1. India’s coronavirus tally reached 54,00,619 on Sunday, after the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported a rise of 92,605 cases in 24 hours. The toll rose by 1,133 to 86,752. India now has 10,10,824 active cases. More than 43 lakh people have recovered from the virus in India. The country’s mortality rate is 1.61%.
  2. Schools in Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Nagaland and Madhya Pradesh will partially reopen from Monday after more than five months of a lockdown enforced to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The Centre had last week allowed the partial reopening of schools on a voluntary basis for Classes 9 to 12 from September 21 and issued the Standard Operating Procedure. However, online and distance learning would continue to be permitted as well as encouraged.
  3. Hong Kong has banned till October 3 Air India from flying to the city after its flight on September 18 carried six people who later tested positive for the infection. The financial hub has also banned Cathay Dragon’s Kuala Lumpur service for the same period after it carried five passengers who were positive.
  4. The Lok Sabha discussed the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said India had the worst of both worlds. “We have neither managed to limit the spread of the virus nor have we managed to keep the economy afloat,” Tharoor said. “GDP for the first time in 41 years will actually shrink.”
  5. Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant said in Parliament that there were more people on the streets of Mumbai after the coronavirus lockdown was announced than those who would have come out after the Partition of India. “But the government didn’t start trains. People were mowed down by trains on railway tracks. Somewhere we made mistakes,” he said.
  6. Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said there has been no significant or drastic mutation in strains of the Covid-19 virus in India till now. “The ICMR has been conducting large-scale sequencing of nationally representative strains of SARS-CoV-2 virus collected over the past several months over different time-points and detailed results on mutations and evolution of the virus will be available in early October,” Vardhan said.
  7. Maharashtra reported 20,598 Covid-19 cases and 455 deaths on Sunday. This takes the total cases in the state to 12,08,642. This includes 8,84,341 discharges, 32,671 deaths and 2,91,238 active cases.
  8. Delhi, meanwhile, reports 3,812 cases and 37 deaths in 24 hours. The total cases in the national Capital rose to 2,46,711. This includes 4,982 deaths and 2,09,632 recoveries.
  9. Authorities in China’s Jilin province have found the coronavirus on packaging of imported squid. Officials have urged people who may have bought the product to get themselves tested.
  10. Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 3.08 crore people and killed 9,57,938, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of worldwide recoveries is more than 2.1 crore.