Here are the updates from Tuesday:

  1. The Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued guidelines for the reopening of schools from August 17, reported The Indian Express. The guidelines said that all teachers need to be vaccinated before the schools reopen. It also said that physical attendance should not be compulsory and the schools need to take permission of parents before asking their children to attend classes physcially.
  2. India on Tuesday registered 28,204 cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the tally of infections to 3,19,98,158 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. This was the lowest rise in daily cases in 147 days, or five months, the Centre said. The toll on Tuesday rose to 4,28,682 with the country reporting 373 deaths in the past 24 hours.
  3. The reproduction rate, or R value, of Covid-19 in India has crossed the 1.0 mark, the Union government said. The increasing trend of the reproduction, commonly known as “R value or number” in some states was a cause of concern, the government added. The R value measures how many people are being infected by one Covid-positive person on an average.
  4. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the Aam Aadmi Party government has not received any letter from the Centre asking it to share details on the deaths due to oxygen shortage in the national Capital during the second wave of the coronavirus. Sisodia, however, said that the Delhi government will share the details with the Centre even if it has not asked about it.
  5. Niti Aayog (health) member Dr VK Paul said that the government was closely watching if India’s coronavirus immunisation drive needs a booster vaccine dose, reported the Hindustan Times. Paul said the matter was discussed at a meeting of the national expert group on Covid-19.
  6. The Delhi health department received the financial approval for the construction of seven makeshift hospitals to deal with a possible increase in coronavirus cases in the national Capital, reported PTI. The construction will be completed in the next six months.
  7. Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, said that it will issue monthly pass and conduct offline verification procedures from August at suburban railway stations for allowing citizens to travel in local trains, reported ANI. 
  8. The Union health ministry said new finding show that Delta variant of the coronavirus increases hospitalisation, reported the Hindustan Times. It added that in the last four months, 86 Delta Plus cases were detected, which shows that the variant does not have more impact than the Delta variant.
  9. China has punished over 40 local officials for failing to control the outbreak of Delta variant of the coronavirus as authorities try to control the resurgence of the infection, reported CNN. On Tuesday, the country recorded its highest single-day rise in local infections with over 180 new cases. In addition, there were 35 imported and 38 asymptomatic infections.
  10. Globally, Covid-19 has infected more than 20.33 crore people and caused over 43 lakh deaths since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.