Coronavirus: Amarnath Yatra cancelled, but morning and evening prayers to be telecast live

10.55 pm: Here are the top updates of the day

10.49 pm: Regional airline Trujet says it has decided to cut the salaries of its employees by at least 50% to save costs amid a “serious financial crunch”, PTI reports. Those who have gross salaries between Rs 15,001 and Rs 10 lakh per month will see a reduction of 50%, and those who earn more than Rs 10 lakh will see a salary reduction of 60%, the airline said in a letter to employees.

10.46 pm: Passengers arriving at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on international flights must undergo seven days of institutional quarantine, followed by seven days of home quarantine, new guidelines say according to ANI.

10.42 pm: “The board is aware of and respects the sentiments of millions of devotees and to keep the religious sentiments alive, the board shall continue the live telecast/virtual darshan of the morning and evening aarti,” the Amarnath Shrine Board says in a statement. The Amarnath Yatra was cancelled earlier today. “Further, the traditional rituals shall be carried out as per past practice.”

10.37 pm: Pune reports 1,512 new cases and 805 recoveries today, according to the city’s municipal corporation.

10.34 pm: The Nobel Prize banquet, that follows the presentation of the Nobel Prize every year, has been cancelled this time due to the pandemic, Reuters reports. This is the first time the banquet has been cancelled since 1956.

10.20 pm: The Haryana government has decided to designate one central jail and three district jails as special jails to hold new male prisoners under judicial custody, until their coronavirus test reports arrive, says Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s office in a tweet in Hindi.

10 pm: Government authorities in Mumbai are using high-tech “smart helmets” to speed up screenings and identify suspected cases of Covid-19 in slums, AFP reports. The portable thermoscanners enable health workers to record the temperatures of dozens of residents per minute.

9.32 pm: The total number of Covid-19 cases in Himachal Pradesh rises to 1,664, and active cases stand at 560.

8.40 pm: Maharashtra’s coronavirus tally rises to 3,27,031 after 8,369 new cases, reports ANI. The state has reported 246 deaths on Tuesday. The state also has 1,82,217 recoveries and 1,32,236 active cases.

8.39 pm: West Bengal reports 2,261 new coronavirus cases and 35 deaths on Tuesday, according to ANI. The state tally rises to 47,030, including 17,813 active cases, 28,035 recoveries and 1,182 deaths.

8.22 pm: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation says 995 new coronavirus cases, 905 discharges and 62 deaths have been reported in Mumbai on Tuesday. The city’s coronavirus tally rises to 1,03,262, including 23,893 active cases, 73,555 recoveries, and 5,814 deaths.

7.47 pm: The Assam State Human Rights Commission has ordered Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna and Inspector General of Police Deepak Kedia to submit a report on the alleged violation of coronavirus safety guidelines for prisoners in the state, The Indian Express reports. The order comes a week after Leader of the Opposition in Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia lodged a complaint with the human rights body.

7.42 pm: Karnataka records 3,649 new cases and 61 deaths. Total cases in the state stand at 71,069, and the toll has reached 1,464. There are 44,140 active cases.

7.39 pm: Kerala reports 720 new Covid-19 cases and one death, taking the number of infected people in the state to 13,994, according to PTI. Of the new cases, 528 were infected from their contacts, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan says.

7.35 pm: Nepal has announced the end of its nationwide lockdown, which had begun on March 24, ANI reports. But the country’s international border will remain closed till August 17, and international flights will resume on that date.

7.27 pm: The 2020 Indian Premier League, which was postponed, will now be held in the United Arab Emirates, IPL Chairperson Brijesh Patel says according to ANI. “We have applied for the government’s permission,” he says. “We will discuss the further course of action in the IPL General Council.”

7.17 pm: The Amarnath Yatra has been cancelled this year in the wake of the pandemic, the board that runs the shrine in Pahalgam has said, NDTV reports. It was slated to begin today.

7.10 pm: Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin tells a press briefing in Beijing that all foreigners and Chinese should carry the negative COVID-19 test certificate before entering China, PTI reports. “This will help to ensure safe and orderly restoration of international people to people exchanges and economic activities”, Wang says.

6.58 pm: Delhi reports 1,349 new cases and 27 deaths. As many as 1,200 people have recovered in the last 24 hours. Over 20,000 tests have been conducted today.

6.34 pm: Chandigarh reports 14 new cases today, taking the total number to 751, according to ANI

6.06 pm: Hong Kong reports 61 new coronavirus cases and two deaths, according to the South China Morning Post.

5.50 pm: Yediyurappa says that people who came to Karnataka from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu added to the coronavirus tally in his state. “Experts have suggested a 5T strategy – Trace, Track, Test, Treat and Technology,” he adds, according to ANI.

5.44 pm: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa says no lockdown will be imposed in the state from Wednesday, reports ANI. “There’ll be no lockdown from tomorrow, people need to get back to work, economy is also very important. We have to fight Covid-19 while maintaining [a] stable economy. Lockdown is not the solution, now restrictions will be placed only in containment zones.”

4.31 pm: The officer on special duty in the Health Ministry, Rajesh Bhushan, says the Centre’s ultimate aim is to maintain aggressive testing to bring the positivity rate below 5%.

4.29 pm: The officer on special duty in the Health Ministry, Rajesh Bhushan, says India’s mortality rate is among the lowest in the world.

4.26 pm: The Union Health Ministry says the positivity rate is lower in 30 states and Union Territories compared to the average in India. As many as 19 states and Union Territories are conducting more than 140 tests per day per million population, the ministry adds.

4.20 pm: The total cases in Bihar goes up to 28,564 after 431 cases from July 20 and 678 from July 19 are added.

3.19 pm: A phase II clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine candidate,conducted in China, has found that it is safe and induces an immune response, PTI reports, quoting a study published in The Lancet . Scientists, including those from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, say the trial sought to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine candidate. However, the researchers caution that no participants in the current trial were exposed to the novel coronavirus – SARS-CoV-2 – after vaccination.

3.07 pm: Some employees of Air India have succumbed to Covid-19 , the national carrier announces in an official circular, PTI reports. The company also announces a fixed compensation amount for the next of kin. However, it refused to provide details on the number of employees who were infected.

The internal circular dated July 20 notes that “many employees of the company are getting Covid positive and some of the employees have also succumbed to the pandemic”. “To safeguard the interests of the families, it has been decided to make an ad-hoc payment to the family or legal heir of employees, who die during the period of Covid-19,” it adds.

3.00 pm: Scores of Russia’s business and political elite have been given early access to an experimental vaccine against Covid-19, Bloomberg reports, quoting unidentified people familiar with the effort. Top executives at companies including aluminum giant United Co. Rusal, as well as billionaire tycoons and government officials began getting shots developed by the state-run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow as early as April, it says.

2.57 pm: The University of Oxford’s possible Covid-19 vaccine could be rolled out by the end of the year but there is no certainty that will happen, says Sarah Gilbert, the lead developer of the vaccine, according to Reuters.

“The end of the year target for getting vaccine rollout, it’s a possibility but there’s absolutely no certainty about that because we need three things to happen,” Gilbert adds. She says the vaccine is needed to be shown to work in late-stage trials, there needed to be large quantities manufactured and regulators had to agree quickly to license it for emergency use.

2.50 pm: Two students who wrote the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical entrance exam and another parent who accompanied them, test positive for Covid-19 in Thiruvananthapuram, News18 reports. The exam was held on July 16.

2.48 pm: The Ludhiana campus of the Punjab Agricultural University will remain closed till July 24, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, ANI reports.

2.36 pm: Mumbai firm Glenmark Pharmaceuticals defends its pricing of favipiravir, an oral antiviral drug for coronavirus patients, and says that compared to other therapies approved for emergency use in Covid-19, the FabiFlu tablet was “much more economical and an effective treatment option”.

Also read:

Coronavirus: Glenmark defends pricing of its favipiravir drug, calls it ‘effective treatment option’

2.35 pm: Nepal announces it will resume domestic and international flight operations from August 17, over four months after they were suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, PTI reports.

2.33 pm: A group of Republican lawmakers of the United States on Monday introduced a legislation in the Senate to allow Americans to sue China in federal court for its role in causing the coronavirus pandemic, PTI reports. Known as the Civil Justice for Victims of COVID Act, the law gives federal courts authority to hear claims that China has caused or substantially contributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

1.37 pm: Six more people succumb to Covid in Rajasthan, taking the toll to 574, reports PTI. The state’s overall tally rises to 30,741 while 351 fresh cases.

12.46 pm: Thirteen more people test positive in Mizoram, taking the total number of cases in the state to 297, reports PTI.

12.45 pm: Himachal Pradesh’s tally reaches 1,641, says the state health department.

12.40 pm: Puducherry registers 91 new case and one death, reports PTI. With this, the tally in the Union Territory rises to 2,179 and toll is 30. Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar says the morality rate is 1.4%.

12.29 pm: The Bihar have registered a case against 10 people for organising a cultural programme in Nalanda, reports ANI. As of Tuesday, Bihar has 27,455 cases.

12.27 pm: Arunachal Pradesh’s tally rises to 790 with 50 new cases, reports PTI.

12.22 pm: The Centre says that the results of sero-prevalence study show that 23.48% have antibodies, reports ANI. The study also indicated that a large number of infected persons remain asymptomatic.

Also read:

Coronavirus: 23.48% of Delhi’s residents may have been infected, show sero survey results

11.38 am: Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan’s wife and son have tested positive for the coronavirus, reports The Indian Express. His father-in-law and mother-in-law had also tested positive earlier. All four of them are admitted to King’s Institute in Guindy.

11.18 am: Thirteen more people, including 11 Border Security Force personnel, have tested positive for the coronavirus in Mizoram, reports PTI.

11.11 am: Officials have announced a total lockdown in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati city till August 5, reports The Hindu. The entire city has been declared as a containment zone. All retail outlets will be allowed to remain open only till 11 am. However, pharmacies and dairy units can be kept open throughout the day.

11.03 am: Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain says the coronavirus recovery rate in the national Capital is 84%, reports ANI. Delhi recorded 954 fresh coronavirus cases on Monday, taking the tally in the city to over 1.23 lakh.

11 am: Odisha reports 647 new coronavirus cases, taking the state’s total to 18,757, according to ANI.

10.08 am: Forty-one people, including the owner of a cafe, have been arrested for allegedly violating physical distancing guidelines by partying at a cafe in outer Delhi’s Paschim Vihar area, reports PTI.

10.05 am: The Centre has written to all states and Union Territories against using N-95 masks with valved respirators, reports PTI. It has said these masks do not prevent the coronavirus from spreading out and are “detrimental” to the measures adopted for the containment.

Read more here.

9.09 am: India adds 37,148 new cases, taking the its total count to 11,55,191. The toll rises by 587 to 28,084. Total active cases are now more than 4 lakh.

9.01 am: Over 3.3 lakh samples were tested in India on Monday, says the Indian Council of Medical Research.

7.32 am: Donald Trump is likely to resume his daily coronavirus briefings from Tuesday, reports AFP. “I think it’s a great way to get information out to the public,” he tells reporters at the White House. “We’re doing very well in so many different ways.”

7.30 am: The World Health Organization says it is “very concerned” by the fast spreading of coronavirus in Africa, reports AFP.

7.28 am: Brazil’s toll crosses 80,000, AFP reports citing the health ministry.

7.27 am: Colombia’s coronavirus cases cross 2 lakh while toll inches towards 7,000, reports Reuters.

7.24 am: The Delhi Police have arrested 41 people for allegedly violating physical distancing norms by partying at a cafe in Paschim Vihar area, reports PTI.

7.22 am: Assam’s total case count crosses the 25,000-mark with 1,093 fresh cases.

7.20 am: A nurse at Delhi’s Hindu Rao hospital has tested positive again after recovering, reports PTI. However, the municipal authorities claim it ostensibly is the “dead virus” left in her body from the previous infection. “Most probably, it was an old infection, due to which, dead non-viable virus particles still remained in the nasopharyngeal cavity,” say an official.

7.17 am: The Serum Institute of India says it will seeking to get the licence to manufacture the vaccine developed at the Oxford University, reports NDTV. Trials will begin in India as soon as the licence is procured. The vaccine has been found to be both effective and safe in early trials, according to a study in medical journal The Lancet.

Also read

Coronavirus: Oxford vaccine found to be effective, safe in early testing, says report

7.16 am: United States President Donald Trump once again targets Beijing over the “invisible China virus”.

7.08 am: Here are the top updates from Monday

• India reported its biggest single-day jump in coronavirus infections on Monday, adding 40,425 new cases and taking the its total count to 11,18,043. The toll rose by 681 to 27,497. The recovery rate stood at 62.61%. Meanwhile, human trials of Covaxin, the first indigenous vaccine against the coronavirus, began on Monday in Delhi and Goa. Researchers would need at least three months to get the first set of data, he added.  
• A coronavirus vaccine being produced by scientists at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom has been found to be safe, and produced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials in healthy volunteers, Reuters reported on Monday. The vaccine, called AZD1222, did not cause any serious side effects and elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses, medical journal The Lancet said.
• Maharashtra recorded 8,240 new cases on Monday, taking the total number of positive cases in the state to 3,18,695. The toll rose to 12,030. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu reported 4,985 new coronavirus cases in a day. With this, the state’s case count rose to 1,75,678, including 51,348 active cases and 2,551 deaths. Delhi reported 954 new cases and 35 deaths in a day, taking the total number of positive cases in the Capital to 1,23,747, including 1,04,918 recoveries and 3,663 deaths.
• The International Cricket Council confirmed on Monday that the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia 2020 has been postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
• West Bengal on Monday announced a complete lockdown in the state for two days every week, in order to stem the rising number of coronavirus infections. Madhya Pradesh also announced a two-day lockdown each week, but only in districts with a high number of cases. The district administration in Chhattisgarh has announced a seven-day lockdown in Raipur and Birgaon Municipal corporation areas from July 22 due to increasing coronavirus infections.
• AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria dismissed reports of community transmission in India. He claimed that there was only local transmission in some places. So far, officials in Kerala and West Bengal have admitted that there is community transmission in some parts of their states. Those in Delhi, meanwhile, have said that the source of many infections is not known, which could mean that there is either local or community transmission in the Capital.
• Private airline IndiGo on Monday said it will lay off 10% of its workforce in an attempt to cut costs amid poor revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Air India pilot association wrote to the national carrier complaining that the company’s leave without pay scheme was finalised without consulting the pilots. “Such a situation has the potential to flare to an unprecedented magnitude,” it said.
• The global coronavirus count is now over 1.45 crore, and the toll has crossed 6.07 lakh, according to the Johns Hopkins University. More than 81.9 lakh people have recovered so far.