Coronavirus: Maharashtra reports highest one-day rise of 11,514 cases; AP’s tally nears 2 lakh

10.54 pm: Read Thursday’s top updates.

10.45 pm: Manipur extends complete lockdown in the state till August 15, reports PTI, citing an official order.

10.30 pm: Around 9.5 lakh Indians have been evacuated from abroad under the Centre’s Vande Bharat Mission, says Ministry of External Affairs, according to PTI.

10.25 pm: Assam records 2,372 cases out of 55,671 tests conducted in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases stands at 52,817, of which 35,892 people have recovered, and 16,796 are being treated. The toll stands at 126, reports ANI, citing state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

9.56 pm: Haryana records 755 new coronavirus cases and three deaths on Thursday, reports ANI. The state’s tally rises to 39,303 and the toll reaches 458.

9.53 pm: Goa records 191 new cases and two deaths on Thursday. The state’s tally rises to 7,614 and the toll reaches 66.

9.51 pm: Himachal Pradesh Power Minister Sukhram Chaudhary tests positive for Covid-19, ANI reports.

9.31 pm: West Bengal’s coronavirus case count rises to 86,754 after 2,954 new infections, reports PTI. The toll climbs to 1,902 with 56 more deaths.

9.29 pm: Mumbai’s coronavirus tally goes up to 1,20,165, with 910 more cases, reports PTI, citing the civic body. The toll rises by 57 to 6,645.

8.34 pm: Andhra Pradesh reports 10,328 new cases, taking the state’s case count to 1.96 lakh, reports PTI. The toll rises by 72 to 1,753. There are 82,166 active cases, and 1.12 lakh people have recovered so far.

8.33 pm: Karnataka registers 6,805 new Covid-19 cases, taking the state’s case count to 1,58,524, including 5,068 active cases, 80,281 discharged, and 2,897 deaths, reports ANI.

8.26 pm: Maharashtra registers 11,514 coronavirus cases and 316 deaths on Thursday, reports ANI. The total number of cases in the state rises to 4,79,779, including 1,46,305 active cases, 3,16,375 recoveries and 16,792 deaths.

7.44 pm: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, who was admitted to Manipal Hospitals on August 2, is in a clinically stable condition and is responding well to treatment, reports ANI, citing a doctor’s statement.

7.37 pm: Tamil Nadu registers 5,684 new coronavirus cases, 110 deaths and 6,272 recoveries on Thursday, reports ANI, citing a health department bulletin. The state’s Covid-19 tally rises to 2,79,144, including 4,571 deaths, 53,846 active cases and 2,21,087 recoveries.

6.50 pm: Vietnam’s health ministry says it is about to complete the conversion of a sports stadium into a 1,000-bed hospital in its new coronavirus epicentre Danang, Reuters reports.

6.44 pm: Jammu and Kashmir’s tally rises to 23,454 with 499 new cases on Thursday. The toll reaches 436 with 10 more deaths.

6.39 pm: Kerala records 1,298 new coronavirus cases and three deaths on Thursday, ANI reports, quoting Health Minister KK Shailaja. The state’s tally rises to 11,983 and the toll reaches 97.

6.32 pm: Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan says the United States must adopt a targeted approach with its new coronaivirus aid plan so it can save ammunition in case of a second wave of infection or another economic slowdown, Reuters reports. “We should provide the relief that is needed, but not act as if we have infinite fiscal space,” Rajan says.

6.29 pm: A flight carrying 179 Indian citizens from the United Arab Emirates lands at the Chandigarh International Airport.

6.23 pm: Mumbai’s Dharavi slum records eight new cases on Thursday, ANI reports. The areas tally rises to 2,597. Only 82 cases are active.

6.21 pm: Delhi records 1,299 coronavirus cases and 15 deaths on Thursday. The Capital’s overall count rises to 1,41,531 and the toll reaches 4,059.

5.05 pm: The Union health ministry says India’s coronavirus recovery rate has now risen to 67.62% while the death rate has fallen to 2.07 %.

4.57 pm: Meghalaya records 44 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking its overall count to 983, PTI reports. Of the new cases, 14 are among the Border Security Force personnel.

4.54 pm: Uttar Pradesh records its highest single-day rise of 4,586 coronavirus cases on Thursday, PTI reports. The state’s tally crosses 1.08 lakh. UP reports 61 more deaths.

4.48 pm: Over 200 Indian nationals leave for home on a special plane from China’s Guangzhou city.

3.56 pm: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath asks officials on Thursday to take Covid-19 as a challenge and intensify the fight against it, PTI reports. He also directs them to improve the health facilities in Kanpur, Varanasi, Jhansi, Gorakhpur and Prayagraj and send a team of experts from the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences and the King George’s Medical University in Lucknow to Kanpur for guidance.

3.50 pm: Two police officers in Nagpur, Maharashtra die of Covid-19 on Thursday, becoming the first fatalities of the infection in the city, PTI reports. As of Wednesday, Nagpur recorded 6,752 Covid-19 cases, while the toll stood at 204.

3.46 pm: Karnataka-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd says it has donated two ambulances to a hospital in Bengaluru to help in efforts to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, PTI reports. The ambulances were given to Bowring & Lady Curzon Medical College & Research Institute also as part of the corporate social responsibility of the company, it says.

3.44 pm: Senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Shyamal Chakraborty died of Covid-19 at a hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, PTI reports, quoting party officials. He was 76.

3.41 pm: As many as 157 people tested positive for coronavirus in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore district in 24 hours on Thursday, PTI reports. With this, the city’s total tally of infections rose to 8,014.

3.37 pm: Telangana’s tally of coronavirus cases rises to 73,050, after 2,092 new infections were reported on Wednesday, ANI reports. With 13 more deaths, the toll rises to 589.

3.35 pm: Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who tested positive for Covid-19, has been clinically stable since his admission to Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru, ANI reports, quoting a statement from the hospital.

3.33 pm: Himachal Pradesh’s tally of coronavirus infections rises to 2,928 on Thursday, ANI reports. The toll stands at 12.

1.49 pm: The Delhi High Court has declined to entertain an “inchoate” plea alleging that private hospitals being run by charitable trusts on concessional land given by the government are overcharging coronavirus patients, PTI reports. A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh grants the petitioner the right to move the court with a fresh plea including all details.

1.44 pm: The Delhi High Court has directed the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi to take action against online health service aggregators who are operating illegally, taking samples for coronavirus testing, PTI reports. The bench was hearing a plea seeking a ban on allegedly illegal online health service aggregators from collecting diagnostic samples. The petition by a doctor had contended that such entities were “misrepresenting themselves as medical diagnostic laboratories”.

1.17 pm: Indian drugmaker Novavax on Wednesday said it has entered a supply and license agreement with the Serum Institute of India for the development and commercialisation of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, Reuters reports. The Indian drugmaker will have exclusive rights for the vaccine in India during the term of the deal and non-exclusive rights during the “Pandemic Period” in all countries other than those designated by the World Bank as upper-middle or high-income countries.

12.57 pm: Puducherry records 195 new coronavirus cases and five deaths on Thursday, PTI reports, quoting a health department official. The total tally of infections in the Union Territory is now 6,621 and the toll is 70.

12.50 pm: Rajasthan registers 539 new coronavirus cases and eight deaths on Thursday, PTI reports. With this, the tally of infections in the state rises to 48,384 and the toll stands at 753.

12.47 pm: Odisha’s tally of coronavirus cases crosses the 40,000-mark on Thursday, after the state records its biggest jump in infections with 1,699 cases, PTI reports. Ten more fatalities push the toll to 235.

12.44 pm: Jharkhand registers 1,060 coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the total tally of infections in the state to 15,130, ANI reports, quoting the state health department.

12.41 pm: “Taking into consideration all factors, the Gross Domestic Product growth in the first half of the year is estimated to remain in the contraction zone,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das says. “For the [financial] year 2020-’21 as a whole, real GDP growth is also estimated to be negative.”

12.38 pm: “RBI is perhaps the only central bank in the world which has set up a special quarantine facility for continuity of critical operations,” Das says.

12.36 pm: “With Covid-19 infections rising under fragile micro-economic and financial conditions, we propose to take regulatory and developmental measures, Das says, according to ANI. These are: enhancing liquidity support for financial markets, easing financial stress caused by Covid-19 while strengthening credit discipline, improve the flow of credit, deepen digital payment systems, and facilitate innovations by leveraging technology.

12.33 pm: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das says the accommodative stance of the monetary policy will continue as long as necessary to revive growth and mitigate the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, while ensuring that inflation remains within target going forward, the Hindustan Times reports.

12.32 pm: The Reserve Bank of India Monetary Policy Committee keeps both the repo rate and the reverse repo rate unchanged. The repo rate stayed at 4% and the reverse repo rate at 3.3%.

It was widely expected that the RBI would either cut the key rates or keep them steady, due to rising inflation and grim projections of economic growth rate, to due the lockdown announced to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Also read:

RBI Monetary Policy Committee keeps interest rates unchanged

11.46 am: US biotechnology company’s vaccine candidate Moderna protected mice from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, PTI reports.

The findings by scientists, including those from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US, show that the vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, induced neutralising antibodies in mice when given as two intramuscular injections of a 1-microgramme dose three weeks apart.

11.43 am: Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison says unemployment in his country will peak at about 10% as a result of restrictions designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.

11.39 am: Microsoft founder Bill Gates says the first vaccine for the coronavirus “might not be the best one,” The Indian Express reports, quoting Bloomberg. “The initial vaccine, in terms of its effectiveness against sickness and transmission, won’t be ideal and may not have a long duration,” Gates says. He adds that he thought the first vaccines might only be a “stop-gap” offer available primarily to the rich countries.

11.38 am: Union health minister Harsh Vardhan addresses a virtual meeting of the regional directors of World Health Organization South-East Asia. “Within 10-20 days, with the help of Defence Research and Development Organisation, we were able to create from 1,000 to 10,000 beds for Covid-19 patients,” he says. “We are also ensuring mental well being of populace amid pandemic.”

10.01 am: Mizoram’s tally rises to 537 with 33 fresh cases, reports PTI.

9.38 am: San Diego County plans to set up a Covid-19 testing site at one of the world’s busiest pedestrian international border crossings, reports AP. People will be tested for Covid-19 without appointment.

9.31 am: India registers 56,282 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the total number of infections to 19,64,536. The toll rises by 904 to 40,699. This is highest single-day rise in toll.

8.53 am: As many as 6,64,949 samples were tested on Wednesday, says the Indian Council of Medical Research.

8.08 am: Eight patients in the ICU ward of Shrey Hospital in Navrangpura area of Ahmedabad die after fire breaks out, reports PTI. Around 40 Covid-19 patients have been rescued and shifted to a civic hospital.

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Ahmedabad: Eight coronavirus patients die after fire breaks out at ICU of a hospital

8.02 am: Assam’s tally crosses the 50,000-mark with 2,284 new infections, says Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Six additional deaths take the state’s toll to 121.

7.48 am: In an interview to Reuters, top US health expert Anthony Fauci says he expects tens of millions of vaccine doses by the beginning of 2021.

7.37 am: Face masks are now compulsory in certain areas of Amsterdam and the port of Rotterdam, reports AFP. “We’re starting this experiment because we’re worried about the increasing number of coronavirus infections,” says the Amsterdam city council. “Face masks are compulsory in crowded and busy areas and where other measures didn’t work or have adverse economic effects.” The country has so far registered over 55,000 cases and 6,150 deaths.

7.35 am: Donald Trump campaign has been blocked from tweeting over misinformation on Covid-19, reports AFP. Meanwhile, Facebook deletes a video posted by the US president in which he said children are “almost immune” to Covid-19. The social media network calls it “harmful COVID misinformation”.

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Coronavirus: Facebook, Twitter take action against Donald Trump’s accounts for misinformation

7.33 am: The United States registers 1,262 more deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. With this, the country’s toll is now 1,57,930 while its tally rises to 48,18,328.

7.24 am: Zydus Cadila says it will start the second phase of clinical trials of its vaccine candidate from Thursday, reports Hindustan Times. “The company will now commence Phase II clinical trials from the 6th of August, 2020…the doses of the vaccine administered to healthy volunteers in the Phase I clinical trial, which began on 15th July 2020, has been well tolerated,” reads its statement.

7.20 am: Here are the top updates from Wednesday

• India crossed the 19-lakh mark on Wednesday morning with 52,509 new coronavirus cases. The country’s total number of infections are now 19,08,254, while the toll rose by 857 to 39,795. As many as 12,82,215 people have recovered.
• India registered a record 51,706 coronavirus recoveries. The country’s recovery rate stood at 67.19%, according to the Union health ministry. India’s fatality rate is now 2.09%.
• Delhi’s overall count of cases crossed 1.40 lakh after 1,076 new infections were reported. Eleven more deaths pushed the Capital’s toll to 4,044. Tamil Nadu recorded 5,175 new cases and 112 deaths, taking the state’s overall count to 2.73 lakh and the toll to 4,461. Maharashtra registered 10,309 new cases and 334 deaths. The state’s tally rose to 4,68,265 and the toll reaches 16,476.
• Veteran playback singer SP Balasubrahmanyam tested positive for the coronavirus and was admitted to a hospital in Chennai. The singer said he was “perfectly fine” and claimed that he would be discharged from the hospital in two days.
• Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was discharged from Bhopal’s Chirayu Hospital after recovering from Covid-19. He has been advised to isolate himself at home and monitor his health for seven more days.
• The Gujarat High Court has asked the state government and the administration of Surat to explain why the coronavirus situation in the city has “gone from bad to worse”. The court said they were informed that the authorities’ delayed response was responsible for the crisis.
• Uttar Pradesh Cabinet minister Brajesh Pathak tested positive for Covid-19. In a tweet in Hindi, Pathak said he got tested after he showed symptoms for Covid-19. He also appealed to people who came in contact with him to quarantine themselves.
• The global toll crossed the 7-lakh mark, according to the Johns Hopkins University. As many as 7,02,045 people have died across the world so far, while the global coronavirus count crossed 1.86 crore. As many as 1.11 crore people have recovered.