – ANI

There were 279 districts on June 1st, where over 100 cases were reported but it has come down to 57 districts now, where over 100 cases are being reported in the country: Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry – ANI

Number of cases decreased in 222 dists. Case trajectory is seen in the limited area. There are 18 districts incl 10 districts of Kerala where an increasing trend in cases is seen. These 18 districts constitute of 47.5% cases: Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry –ANI

There are 44 districts where the case positivity rate is over 10%. These districts are in Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland among others: Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry – ANI

Maharashtra | 26 lakh vaccinations have been done in Pune so far. In the last 5-6 days, there has been no supply of vaccines. Due to this, we are facing problems in vaccination. In the last 4 days, we have not received supply of Covishield vaccine: Pune Mayor, Murlidhar Mohol – ANI

#WATCH COVID19 norms of physical distancing and wearing masks violated during Bonalu celebrations in Old City, Hyderabad, yesterday#Telangana pic.twitter.com/uH87MhrsYK

— ANI (@ANI) August 3, 2021

Eli Lilly and Co and partner Incyte Corp on Tuesday said additional results from a late-stage study showed that their COVID-19 drug baricitinib reduced the risk of death in patients on mechanical ventilation. (Reuters)

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday said in Parliament that four more Indian pharma firms are expected to start anti-coronavirus vaccine production by October-November that will accelerate the inoculation drive. During the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Mandaviya said India has administered 47 crore doses of vaccine so far and the Centre is making efforts to inoculate the entire country at the earliest. Even 7 to 9 per cent of the doses that remain unutilised by private hospitals are being used by the government vaccination centres, he added. Mandaviya was speaking amid a din in the house over the Opposition’s demand for a discussion on the Pegasus issue and the farm laws. “Vaccination drive is going on smoothly… It will get more accelerated in the coming days with the ramping up of production by four more Indian companies,” the minister said. The government expects that by October-November, four more Indian pharmaceutical companies will start production of indigenous vaccines that will help meet the domestic demand, he said. (PTI)

India’s production capacity of Remdesivir increased from 38.8 lakh vials per month in mid-April to 122.49 lakh vials per month in June 2021, and as on date, there is no shortage of the antiviral drug in any state or union territory, the Rajya Sabha was told on Tuesday. Shortages of Remdesivir injections in the market were noticed in April and May 2021 due to a sudden surge in the demand for the drug for managing COVID-19 patients, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a written reply. In order to substantially augment the production of Remdesivir, the Drugs Controller General of India granted expeditious approval to 40 new manufacturing sites of licensed manufacturers of the drug, he said. “This led to an increase in the number of Remdesivir manufacturing sites from 22 in mid-April 2021 to 62 at present. The domestic production capacity of Remdesivir increased from 38.8 lakh vials per month in mid-April to 122.49 lakh vials per month in June 2021,” the minister said. Further, in order to supplement the availability of Remdesivir manufactured in the country, the export of Remdesivir injection and Remdesivir API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) was prohibited from April 11, 2021. (PTI)

Pakistan hit a target on Tuesday to vaccinate one million people a day against COVID-19, making strides in its inoculation campaign just weeks away from a deadline for workers in public-facing roles to obtain vaccination certificates. The government announced last week that from the end of this month that workers in schools, shopping malls and hospitality businesses, and the transport and air travel industries would be barred from entering public offices unless they had a certificate. “Happy to report that the target we had set for 1 million vaccinations in a day was crossed,” Asad Umar, the minister in-charge for COVID-19 operations, said in a tweet. Pakistan has seen soaring coronavirus infections, fuelled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, putting its poor health infrastructure under extreme pressure. Out of a population of 220 million, more than 31 million have received one vaccine shot, but only 6.7 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), a military run body that oversees the COVID-19 operations. (Reuters)

The monthly production capacity of Covishield is projected to be increased to more than 120 million doses and of Covaxin to around 58 million doses by December, the government told Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, citing information from the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya was responding to a question on the current capacity to manufacture Covaxin and Covishield in the country, and the expected capacity going forward from  August to December 2021. “As communicated by the manufacturers, the monthly vaccine production capacity of Covishield is projected to be increased from 110 million doses per month to more than 120 million doses per month and the production capacity of Covaxin is projected to be increased from 25 million doses per month to around 58 million doses per month,” the minister said in a written reply. Further, the Department of Biotechnology under the Ministry of Science and Technology has launched ‘Mission COVID Suraksha- the Indian COVID-19 Vaccine Development Mission’. The Mission is being implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a public sector undertaking (PSU) of the Department of Biotechnology, the reply stated. (PTI)

Odisha on Tuesday registered 1,129 new COVID-19 cases, which took the tally to 9,80,866, while 69 fresh fatalities pushed the toll to 6,120, a health department official said. The coastal state currently has 14,325 active cases. As many as 9,60,386 patients, including 1,785 on Monday, have recovered from the viral disease, the official said. Of the 1,129 new cases, 657 were reported from quarantine centres and rest detected during contact tracing, he said. Khurda district, which encompasses state capital Bhubaneswar, reported the maximum number of new cases at 388, followed by Cuttack at 135.  All 28 other districts recorded less than 100 infections each. (PTI)

With the government’s handling of COVID-19 being a major public issue, BJP MPs on Tuesday were given a detailed note on the government’s response to the pandemic and the ongoing vaccination drive in an attempt by the party to arm its lawmakers with information to take on the critics. The booklets, prepared by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry, claim all efforts to counter the disease cannot be attributed to just the Union or state governments but to “Team India” which acted with a “whole of government and whole of society” approach in a preemptive, proactive and graded manner. Opposition parties have been attacking the Narendra Modi dispensation and the BJP governments in poll-bound states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa for their handling of the pandemic. They have also accused the central government of not doing enough to vaccinate people at a fast pace. The ministry’s note argues that India has delivered the highest vaccine doses compared to other countries for which “transparent” data is available in the public domain. China has claimed to have given 160 crore doses, it added. India has by July-end administered over 45 crore doses compared to 34.3 crore in the US and 13.7 crore in Brazil and 8.4 crore in the UK, it said. India took 166 days to reach the mark of 34 crore vaccine doses against 221 days by the US, the note stated. (PTI)

Stepping up preparation for a possible third wave, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday approved a policy for providing incentives to the private sector to set up oxygen production plants and storage facilities to help improve the availability of the life-saving gas in the capital. “Approved Medical Oxy Prodn Promotion Policy. It provides several incentives to pvt sector to set up oxy prodn plants, invest in Oxy tankers n set up oxy storage facilities. This will help improving oxy availability in Del which became a huge bottleneck in handling last Covid wave (sic),” Kejriwal tweeted. Delhi battled an acute shortage of oxygen in April and May as hospitals in the capital sent out SOS calls to authorities to replenish their dwindling stocks. Several private healthcare facilities even requested the government to move out their patients. (PTI)