Coronavirus LATEST Updates: After nearly five months of restricted functioning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court has decided to start physical hearing of cases within a week's time, though in a limited manner.
The US on Wednesday handed over to India 100 ventilators, as part of President Donald Trump's offer of assistance to New Delhi in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that around two crore people lost their jobs in the last four months amid the coronavirus pandemic
India on Wednesday reported a spike of 64,531 cases and 1,092 deaths reported in India, in the last 24 hours. The COVID19 tally in the country now rises to 27,67,274
Pune has reported more number of cases due to a large number of tests being conducted in Pune, which is more than Mumbai. Also, more number of people are being discharged after recovery, said Pune Mayor
The number of jobs lost in July paled in comparison with April, when 1.77 crore salaried individuals fell out of work. However, the job loss in July was higher than the 10 lakh jobs lost in May.
The daily new cases of COVID-19 and deaths due to the disease have shown a downward trend from 13 August, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday, but warned against any laxity, emphasising that five days was a short period in the context of a pandemic.
Addressing a press briefing, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that in spite of a sustained level of 7-8 lakh coronavirus tests a day, the positivity rate has come down from 10.03 percent to 7.72 percent. The case fatality rate has also come down to below two percent, he added.
India's total coronavirus cases on Tuesday crossed 27 lakh with 55,079 and 876 deaths reported in 24 hours. However, the country also reported its highest daily recoveries with 57,937 recuperating from the disease. With this, India has 6,73,166 active cases — which is less than 25 percent of the total cases reported so far in the country, the ministry said.
In Uttar Pradesh, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Atul Garg and two lawmakers tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection, as the state reported its highest spike of 77 COVID-19 fatalities. Andhra Pradesh became the third state in the country to report over three lakh cases.
Active cases account for only 25% of India's total cases, says health ministry
Addressing a press briefing, the health secretary said that India witnessed a declining trend in deaths and new cases over the past five days but warned against slackening the guard against the pandemic.
"The daily new cases from 13 August are down from over 64,000 to 55,079 now. There is a declining trend. But five days are a short span in the context of a pandemic and there is no room for laxity on containment, testing and surveillance," said Bhushan.
"Absolute deaths have also declined during the same period. These two parameters do give us some satisfaction but there is no reason for us to slacken our guard," he said.
He further said the number of recovered patients has reached close to 20 lakhs, which is 2.93 times the active COVID-19 cases.
The average daily recovered cases are now more than 55,000 and active cases are just 25 percent of the total COVID cases which means just 25 percent of the cases are either in hospital or home isolation, he said.
"The daily case fatality rate has reduced to 1.92 percent and the weekly average fatality rate is 1.94 percent. Both are below two percent," he said. "In its interaction with state and UT governments, the health ministry has repeatedly underlined the fact that our aim should be to bring down the case fatality rate to one percent or below that," Bhushan said
India on Tuesday reported 55,079 new cases taking the countrywide case count to 27,02,742, just a day after it crossed the 26-lakh mark, while the toll mounted to 51,979 with 876 people succumbing to the disease in a span of 24 hours.
As many as 19.77 lakh people have so far recuperated from the disease during the same period pushing the recovery rate to 73.18 percent, the Union Health Ministry said in its morning update.
The health secretary attributed the high number of recoveries and low fatality rate to the high number of tests (both RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests) being conducted daily.
"All these results are because we are conducting a very high number of tests every day using both RT-PCR and rapid antigen tests. Both the tests have a role to play. Through a high number of testing we are able to identify the cases fast... When cases are identified early they can be taken to hospitals early. Because of all that the recovery rate is also rising," he said.
Bhushan said more than three crore tests have been conducted and for the first time, nearly nine lakh tests were conducted in the last 24 hours which is a new peak.
"If we look at the week-wise trend of testing of COVID-19, we will find that in the first week of July ( 1 to 7 July) nearly 2,30,751 tests were conducted and now that number has increased to 8,08,488 (12 to 18 August) and in the last 24 hours, we conducted a record number of tests at 8,99,864," he said.
Andhra Pradesh's cases cross three lakh
Meanwhile, several states and Union Territories added fresh cases and deaths to their tallies.
Andhra Pradesh reported 9,652 new cases and 88 deaths, taking the overall case count to 3,06, 261 and toll to 2,820. After Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, it is the third state in the country to cross the three lakh in the overall number of coronavirus cases.
It took 160 days for the state to go from one to three lakh (cases) after the first person tested positive for the contagion on 12 March but the last one lakh came at quicker pace in just 11 days. The state reached the 10,000 cases mark on 24 June, 50,000 on 20 July, one lakh on 27 July, 1.50 lakh on 1 August, two lakh on 7 August and 2.50 lakh mark on 12 August.
However, the number of active cases is only 85,130 with 2,18,311 patients having recovered so far, according to the latest government bulletin.
Maharashtra reported 11,119 new coronavirus patients which pushed the state's case count to 6,15,477. With 422 COVID-19 patients succumbing, the toll reached 20,687. A total of 9,356 patients were discharged from hospitals, taking the number of recovered patients to 4,37,870 and active cases to 1,56,608.
Delhi recorded 1,374 fresh COVID-19 cases pushing the city's total caseload to 1,54,741, while the toll rose to 4,226 with 12 fatalities.
Uttar Pradesh sees record deaths; health minister tests positive
Uttar Pradesh recorded its worst daily fatality count with 77 more people succumbing to coronavirus, taking the toll to 2,585 .The number of COVID-19 cases reached 1,62,434 with 4,336 fresh cases in the past 24 hours.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said the number of those who have been discharged from hospitals after recovery has reached 1,09,607. The state has 50,242 active cases, he said.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Health Atul Garg tweeted that he tested positive for COVID-19. Garg (63), an MLA from Ghaziabad, requested all those who came in his contact recently to get themselves tested for the disease.
"On August 15, an RT-PCR test was done and I had tested negative. Yesterday, in the rapid test conducted around 9 pm, I tested positive. People who came in contact with me from August 16 to 18 should get themselves tested," he said in a tweet.
Garg was admitted to the private Yashoda Superspeciality Hospital, Kaushambi, Ghaziabad, where doctors stated his condition is stable.
"The minister was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday. According to preliminary investigations done at the hospital, his condition is stable now. He is under observation and a team of doctors attending to him as he is a known diabetic and hypertensive," a hospital official told news agency PTI.
BJP MP of Sant Kabirnagar Pravin Nishad tested coronavirus positive on Monday and has gone into home quarantine at his residence in Delhi. A Shahjahanpur report said the BJP MLA from Dadraul, Manvendra Singh, tested positive in a rapid antigen test conducted on him and he will be going in for a RT-PCR test soon.
In Himachal Pradesh, 12 security personnel and a driver of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur were among the 56 new cases detected on Tuesday. They were in institutional quarantine after a security guard and a driver of Thakur had contracted the infection a few days ago.
With this, the state's COVID-19 tally has reached 4,231, while the toll is 18.
Amit Shah admitted to AIIMS Delhi for post-COVID care
In a separate development, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had on Friday recovered from the coronavirus infection, was admitted to AIIMS Delhi for post-COVID care. According to a statement issued by AIIMS, he is comfortable and is continuing his work from hospital.
"Home Minister Amit Shah has been complaining of fatigue and body aches for the last 3-4 days. He has tested negative for COVID-19.He has been admitted to AIIMS for post COVID care. He is comfortable and is continuing his work from hospital," the statement said.
ILO-ADB report says 41 lakh Indian youth lost jobs
A joint report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) showed that41 lakh youth in the country lost jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with construction and farm sector workers being the worst-affected.
"For India, the report estimates job loss for 4.1 million youth. Construction and agriculture have witnessed the major job losses among seven key sectors," said the ILO-ADB report, titled 'Tackling the COVID-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific', released on Tuesday.
The young people's employment prospects in Asia and the Pacific are severely challenged due to the pandemic, it added. Youth (15-24 years) will be hit harder than adults (25 and older) in the immediate crisis and risk incurring higher longer-term economic and social costs, said the report.
It said that in India, two-thirds of firm-level apprenticeships and three-quarters of internships were completely interrupted during the pandemic.
The report is based on regional assessment of the 'Global Survey on Youth and COVID-19' and arrived at estimates based on available unemployment data in different countries.
The report calls on governments in the region to adopt urgent, large-scale and targeted measures to generate employment for the youth, keep education and training on track in order to minimise future scarring of more than 660 million young people in the region.
With inputs from PTI
