The Odisha government on Thursday ordered a complete 14-day lockdown in Ganjam, Khordha, Cuttack, Jajpur and Rourkela districts from 9 pm on July 17.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the Centre is aiming to start 55 to 60% of India’s pre-pandemic domestic flights by Diwali in November.
India reported 32,695 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the total to 9,68,876. The toll rose by 606 to 24,915. This is the highest daily rise in the number of infections as well as deaths. More than 6.12 lakh people have recovered.
The United States posted new daily record of 67,632 new cases in 24 hours. The global coronavirus count is now over 1.35 crore, while the toll has crossed 5.83 lakh, according to the Johns Hopkins University. More than 75 lakh people have recovered so far.
The national helpline number for the coronavirus is 011-23978046, and a toll-free number 1075.
These are the helpline numbers for states and the Union Territories.
10.08 pm: New cases reported today:
Uttarakhand: 199 new cases, total rises to 3,982; toll now 50,
Goa: 157 new cases, total rises to 3,108; toll stands at 19,
Rajasthan: 737 new cases, total rises to 27,174; toll now 538.
9.20 pm: Gujarat reports 919 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, PTI reports, quoting the state government. Gujarat’s tally rises to 45,567. The toll reached 2,091 with 10 more deaths.
9.18 pm: National carrier Air India has proposed a 60% salary cut for pilots amid the coronavirus crisis, PTI reports, quoting two pilot unions.
9.14 pm: Delhi government approves a proposal to set up 200 beds at the Ambedkar Nagar Hospital.
9.03 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwl holds a meeting with all Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs to discuss the coronavirus crisis.
9.01 pm: The district administration in North Goa bans the movement of people for all non-essential activities between 8 pm to 6 am with immediate effect till August 10.
8.58 pm: The Odisha government orders a complete 14-day lockdown in Ganjam, Khordha, Cuttack, Jajpur districts and Rourkela Municipal Corporation area from 9 pm on July 17, ANI reports, quoting Odisha Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy.
8.06 pm: Mumbai reports 1,498 new cases and 56 deaths on Thursday. The city’s tally rises to 97,751 and the toll reaches 5,520.
8.01 pm: Maharashtra reports 8,641 new coronavirus cases and 266 deaths in the last 24 hours. The state’s tally rises to 2,84,841 and the toll reaches 11,194.
7.13 pm: Delhi records 1,652 new coronavirus cases and 58 deaths on Thursday. The Capital’s tally rises to 1,18,645 and the toll reaches 3,545.
6.52 pm: Uttar Pradesh records 2,083 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, ANI reports, quoting the state’s health department. The state now has 15,720 active cases.
6.46 pm: The Arunachal Pradesh government will launch an extensive sero survey in the capital complex in Itanagar for the primary and secondary contacts of coronavirus patients, PTI reports.
6.36 pm: Tamil Nadu reports 4,549 new coronavirus cases and 63 deaths on Thursday. The state’s tally rises to 1,56,369 and the toll reaches 2,236.
6.27 pm: The United States bans imports of products made by Malaysia-based glove maker Top Glove Corporation over allegations that the company is using forced labour, Reuters reports.
6.19 pm: Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio says he will go into quarantine after a trip to Delhi.
4.58 pm: Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma says the state government will create a database of recovered coronavirus patients and encourage them to donate their plasma, ANI reports.
4.50 pm: Non-NABH accredited hospitals can charge up to Rs 8,000 per day for moderate cases.
4.36 pm: The Punjab government caps coronavirus treatment costs. For patients with mild symptoms who need isolation beds and oxygen, rates per day of admission are fixed at Rs 10,000 for all private medical colleges and Rs 9,000 for National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) certified hospitals, ANI reports.
4.34 pm: Russia says it plans to produce 30 million [3 crore] doses of an experimental coronavirus vaccine domestically this year, with the potential to manufacture a further 170 million [17 crore] abroad, Reuters reports.
4.31 pm: Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm begins phase three clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine in Abu Dhabi with up to 15,000 volunteers, Reuters reports. The human trial is a partnership between Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group, Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence and cloud computing company Group 42 and the Abu Dhabi Department of Health.
4.29 pm: More than 650 Kolkata Police personnel have tested positive for the coronavirus so far, PTI reports.
4.12 pm: The civil aviation minister says it is likely that India will be back to operating 55 to 60% of its pre-coronavirus domestic flights by Diwali in November.
4.09 pm: Puri adds that India is also is talks with Germany’s Lufthansa Airlines to start flights.
4.06 pm: Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri says Air France will operate 28 flights from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to Paris between July 18 and August 1.
3.44 pm: Andhra Pradesh reports 2,593 new positive cases and 40 deaths. Total number of cases rise to 38,044, including 18,159 active cases, 19,393 discharged cases and 492 deaths
3.37 pm: Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri says that India is in advanced talks with France, United States and Germany for an “air bubble” that would ferry passengers to and fro. “Air France will be operating 28 flights from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to Paris between July 18 to August 1,” he says. US will fly 18 flights between July 17 and August 1.
3.22 pm: A court in Delhi has granted bail to the final set of 92 Indonesians who participated in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz, Live Law reports. The court granted bail on the personal bond of Rs 10,000 each.
3.10 pm: Air India Chairperson and Managing Director Rajiv Bansal says Air India and Air India Express operated 1,103 flights, bringing back 2,08,000 Indians under the Vande Bharat Mission over the last four months, ANI reports. He adds that 85,289 foreigners were ferried to different countries.
3.04 pm: Fourteen priests of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams have tested positive for the coronavirus, ANI reports. Anil Kumar Singhal, the executive officer of the Devasthanams has held a meeting with priests, health and vigilance officers on Thursday.
2.40 pm: A nine-month old boy dies of Covid-19 in Puducherry, PTI reports. Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said the child was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government Women and Child hospital with complaints of diarrhea on Wednesday. Puducherry now has 1,743 cases of the coronavirus, including 22 deaths.
2.27 pm: The office of the Shahjahanpur district collectorate in Uttar Pradesh closes down for two days after an employee tests positive for the coronavirus, PTI reports. District Magistrate Indra Vikram Singh says all necessary precautions are being taken and government orders in this regard are being strictly followed.
2.19 pm: Former Maharashtra chief minister Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar tests positive for coronavirus in the state’s Latur district, PTI reports quoting an unidentified senior official. The 88-year-old leader has been shifted to a hospital in Pune, located around 320 km from Latur.
2.16 pm: The Odisha government begins plasma therapy for the treatment of Covid- 19 patients at a hospital in Cuttack, PTI reports. The procedure was conducted on a 48-year-old patient at the Ashwini Hospital, Jayant Panda, technical advisor to the health department, says.
2.04 pm: Pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila’s move to begin human trials of its indigenously developed vaccine candidate for Covid-19 is an important milestone for the Centre’s “Atmanirbhar Bharat’” push, Department of Biotechnology Secretary Renu Swarup says, according to PTI.
2.02 pm: Swiss Pharmaceutical company Novartis’ Sandoz division says it will not make a profit on 15 generic drugs it is making available to developing countries to treat symptoms of Covid-19, The Indian Express reports. Novartis adds it would provide medicines ranging from antibiotics and steroids to diarrhea pills to 79 countries on the World Bank’s list of low and lower-middle-income nations.
1.20 pm: Himachal Pradesh registers two new cases, taking the total number of infections to 1,343 including nine deaths, ANI reports citing the state health department.
1.19 pm: Former Maharashtra State Election Commissioner Neela Satyanarayan dies of Covid-19 in Mumbai, reports PTI. She was 72 and was the state’s first woman election commissioner.
Also read:
Neela Satyanarayan, Maharashtra’s first woman election commissioner, dies of coronavirus
1.02 pm: Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates expresses confidence that India’s pharmaceutical industry will be able to manufacture coronavirus vaccine not only for the country but also for the entire world. A lot of “very important things have been done” in India and its pharma industry is doing work “to help make the coronavirus vaccine building on other great capacities that they have used for other diseases,” he says in a documentary titled “COVID-19: India’s War Against The Virus”.
Also read:
Coronavirus: Bill Gates says India’s pharma industry can produce vaccines for the whole world
1.01 pm: Tripura’s tally goes up to 2,282 with 98 fresh cases. The state also registers its third fatality after a 38-year-old man died at a hospital here, reports PTI.
12.07 pm: Odisha’s caseload crosses the 15,000-mark with 494 people testing positive, reports PTI. The state’s toll rises to 79 with two more fatalities. Of the 494 new cases, 322 are from quarantine centres, while 172 are contacts of Covid-19 patients.
11.50 am: Arunachal Pradesh’s tally goes up to 491 with 29 new cases, reports PTI.
11.40 am: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan says India’s fatality rate is 2.57% and recovery rate is 63.25%. “Despite being such a largely populated nation, we can perhaps claim to have performed better than any other country,” he adds.
11.37 am: Early-stage human trial data on a vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will be published on July 20, says The Lancet, according to Reuters.
11.34 am: International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound says 2022 Beijing Winter Games may be cancelled, reports Hindustan Times.
11.26 am: International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva says the world economy is not yet “out of the woods”, reported Economic Times. She adds that the $11 trillion in fiscal measures by G20 members and other countries has helped the global economy.
10.55 am: Rajasthan reports 143 new coronavirus cases, taking the state’s tally to 26,580. With four more deaths, the toll stands at 534.
10.28 am: United States’ top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci says the White House effort to discredit him is “bizarre” and calls for an end to the divisiveness over the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying “let’s stop this nonsense”, reports Reuters.
10.25 am: The Centre says recovery rate of coronavirus patients has improved to 63.24%.
9.24 am: India reports 32,695 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the total to 9,68,876. The toll rises by 606 to 24,915. This is the highest daily rise in the number of infections as well as deaths. More than 6.12 lakh people have recovered.
8.53 am: India tested 3,26,826 samples on Wednesday, says the Indian Council of Medical Research.
7.50 am: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he has tested positive for the coronavirus for a second time, reports AP. “I did the test yesterday [Tuesday], and at night the result came back that I am still positive for coronavirus,” Bolsonaro adds. “I hope that in the coming days I will do another test and, God willing, everything will be all right to return soon to activity.”
7.22 am: The United States posts new daily record of 67,632 new cases in 24 hours, shows Johns Hopkins University tally.
7.19 am: As many as 1,088 new infections reported in Assam on Wednesday, says Minister for Health and Family Welfare Himanta Biswa Sarma. This takes the total tally of the state to 19,754 while the toll stands at 48 with two new deaths.
7.17 am: Maharashtra’s Pune district reports 1,510 new cases, according to PTI. With this, the district’s total count goes up to 42,836. The toll in the district reaches 1,176 with 35 fresh fatalities.
7.11 am: Zydus Cadila says its vaccine candidate, ZyCoV-D, has entered the human trials stage. “The Adaptive Phase I/II dose escalation, multi-centric study will assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the vaccine” the company’s statement reads.
Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D is the second indigenous Covid-19 vaccine candidate. Bharat Biotech has already started human trials of its vaccine candidate, Covaxin.
7.10 am: Here are the updates from Wednesday
- India’s coronavirus tally rose to 9,36,181 on Wednesday after the country reported yet another single-day rise in numbers, with 29,429 new infections. The country’s toll rose by 582 to 24,309. More than 5.92 lakh people have recovered so far.
- The Authority for Advance Ruling has said that alcohol-based hand sanitisers will be taxed at 18% Goods and Services rate. The Goa-bench of the AAR added that merely classifying goods as essential commodity will not be the criteria for exempting them from GST.
- Air India employees will no longer be able to work from home after July 20. The national carrier also began the process of sending some under-performing employees on compulsory leave without pay for up to a period of five years, due to the economic crisis it is facing.
- Goa announced a three-day lockdown with stricter restrictions from July 17, in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. There will also be a “Janata Curfew” in the state from 8 pm to 6 am every day from July 17 to August 10, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said.
- West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that jobs will be provided to family members of state government employees who die of the coronavirus. Banerjee added that 12 Bengal government employees have died of the coronavirus so far. The Karnataka government, meanwhile, made it mandatory for private hospitals to put up boards displaying the availability of beds.
- United States biotech firm Moderna said it plans to start the final stage of human trials for its coronavirus vaccine candidate on July 27.The announcement came after the New England Journal of Medicine published results from the first stage of Moderna’s vaccine trial, which showed it was safe and all the first 45 participants developed antibodies to the virus.
- Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” launched a low-cost coronavirus test kit, developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
- The global coronavirus count is now over 1.32 crore, while the toll has crossed 5.77 lakh, according to the Johns Hopkins University. More than 73 lakh people have recovered so far. The director of US’ National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci, warned people that the coronavirus outbreak could be as bad as the 1918 flu pandemic.