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Coronavirus in India

Lol what is the point of a PM when for every matter the issue is deflected to chief ministers?
 
Lol what is the point of a PM when for every matter the issue is deflected to chief ministers?

Are you familiar with Indian laws that deal with the federal structure? If not then you should not be making ignorant comments.
 
Lol what is the point of a PM when for every matter the issue is deflected to chief ministers?
Event manager and his followers are very adept at him taking all the credit for successes (lol, can't think of any in his disastrous reign) and pass the buck to others in case of failures (which his chequered reign is replete with).

Had this lockdown been even mildly successful, you'd have seen him hogging all the limelight and deliver what he does best, indulging in more image building and deliver monologues. Now that this pandemic has gone off limits, all the buck has been conveniently passed to the CMs especially of opposition ruled states.
 
Weeks after India eased what was arguably the world's harshest lockdown, and four months after its first recorded Covid-19 infection, its case number is skyrocketing.

Here's what you need to know about the crisis.

Should the spike in cases worry India?
In absolute terms, India may not have done so badly.

At more than 320,000 infections, it now has the world's fourth-highest number of confirmed cases, behind Russia, Brazil and the US. But it ranks a lowly 143rd by infections per capita, according to Kaushik Basu, professor of economics at Cornell University.

The effective reproduction number of the virus - a way of rating a disease's ability to spread - has fallen, and the doubling time of reported infections has increased.

But look closer and you see that case counts have been spiking, as have rates of hospitalisation and deaths in hotspot cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad. "If infections continue to rise these places will be as overwhelmed as New York," a physician treating Covid-patients told me.

Horrific reports have emerged from these cities of patients dying after being denied admission or, in one tragic instance, found dead in a toilet. Tests are delayed or pending because labs are swamped.

India's economy was already sputtering before the pandemic. So the country cannot afford another crushing lockdown that would shut businesses and put more people out of work. That is why India has to work hard at containing the infection.

"I am pretty worried about the numbers," Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said. "It's not that infections will peak and go down on their own. You need interventions to turn the corner."

In other words, India cannot wait for 60% of its people to get infected to achieve herd immunity and stop the virus. "That would mean millions of people dead. And that is not an acceptable outcome," Dr Jha said.

And India's curve has not yet turned the corner - there is no consistent and steady decline, Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Michigan, said.

"I think we should worry but not let worry turn into panic," she said.

Is India's low death rate misleading?

Yes and no. India's case fatality rate (CFR) - or the proportion of Covid positive people who have died - is around 2.8%.

But that number is contentious - as are a lot of the statistics on the contagion. Adam Kucharski, a mathematician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the problem of just dividing the total number of deaths by the total number of cases is that it doesn't account for unreported cases or the delay from illness to death.

Experts say that looking at the aggregate CFR at this stage of the pandemic can lull governments into complacency.

"The CFR is a bit of an optical illusion," Dr Mukherjee said. "Even if I believe the reported cases and death counts, and if you divide the number of deaths by closed cases where we actually know patient outcomes, we get a much larger percentage of fatalities".

Even the per capita death rate limits understanding of the spread of disease - there are vast tracts of India still unscathed by the virus.

But what is worrying is that some three-quarters of the more than 9,000 Covid-19 deaths have been reported from three states - Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi. There has been some under-reporting largely because of slip ups - Chennai city's caseload is double the official count as two separate death registries were not reconciled. There is also confusion, as elsewhere in the world, about how to define a Covid-19 death.

And new research by economist Partha Mukhopadhyay suggests that young people in India are dying at a rate much higher than expected when you break down fatalities by age.

As of 30 April, the case fatality rate in Maharashtra for the 40 to 49 year-olds, for example, was 4%. Italy's fatality rate for the same age group was a tenth of that.

"We need to find out why so many young people are dying here. Is it because of lifestyle diseases like diabetes and respiratory problems because of the foul air in our cities? Do we have an unhealthy young population compared to the rest of the world?," Prof Mukhopadhyay said.

But experts say India will still end up with an aggregate low fatality rate, and the majority of people who die will still be the elderly.

"We have a large number of infections but very few sick people. In that sense, we might have dodged the bullet," said Prof Mukhopadhyay.

What should India be worried about?

India should begin treating this as what Ed Yong, a science writer at the Atlantic magazine, calls a "patchwork pandemic". This is when the infection spreads through a country, affecting different parts differently.

Yong notes the pandemic is shaped by factors like social distancing, testing capacity, population density, age structure, wealth, societal collectivism, and luck.

In India the virus has been spread by millions of informal workers who fled the cities after a botched lockdown abruptly left them jobless and without money. They returned to their villages on foot, and crowded trains and buses. These workers account for some 80% of recent cases in the Odisha state, for example.

"That's why it's important to not look at it as an India pandemic by itself", said Dr Ambarish Satwik, a vascular surgeon at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. "There's the Delhi epidemic, the Mumbai pandemic, the Ahmedabad pandemic."

In these cities, the positivity rate - number of cases per 100 samples - is four to five times higher than the national average. As infections wax and wane and new hotspots emerge across the country, local health systems will come under stress.

"There will be a cascade of peaks across states as the virus moves through India," Dr Mukherjee said. "India needs to really scale up health care capacity."

In other words, India needs to nimbly move resources - doctors, healthcare workers, gear, medicines, ventilators - from the regions where infections are waning to those where they are beginning to peak.

Experts say having mobile resources - such as the army's medical services, which has excellent doctors and healthcare professionals - on standby will help move them quickly to emerging hotspots.

Did India's prolonged lockdown help?

Experts say India was smart enough to lock down early - 25 March - to slow the virus. "No country did it that early. It bought time for the government to make measures. It averted many deaths," said Dr Jha.

But it happened at four hours notice, and was badly bungled as informal workers began to flee cities.

And the jury is out on whether governments used the time to ramp up testing and beef up health infrastructure. Some states - Kerala, Karnataka - appear to have done better than others - Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi.

If India had prepared well, experts say, it would not be witnessing a failure to control runaway infections in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

A shortage of doctors, healthcare workers, well-equipped beds and lack of faith in state-run hospitals has left them struggling. And, as a result, there has been a rush to admit patients in private hospitals, which were never fully prepared for this emergency.

What lies ahead?
Testing has remained an Achilles heel. India is testing some 150,000 samples a day now, up from around thousand when the lockdown began. But it still has one of the lowest per capita testing rates.

Many believe India could have ramped up testing much earlier since its first case was reported on 30 January.

"We had the resources. We are a capable country which did not plan ahead," said Prof Mukhopadhyay. "And we also ended up frittering the early gains of the lockdown".

The situation in the capital, Delhi, where infections, hospital admissions and deaths have all spiked, is an example of delayed, ham-handed planning.

Fearing a tsunami of cases in the coming weeks, the local government has directed private hospitals to allocate more beds to Covid-19 patients, and is also setting up beds in wedding halls, stadiums and hotels.

But experts are sceptical.

How do you ensure piped oxygen in wedding halls and stadiums at such a short notice? Where are the doctors and nurses going to come from? How will a patient on a bed in a banquet hall get critical care treatment if every ICU in the city is full?

"You need new infrastructure, you need to ramp up capacity, not just evacuate patients and create Covid wards," Dr Satwik said.

In the end, say experts, handling a public health emergency through bureaucratic fiats and ad-hoc planning is unhelpful. And, if the government fails to communicate clearly about the continuing risks of infection, the earlier collective zeal about social distancing and maintaining hygiene will also begin to flag.

"It is a very difficult situation," said Dr Jha."We are still early in the pandemic and we have a good year or so to go before we turn the corner. The question is what is the plan to get India through the next 12 to 16 months?"


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53018351
 
A lockdown will be reimposed on Friday on some 15 million people in the Indian city of Chennai and several neighbouring districts, state officials said, as coronavirus cases surge in the region.

“Full Lockdown from 19th for Chennai, Thiruvallur, Chengalpet & Kanchipuram districts,” the Tamil Nadu state government tweeted.

It will be in place until the end of June.

India, home to 1.3 billion people, has gradually lifted a nationwide lockdown over the past few weeks even as new infections continue rising.

Tamil Nadu, where Chennai is the capital, is the second-worst hit state after Maharashtra.

The southern state has recorded just over 44,000 cases out of a nationwide total of 332,424, according to official figures.

A majority of the cases are in Chennai, according to media reports.

Shops selling essential items and restaurants will be allowed to remain open from early morning until 2pm local time during the lockdown.

The decision was taken after recommendations from an expert panel on how to curb the spread of the infectious disease.

The state government also ordered an audit of the number of recorded deaths after media reports said at least 200 fatalities were not reflected in the official toll of 435.

The renewed restrictions came as questions grew about why India’s initial lockdown, imposed from late March, did not stem the rise in cases, with new daily highs being recorded regularly.

There have been reports of patients struggling to find hospital beds in other major cities such as the capital New Delhi and the financial hub Mumbai, which is the capital of Maharashtra.
 
Criticism mounts as New Delhi hospital beds run out amid Covid-19 surge

India’s capital is fast running out of hospital beds amid a surge in coronavirus cases and is struggling to contain the pandemic, after critics said it did too little to prepare and reopened shopping malls and temples too soon, Reuters reports.

Some families of people infected with Covid-19 have complained about having to hunt for beds for their relatives after hospitals turned them away.

Others said patients had been left unattended in corridors of government-run hospitals, while local media reports of dead bodies in a hospital lobby prompted the Indian Supreme Court to order the state administration to get its act together.
 
A lockdown will be reimposed on Friday on some 15 million people in the Indian city of Chennai and several neighbouring districts, state officials said, as coronavirus cases surge in the region.

“Full Lockdown from 19th for Chennai, Thiruvallur, Chengalpet & Kanchipuram districts,” the Tamil Nadu state government tweeted.

It will be in place until the end of June.

India, home to 1.3 billion people, has gradually lifted a nationwide lockdown over the past few weeks even as new infections continue rising.

Tamil Nadu, where Chennai is the capital, is the second-worst hit state after Maharashtra.

The southern state has recorded just over 44,000 cases out of a nationwide total of 332,424, according to official figures.

A majority of the cases are in Chennai, according to media reports.

Shops selling essential items and restaurants will be allowed to remain open from early morning until 2pm local time during the lockdown.

The decision was taken after recommendations from an expert panel on how to curb the spread of the infectious disease.

The state government also ordered an audit of the number of recorded deaths after media reports said at least 200 fatalities were not reflected in the official toll of 435.

The renewed restrictions came as questions grew about why India’s initial lockdown, imposed from late March, did not stem the rise in cases, with new daily highs being recorded regularly.

There have been reports of patients struggling to find hospital beds in other major cities such as the capital New Delhi and the financial hub Mumbai, which is the capital of Maharashtra.

it was very evident from start looking at the attitude of TN residents even in bigger cities like Chennai at start of pandemic. Lacklustre
 
It's been just over a week since India eased out of its stringent lockdown and cases have been spiking. Earlier this week, India recorded more than 11,000 fresh infections daily for three days, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

India has the fourth-highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world now with more than 300,000 infections. And there's growing concern over rising cases in the national capital, Delhi, where hospitals are buckling under the pressure. Reports of patients being turned away at hospitals emerged last week.

There has been spurts of good news as well - Dharavi, India's largest slum, has seen infections drop recently, local media reported. Since April, officials have screened almost 700,000 people in the slum and set up fever clinics, reported local outlet NDTV. Daily infections have come down to a third of what they were in May, simultaneously bringing down the number of deaths too.

But it's clear that infections are growing by the day and experts are worried that the virus hasn't yet peaked in India, with some expecting the worst when monsoon season hits in July and August.
 
The Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) has offered to create 850-bedded Covid care centres in premises of its gurudwaras and educational institutions in the city amid the rising number of coronavirus cases. These centres could be used to admit those with low-grade fever, sore throat and other mild symptoms, DSGMC president Manjinder Singh Sirsa said. The offer was made in a letter sent to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to set up 850-bedded Covid care centres in premises of its gurudwaras, he said. The DSGMC has requested the Delhi government to give necessary permissions and sanctions for immediate operation of Covid care centres.

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/unlock-1-0-day-9-diary-6462120/

Noble of them not sure if its practical though.
 
Sirsa is a very low grade troll and a known trouble maker. Will take everything that comes out of him with a bucketful of salt.
 
not a good day for Indians, the death toll was huge today - 1967 - thats is a massive increase - by 6times if im correct.

Are the indians doing what the Brasilian government is - hiding its numbers and then adding most of them in one day:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

worldometer often has statistical errors that they remove after a day or two.


Better to go by official websites for both India and Pakistan.
https://www.covid19india.org/

http://covid.gov.pk/



Edit: Just checked India's official website also says 1965 deaths today. That is a VERY worrying sign. Allah bachaye.
 
Has to be several days worth of unaccounted deaths being classified as Covid related deaths. Same thing happened in New York in May and the count went up by a few thousand suddenly for that day.

Most likely. We will know the situation tomorrow whether the numbers come down to the usual range or remain as high as they are today.

I think the number of deaths per day currently is over 500+.
 
Btw a couple of days ago Pakistan's daily recovered number jumped from about 2,000 per day to around 10,000 for one day. Then came back down to usual number the next day. Hopefully something similar happened here that a few previous days casualties got reported on the same day thereby significantly increasing the death rate for just that day. A 6x jump in deaths in one days seems unlikely. I hope.
 
[MENTION=137142]JaDed[/MENTION] - any info on this? I hope this isn’t true but I am almost certain it’s some bug. This can’t be true

Maharashtra's unreported dead is what I have come to know.

"The state reported deaths of 81 people today (Tuesday) by Covid-19 and added 1,328 (fatalities) which were not reported previously. The total number of the deceased stands at 5,537," he said.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/maharashtra-registers-1409-covid-19-deaths-2701-new-cases/articleshow/76411502.cms
 
worldometer often has statistical errors that they remove after a day or two.


Better to go by official websites for both India and Pakistan.
https://www.covid19india.org/

http://covid.gov.pk/



Edit: Just checked India's official website also says 1965 deaths today. That is a VERY worrying sign. Allah bachaye.

syed im on the indian gov link and its also showing 1971 deaths for today -click on it - it says deceased +1971
 
Deaths cross 10,000 in India

India added more than 2,000 deaths on Tuesday, which takes the total number to 11,903. The country has confirmed more than 340,000 infections, making it the fourth-highest in the world.

India's case fatality rate (CFR) - or the proportion of Covid-positive people who have died - jumped from 2.9% to 3.4%, reported the Hindustan Times newspaper.

But that number is contentious as experts say it doesn't account for unreported cases or the delay from illness to death. Some have pointed out that the CFR at this stage of the pandemic can lull governments into complacency.

What is worrying in India is that around three-quarters of the Covid-19 deaths have been reported from three states- Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi.
 
India is witnessing a surge in Covid-19 infections which has brought its health system to the brink of collapse. BBC Gujarati's Roxy Gadgekar describes how his own family was devastated by coronavirus.

When my sister Shefali called me on 11 May and told me her husband Umesh had been rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties, it was a shock. My first thought - as unreal as it seemed - was coronavirus.

His death, five days later, showed us just how much India's healthcare system is being ravaged by the virus.

While we battled to save Umesh, I was embarrassed I had to use my professional contacts - built up over 20 years as a journalist in this city - so many times to ask for simple things that should have been routine.

And despite our repeatedly asking, the hospital where his life ended has still not explained exactly how he died or responded to the BBC's questions about why the family was not told.

'Doctors said Umesh needed to be admitted'
Anand Surgical hospital, where Shefali had taken Umesh when he fell ill, is a famous private hospital in Ahmedabad, the capital of the western state of Gujarat. It had been designated a specialised Covid hospital by the municipal corporation just a few days earlier.

However, when I called them, they told me that they did not have an isolation room as yet. There were also no ventilators or even doctors who could treat suspected Covid patients.

I told my sister to try taking him to a different hospital. But several private hospitals turned them away, saying they had no room.

Shefali finally managed to get a chest x-ray for Umesh at a nearby private hospital. The radiologist told the couple that he suspected Covid.

Umesh Tamaichi was 44 and a senior lawyer who practised at the Ahmedabad Metro court. My sister is the general manager of a reputed IT company. The couple lived in Chharanagar - a slum-like area of the city filled with small lanes, no civic facilities and haphazard construction.

Umesh and Shefali had dreams and worked hard to achieve them. They saved enough money to build their own house and send their two daughters to a good school - a rarity in a locality where spending money to educate girls is not the norm. One of them is about to sit pre-medical exams, while the other wants to be a lawyer like her father.

A few days before Umesh started exhibiting symptoms, I had written a story on whether Gujarat was prepared for Covid-19. Several officials, including the state health commissioner, had talked about the state-run Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. They said it had several high quality ventilators, as well as trained staff.

So, I told Shefali to try taking Umesh there. I also called ahead to make sure they would see him. Doctors there looked at the x-ray and said Umesh needed to be admitted.

State-run hospitals have a terrible reputation in India for being overcrowded and understaffed. Many who use them complain of having to wait hours for treatment, as well as of a lack of space and basic hygiene, among other issues.

'Not a single bed in the city'

Afraid that Umesh would not get proper treatment, I approached the state health minister Nitinbhai Patel, who told doctors to ensure he got the best care.

The next afternoon, though, Umesh's condition deteriorated and he was shifted to critical care. I decided to try and move him to a private hospital. But as I called hospital after hospital, I was told there was no room. Not a single bed in the entire city.

I tried everything. I called other journalists and even approached the mayor. But there was nothing anyone could do. So I focused on his treatment at the civil hospital - but his condition kept worsening.

Then I received a call from his doctor who said Umesh would have to be moved to a ventilator. During a video call, I was able to see him struggling for oxygen. He was unable to speak. All he could try to convey with his hands was that he was unable to breath.

A strong man, who exercised daily and had no health issues, Umesh could never have thought that a virus would land him in this situation. That instead of struggling to earn a bright future for his children, he would be struggling for a bit of air. He looked fragile and weak.

Meanwhile, Shefali, usually so strong, was breaking apart. With no-one able to visit, she was all alone with her two daughters, trying to comprehend the reality of what was happening to them.

She also knew she needed to be tested. She had both diabetes and high blood pressure - both dangerous co-morbidities for the virus. But this proved to be as difficult as getting a hospital bed for Umesh.

'She trusted me - I failed'

Repeatedly calling a government helpline got nowhere and while I also tried calling many officials, nothing worked. We even tried going to a private lab, but they wanted a doctor's prescription - which again proved difficult to get. When we finally managed to get one, the lab technician said that the government had ordered them to stop testing samples.

Eventually, with the help of a colleague, we managed to get Shefali tested on 15 May. The results, which came the next day, showed both Shefali and her younger daughter were positive. We decided to send her to a private hospital for treatment - again managed through a colleague. The next evening, I put her into an ambulance and followed in my car.

On the way, a relative called me and asked if I could check on Umesh's condition. I told him I had been trying to get information since morning, but no-one in the hospital had responded. He said he had received information that Umesh had died.

I was in shock - I did not know what to do. Given that I was following the ambulance, I couldn't even stop my car.

I gathered up strength and called his doctor, who to my shock said he had no information as he was not on shift. I made a few other calls until one doctor finally confirmed that Umesh had indeed died - many hours earlier. But no-one had bothered to inform us.

The hospital did not respond to the BBC's questions about why the family was not informed.

Meanwhile, Shefali's ambulance reached the private hospital she was to be cared at, but I could not admit her as I knew she might want to go back and see her husband one last time - even if from a distance. I lied about an issue with the admission process and managed to get her back home.

Then came the most difficult task - breaking the news. Telling her the man who had loved her throughout his life, had breathed his last alone in a critical care unit while his body was left unattended for hours.

She screamed in anguish.

"You promised me Umesh would return home. Where is my Umesh now?"

She had trusted me to bring her husband back to her. I had failed. The entire experience was eye-opening and humiliating.

I still don't know the circumstances around his death - what happened, did they try to save him at the end? How did his mobile phone, SIM card and watch disappear after his death? The hospital has not responded to these questions, when asked again by the BBC.

Ahmedabad is one of India's worst affected cities and as the cases surge, the number of hospital beds are decreasing.

And as the epidemic rages on, more people will find themselves stranded - denied access to basic healthcare. So many people have already died at home, turned away from every hospital. This might soon be the norm across the state.

If this was my experience, what is happening to the millions of others who do not have the levels of access I did?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52990324
 
India has registered 2,000 deaths in the last 24 hours taking the death toll from the disease to 11,903. The number of infections surged to over 354,000.
 
On Friday evening, Delhi-based lawyer Ishika Goon and her flatmates hunkered down at their apartment in the Indian capital, Delhi, to watch a new Bollywood film.

In normal times, Ishika and her friends would have flocked to the neighbourhood theatre for their Friday night cinema fix.

But restrictions that remain in place to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus means that cinemas are closed and most movie-lovers are watching their favourite films at home.

So when the news arrived that the star-studded Bollywood summer release Gulabo Sitabo would bypass cinemas and its release would instead be streamed online, there was a ripple of excitement among film fans.

"This doesn't give you the same rush as watching a movie's Friday release in the cinema. But we are now reconciled to the fact that we may not catch a movie in the cinemas in the near future," says Ishika.
 
India's new stats still don't tell the tale

This week the cities of Mumbai and Delhi have both updated the number of deaths from Covid-19. Hundreds of previously unreported deaths - 862 in Mumbai and 437 in Delhi - have been added.

Authorities in Mumbai say the new figures there are the result of a "reconciliation exercise" to accurately tally data being sent from hospitals, morgues and laboratories.

However, the BBC has found that even now many of the dead being brought to hospitals who had Covid-like symptoms are not being tested. The international guidelines for classification of Covid-19 as a cause of death state that even probable cases should be counted.

It is quite clear that, even with the extra figures added this week, the total number of official deaths is lower than the actual fatalities caused by the virus in India.
 
India records highest one-day increase of 12,281 coronavirus cases

India has recorded its highest one-day increase of 12,281 coronavirus cases, raising the total caseload to 366,946, but the government ruled out reimposing a countrywide lockdown.

India’s total deaths reached 12,237, a rise of 334 in the past 24 hours, according to a Health Ministry statement.

AP reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected a new lockdown, saying the country has to think about further unlocking and minimising all possibilities of harm to people. The lockdown that was imposed nationwide on March 25 is now restricted to high-risk areas.
 
India's Chennai re-enters lockdown as cases spike

Indian officials have re-imposed a lockdown in the southern city of Chennai (formerly Madras) and three neighbouring districts.

Only essential services and neighbourhood grocery shops will be permitted to function under the 12-day lockdown, set to end on 30 June.

Chennai is India's sixth-largest city and the capital of Tamil Nadu state.

It has more than 37,000 of Tamil Nadu's confirmed 50,000 infections, making it one of India's largest hotspots.

With just over 600 deaths in total, the state has a relatively low mortality rate - but its death toll is currently being reviewed after reports suggested that at least 200 deaths in Chennai were not included in the official tally.

India lifted its lockdown earlier this Month and Chennai is the only city to re-impose it to curb the rise in infections.
 
Delhi out of lockdown but fear keeps us home
Krutika Pathi

BBC News, Delhi

As I write this from my home in Delhi, I have the air conditioning and fan on at full blast. The sun is beaming harshly as temperatures have been touching 45C recently.

But this is what's expected for summers here - another sign that normality is seeping back into our lives after India eased out of its stringent lockdown earlier this month.

Things have jumped back into action - cars have started clogging the roads as more and more shops open, drawing customers in. And yet, at least in my apartment in Delhi, it feels like the lockdown is still very much in place.

The situation continues to be unrelenting in Delhi, which has nearly 50,000 cases. Technically, I can step out, hop in a taxi and go wherever I'd like to in the city - but I don't. It feels even scarier to do so now, as infections have only been climbing, raising our anxieties as they go up.

And so the days roll by as they did under lockdown - weekdays are consumed by working from home while weekends are spent staying indoors at home. The only difference is the constant thrum of the AC, which is switched on all day and night now.
 
India recorded 14,516 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the biggest single-day spike so far, taking the country’s infection tally to 395,048, Union health ministry data showed on Saturday.

There were 375 fatalities between Friday and Saturday morning, the health ministry’s dashboard showed, which pushed the death toll in the country to 12,948.

According to the health ministry, there were 168,269 active Covid-19 cases and 213,830 people have been cured of the respiratory disease so far. With that, the recovery rate in India has gone up to 54.12%.

On Friday, the recovery rate, which is the ratio of the number of patients recovered to the number of patients infected, was 53.79%.

Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai account for more than half the total cases in the country today. They are among the 65 most critical Covid-19 affected districts, according to the health ministry.

The number of Covid-19 cases in Mumbai would be 80,000; 100,000 in New Delhi and 71,000 in Chennai by June end, according to estimates by officials and researchers going only by the rise in new cases since June 8.

The government had brought in the Unlock 1 on that date. The unlock guidelines, crucial to restart economic activities and prepare the country to live with Covid-19, has led to a spurt in cases in most states.

According to estimates of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbai will have over 100,000 Covid-19 cases by mid-July if the same pace continues.

Maharashtra has reported 124,331 Covid-19 cases and 5,893 deaths; Delhi has 53,116 infections and 2,035 fatalities and there are 54,449 cases and 666 people have died in Tamil Nadu so far, according to the health ministry.

India has the eighth highest number of recorded deaths due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the world, according to Worldometer.

The date from the website that monitors the number of cases globally shows the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Italy are the countries that have had more fatalities because of Covid-19.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...r-3-95-lakh/story-hq6zHXpf4erzNgM0qtywwM.html
 
India registers highest single-day rise in cases

India recorded its highest single-day jump in coronavirus cases with 14,516, bringing the tally to 395,048, according to health officials.

The death toll rose to 12,948 with 375 fatalities in a day. India registered over 10,000 cases for the ninth day in a row.
 
Delhi orders five-day quarantine for Covid-19 cases

Anyone infected with Covid-19 in the Indian capital Delhi must spend five days in official quarantine, authorities have said.

The new quarantine rule was announced by Delhi’s Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) after a record spike in infections on Friday.

The state government has criticised the move, calling it "arbitrary" and touting the success of its home-quarantine programme. "We have treated thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases at home so far through daily monitoring and counselling," it said.

Health experts have also questioned the decision, saying it will place more strain on overstretched hospitals, where overcrowding may risk new infections.

But the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal, said the lack of monitoring of those in home quarantine was proving problematic. Delhi's cases jumped by 3,137 to 53,116 on Friday, the biggest daily increase since the pandemic began.
 
Delhi orders five-day quarantine for Covid-19 cases

Anyone infected with Covid-19 in the Indian capital Delhi must spend five days in official quarantine, authorities have said.

The new quarantine rule was announced by Delhi’s Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) after a record spike in infections on Friday.

The state government has criticised the move, calling it "arbitrary" and touting the success of its home-quarantine programme. "We have treated thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases at home so far through daily monitoring and counselling," it said.

Health experts have also questioned the decision, saying it will place more strain on overstretched hospitals, where overcrowding may risk new infections.

But the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal, said the lack of monitoring of those in home quarantine was proving problematic. Delhi's cases jumped by 3,137 to 53,116 on Friday, the biggest daily increase since the pandemic began.

whats 5 day quarantine going to achieve
 
Only hours after it was announced, Delhi has reversed a decision which would have seen anyone infected with Covid-19, and who did not need to go to hospital, quarantined in official premises.

There were fears that people might avoid getting tested if they thought they might be sent to an institution for five days of quarantine. There were also concerns the policy could put strain on already stretched resources.

The quarantine rule was first announced by Delhi’s Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) after a record spike in infections on Friday. The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal, said the lack of monitoring of those in home quarantine was proving problematic.

But the state government criticised the move, calling it "arbitrary" and touting the success of its home-quarantine programme.

Delhi's cases jumped by 3,137 to 53,116 on Friday, the biggest daily increase since the pandemic began.
 
Delhi orders five-day quarantine for Covid-19 cases

Anyone infected with Covid-19 in the Indian capital Delhi must spend five days in official quarantine, authorities have said.

The new quarantine rule was announced by Delhi’s Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) after a record spike in infections on Friday.

The state government has criticised the move, calling it "arbitrary" and touting the success of its home-quarantine programme. "We have treated thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases at home so far through daily monitoring and counselling," it said.

Health experts have also questioned the decision, saying it will place more strain on overstretched hospitals, where overcrowding may risk new infections.

But the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal, said the lack of monitoring of those in home quarantine was proving problematic. Delhi's cases jumped by 3,137 to 53,116 on Friday, the biggest daily increase since the pandemic began.
Pathetic rule, comes at the instance of clueless motabhai. Do you even have enough beds to give every patient 5 days official quarantine?
 
India has confirmed 15,413 new infections, the biggest one day increase reported since the start of the country’s outbreak. A further 306 deaths have also been confirmed.
 
India has reported 15,413 new coronavirus cases, the biggest daily increase since the start of its epidemic, as the country struggles to grapple with rising infections.

Sunday’s record daily increase brings the total number of cases in India to 410,461, the fourth highest in the world after Russia, Brazil and the US.

A further 306 deaths were reported nationwide on Sunday, taking the total tally to 13,254.

The true numbers of both infections and deaths are thought to be much higher owing to insufficient testing and reporting issues.

Most of the cases are concentrated in the capital Delhi and the states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu - they account for nearly 60% of all infections.

In an address on Sunday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated the use of yoga exercises to help strengthen “our respiratory and immune system” against the disease.

"If our immunity is strong, it is of great help in defeating this disease”, he said.
 
how is the lockdown in india now?

i read it was eased so are people acting as if everything is fine and flooding the streets or social distancing and masks still being taken seriously?
 
India cases cross 400,000

Infections in India increased to 410,461 on Sunday, after it added more than 15,000 new cases - the highest daily spike yet, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The country has reported 13,254 deaths so far.

India has the fourth-highest caseload in the world, after the US, Brazil and Russia.

It's been two weeks since the country eased out of its lockdown, and cases have only been rising. Some experts estimate that the virus will peak in the monsoon season, which is between July and September.

But in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, the impact of rising cases have stretched an already fragmented healthcare system.

Reports of scarce hospital beds - and patients being turned away - have been making the rounds for weeks, prompting outrage and concern.
 
India's infections soaring in rural areas

India’s coronavirus caseload has risen to 425,282 as infections soar in rural areas to which migrant workers fleeing major cities have returned in recent weeks.

India's health ministry on Monday reported 14,821 new cases and about 300 new deaths, bring the toll of fatalities up to more than 13,000. The coastal state of Goa reported its first COVID-19 death.

India's government planning body Niti Aayog says infections have now emerged in 98 out of 112 of the country’s poorest districts.

Still, about 60 percent of India's cases have been reported in the states of Delhi, which includes the national capital of New Delhi, Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital Mumbai and Tamil Nadu, where manufacturing hub Chennai is located.
 
Had that clueless creature allowed those migrants to go to their respective native places before announcing the lockdown in March, things won't have been as worse as they're right now.
 
Fifty-seven female minors have tested positive for Covid-19 in a government-run shelter in the northern Indian city of Kanpur, officials say.

The majority are asymptomatic and all of those who tested positive have been moved to an isolation centre.

Five of the 57 girls were found to also be pregnant, officials told BBC Hindi.

The outbreak came to light after one of the girls was taken to hospital last week with a fever.

After she was declared positive, the other girls in the home were tested.

With more than 400,000 infections, India has the fourth-highest number of cases in the world.
 
Many in India's LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning) community are hiding their real selves as they remain stuck with their families for months during the coronavirus lockdown - sometimes with dire consequences.

Kumar*, a young gay man living in a town in northern India, was physically assaulted by his family, who then called the police, when they found out his secret.

"They found his phone - he was chatting with someone or sharing photos - and beat him up," said Shruta Neytra, co-founder of the LGBTQ online youth support group, Yaariyan.

Kumar reached out to the group seeking help. But because of coronavirus restrictions on travel and movement, there was little anyone could do.

And he is not alone.

"We are hearing of so many cases where people are facing harassment and psychological torture by their families," Neytra told the AFP news agency.

"It is very distressing because we can't even tell them to leave home and seek shelter elsewhere."

A colonial-era law banning gay sex was scrapped in 2018, and transgender Indians have been legally recognised as a third gender since 2014.

But outside the big cities, LGBTQ individuals still face widespread discrimination and violence.

The lockdown that began in March brought misery to millions, destroying migrant workers' livelihoods and driving many deeper into poverty.

The restrictions also left LGBTQ Indians - already living on the margins - vulnerable to further abuse, often at the hands of their own families.

For transgender woman Anjali Siroya, going to work and seeing friends has always been a lifeline, taking her away from the hostile environment of the Mumbai tenement flat she shares with her parents and brother.

"They don't beat me any more after I tried to run away once... but being with them 24/7 is still very traumatic," the 21-year-old told AFP.

"They insist on using the male pronoun to refer to me even though I have never wanted to hide my identity," she said.

As the pressure at home has grown, she has taken to Instagram to celebrate her gender identity with photographs of herself - shot before the lockdown - and vocal posts about the fight for equality.

"I miss dressing up, putting on lipstick and earrings, and posing for selfies," she said.

"I know this might sound silly to some people, but it was a way for me to express myself."

As LGBTQ Indians have increasingly turned to social media and online communities for support, many have also expressed a mounting urge to come out to their families.

Seema*, a bisexual sociology student in Delhi, told AFP that life under lockdown felt "lonely and claustrophobic".

"Everything I say about girls needs to be said in code," she said, describing how she hides her phone from her mother and grandparents to avoid being accidentally outed.

With no room of her own, she said in an emailed interview that she was even unable to speak privately on the phone, forcing her into a life of constant subterfuge.

"I feel compelled to come out on some days," she said as she spoke of not being able to share her dreams of love and marriage with her family.

But she feared that any such a move would make her family monitor her movements and further limit her freedom.

"I just want to say 'My wife and I'... instead of hesitating and always being scared that it'll slip out by mistake," she added.

LGBTQ activists have largely advised members of the community to do nothing until life returns to normal.

"As an out and proud trans person, I would never tell another person not to live their truth," said Jo, digital editor for online forum Gaysi, who goes by one name.

"But right now, it is simply too dangerous to come out of the closet."

Even those who took the leap and found some acceptance say the aftermath has been complicated and stressful.

"I never expected to tell my father I am bisexual, it was nice seeing him react well to it," Tina* told AFP.

But as the lockdown wore on, subsequent interactions revealed that her father was "not entirely comfortable", the 25-year-old artist said.

"Earlier, I didn't spend much time thinking about how my parents would respond; now every possibility has become more real," she said.

"I don't know how my mum will react if she knows. I don't think she will ask me to leave home, but I am not 100 percent sure."
 
In one of the world's most congested shanty towns, social distancing is not a luxury people can afford. And density is a friend of the coronavirus.

Imagine more than 500,000 people spread over 2.5 grubby sq km, less than a square mile. That's a population larger than Manchester living in an area smaller than Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

Eight to 10 people live together in poky 100 sq ft dwellings. About 80% of the residents use community toilets. Homes and factories coexist in single buildings lining the slum's narrow lanes. Most people are informal daily-wage workers who don't cook at home and go out to get their food.

The race to stop the virus spread in Asia's biggest slum
And yet Dharavi, a sprawling slum in the heart of Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital, appears to have brought an outbreak under control - for now.

Since the first case was reported on 1 April, more than 2,000 infections and 80-odd deaths have been reported here. Half of the cases have recovered.

Daily reported infections dropped from a high of 43 a day in May to 19 in third week of June. The average doubling rate had gone up from 18 days in April to 78 in June.

The scale of the measures put in place - a mix of draconian containment, extensive screening and providing free food to an out-of-work population - has been extraordinary.

Municipal officials say they have traced, tracked, tested and isolated aggressively to halt the spread of infection. At the heart of this has been the screening effort, involving fever camps, doorstep initiatives and mobile vans. The early door-to-door screening by workers in sweltering personal protective gear was not sustainable when the weather turned hot and muggy.

So the effort pivoted to the fever camps, where more than 360,000 people have been screened for symptoms so far.

At each camp, a team of half-a-dozen doctors and health workers in protective clothing screen up to 80 residents every day for temperature and blood oxygen levels using infrared thermometers and pulse oximeters.

People showing flu-like symptoms are tested for the disease on spot. Those who test positive are moved to local institutional quarantine facilities, a bunch of schools, marriage halls, sports complexes. More than 10,000 people have been put into quarantine so far. If their condition deteriorates, patients are moved to public and three private hospitals in the area.

"The fever camps have really helped in checking the spread of the infection," Dr Amruta Bawaskar, a medical officer working in the slum, told me.

"People turn up voluntarily now, and want to get tested on any pretext. Sometimes they will inflate their age to qualify for testing for high-risk elderly people. Sometimes they will want to get tested because they sat next to someone who coughed or sneezed. There's a lot of fear and awareness."

Five key questions about India's rising Covid-19 infections

With some 11,000 tests done since April, there's a possibility that the slum still has a large population of people who are infected but show no symptoms. But officials believe they have been able to contain the infection at a time when it is picking up speed elsewhere in Mumbai and other hotspot cities.

The relatively low death toll is possibly explained by the overwhelmingly young population of the slum - most infected people have been in the age group of 21 to 50 years.

And to make sure the harsh containment worked, free meals and food rations have been provided to residents trapped at home without work and income.

"I think we have managed to break the chain of transmission without social distancing because there was no scope for that," Kiran Dighavkar, an assistant municipal commissioner in charge of the area, told me.

It also helps that Dharavi gets a lot of media attention.

The slum drew international attention as the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. Business school researchers and city planners from around the world have studied its $1bn informal economy and urban dynamics.

Private doctors have joined the fever camps. The cash-rich municipality, politicians, and non-profits have provided tens of thousands of free meals and rations. Bollywood actors and businessmen have donated gear, oxygen cylinders, gloves, masks, medicines and ventilators.

"Mumbai has a history of community action. They have a done a good job in helping officials containing the infection in Dharavi," says Dr Armida Fernandez, who's involved with a non-profit working in the slum.

However, the economic costs of the draconian containment have been enormous.

The slum is home to thriving leather, pottery and textile stitching businesses. It has 5,000 small factories which pay taxes and some 15,000 single-room workshops. It is also Mumbai's main hub of plastic recycling.

Not surprisingly Dharavi is a place where migrant low-cost skilled labour has thrived for decades. After the lockdown, an estimated 150,000 of them left the place for their native villages after their workplaces shut and earnings dried up. Residents have pawned their gold, depleted their savings and been pushed into debt.

"It was a very harsh containment. It killed the economy of Dharavi," says Vinod Shetty, a lawyer who runs a non-profit called Acorn India, which works in the slum.

"People are living hand to mouth. They are not getting work inside our outside the slum." In other words, the trade-off between lives and livelihood has been harsh.

The next challenge, agrees Mr Dighavkar, is to slowly open up the factories so that people can go back to work, and ensure that people continue to wear masks and follow all procedures.

But questions remain.

Will there be enough water in a slum where many buy supplies to to make sure that people can wash their hands? Will there be enough jobs left to woo workers back to the factories?

How long can the slum remain in a lockdown mode to contain future waves of infection? How long can non-profits continue to help as they start to run out of resources in what promises to be a long and weary battle?

"The war is not yet over. Not until the virus has left for good, anyway," Mr Dighavkar says.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53133843
 
India's infections soaring in rural areas

India’s coronavirus caseload has risen to 425,282 as infections soar in rural areas to which migrant workers fleeing major cities have returned in recent weeks.

India's health ministry on Monday reported 14,821 new cases and about 300 new deaths, bring the toll of fatalities up to more than 13,000. The coastal state of Goa reported its first COVID-19 death.

India's government planning body Niti Aayog says infections have now emerged in 98 out of 112 of the country’s poorest districts.

Still, about 60 percent of India's cases have been reported in the states of Delhi, which includes the national capital of New Delhi, Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital Mumbai and Tamil Nadu, where manufacturing hub Chennai is located.

This is really sad. The hope had been that the returning migrants weren’t carrying Covid with them
 
[MENTION=143530]Swashbuckler[/MENTION] It has reached my apt in South Chennai as well, it was a guy who I knew from childhood hid his milder symptoms from the everyday inquires of the corporation people as well , with this attitude nothing is going to come good.
 
In India celebrities and well known people are not getting it with the same rampancy that is they’re getting in Pakistan. Not sure if it can be used as a metric to say its under control somewhat
 
India adds nearly 15,000,000 cases as more states worry

India's health ministry has said that the nationwide tally had reached 440,215 cases, including 14,011 deaths. The state of Delhi, which includes the capital of New Delhi, has reported 62,655 cases with the rate of new infections rapidly expanding in recent weeks as a nationwide lockdown has eased.

States remote from the capital including Assam in the northeast that initially reported few cases have plans to reimpose stringent lockdowns in certain districts.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi lifted months-long restrictions on movement and industrial and commercial activity to restart India’s ailing economy, which has shed millions of jobs.
 
[MENTION=143530]Swashbuckler[/MENTION] It has reached my apt in South Chennai as well, it was a guy who I knew from childhood hid his milder symptoms from the everyday inquires of the corporation people as well , with this attitude nothing is going to come good.

Stay safe man. Similar situation in my neighborhood, very scary.
 
Amidst a rampaging virus in Tamil Nadu their residents discuss about movies and fan boys going Gaga over movies of their over grown heroes. nonsense. Atleast there are real heroes like health care workers working day and night to manage the dire situation
 
In India celebrities and well known people are not getting it with the same rampancy that is they’re getting in Pakistan. Not sure if it can be used as a metric to say its under control somewhat

Not a metric to be considered. In fact it’s foolishness and surprising that celebrities who are well to do getting infected. So these celebrities getting infected in Pakistan need to be better role models
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We've prepared the first Ayurvedic-clinically controlled, research, evidence & trial based medicine for COVID19. We conducted a clinical case study&clinical controlled trial, and found 69% patients recovered in 3 days & 100% patients recovered in 7 days: Yog Guru Ramdev, Haridwar <a href="https://t.co/QFQSVF0JIh">pic.twitter.com/QFQSVF0JIh</a></p>— ANI (@ANI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1275321466947424262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Delhi records biggest single-day spike in cases

3,947 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Delhi in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 66,602, according to a health bulletin released by the Delhi government on Tuesday.

This is the biggest single-day spike in the number of cases so far.

Also, 68 more deaths have been reported in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths to 2,301.

Of the total cases, 39,313 people have recovered and there are 24,988 active cases
 
COVID effect: No Rath Yatra in Ranchi for first time in over 300 years

For the first time in over 300 years, the three chariots of Lord Jagannath and his siblings were not taken out of the Jagannathpur temple here on the occasion of Rath Yatra on Tuesday due to the coronavirus-induced restrictions, a shrine official said.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said he sought “forgiveness” from the deities for not being able to perform the annual ritual this year.

The nine-day Rath Yatra is marked by a procession of the chariots, in which the three deities — Lord Jagannath, Bhagwan Balaram and Devi Subhadra — embark on an annual journey to their maternal aunt’s place and back.

“It is the first time in the shrine’s 329-year-long history that the chariots did not roll out on the streets of Ranchi to head to ‘maushi ma bari’ (maternal aunt’s home), which is around a kilometre away, on the occasion of the Rath Yatra,” said Manoj Tiwari, manager of the 17th century Jagannathpur temple.

The idols of the three deities were taken out of the sanctum sanctorum at 6 am, and placed on ‘dol mandap’ on the premises of the temple, where rituals were performed and offerings made, he said.
 
Maharashtra, Delhi and TN account for about half or more coronavirus cases. It’s a huge governance failure. Hope the next steps are better
 
Delhi reports biggest daily spike yet

With nearly 4,000 new infections reported on Tuesday, the Indian capital recorded its highest daily number yet.

Delhi now has more than 66,000 infections, making it the second worst-hit city in India.

The capital is close to surpassing Mumbai, which has the highest number of cases at around 68,000. But it looks like infections in Mumbai are slowly falling - it reported just over 800 new infections in the past 24 hours.

The same can't be said for Delhi, where the growth rate is the fastest in the country.

On Wednesday, the Delhi government said every house in the city will be screened in a new effort to help contain the spread, reported NDTV.

India exited its lockdown earlier this month, but cases have continued to gallop.

The country has confirmed more than 440,000 cases and 14,476 deaths so far, according to data from the health ministry.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We've prepared the first Ayurvedic-clinically controlled, research, evidence & trial based medicine for COVID19. We conducted a clinical case study&clinical controlled trial, and found 69% patients recovered in 3 days & 100% patients recovered in 7 days: Yog Guru Ramdev, Haridwar <a href="https://t.co/QFQSVF0JIh">pic.twitter.com/QFQSVF0JIh</a></p>— ANI (@ANI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1275321466947424262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Looks like another drama by Ramdev. The 'vaccine' was apparently tested only on young and healthy patients and not on high-risk ones such as the elderly or those with comorbidities.
 
India reports highest spike of 16,000 cases

India has recorded the highest spike of 15,968 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total to to 456,183, with Mumbai and New Delhi as the worst-hit cities in the country.

The Health Ministry also reported a record 24-hour increase of 465 deaths due to COVID-19, driving fatalities to 14,476.
 
India blocks traditional Covid-19 'cure'

The Indian government has blocked plans to promote and sell a herbal-based product that claims to "cure" coronavirus.

Patanjali Ayurved, a big consumer goods company in India set up by a popular yoga guru, said that it had found the "cure" after conducting research on plants used in traditional medicine.

"We conducted a controlled clinical study on 95 patients," company founder, Baba Ramdev, said.

The trial was reportedly carried out at the National Institute of Medical Science and Research, based in Rajasthan state.

But official records suggest that this institute has limited experience in conducting drug research, according to reports. Also, the research had reportedly not been peer-reviewed before it was publicised as a cure.

The product has also yet to go through the proper regulatory processes, leading the Indian authorities to demand more information about the product and the research involved.

Experts say claims of cures for coronavirus need to be treated with caution until the evidence has been properly evaluated.

"There have already been numerous grand claims in relation to Covid-19 around cures and vaccines, and none as yet has been justified," Dr Michael Head, a global health expert at the University of Southampton, said.
 
The Indian state of West Bengal has extended its lockdown until 31 July to stem the spread of Covid-19 after a spike in infections nationwide.

The lockdown in the eastern state was supposed to expire on 30 June.

But as new infections continue to rise across the country, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, said it was necessary to keep restrictions in place to "help the entire nation".

Schools, colleges and universities would remain shut as part of the continued curbs, but some relaxations would go ahead, the minister said.

India's infections jumped by almost 16,000 to more than 456,000 on Wednesday, the highest daily rise in the country. The death toll stands at more than 14,000.

There have been 14,728 confirmed cases and 580 deaths in West Bengal.

In the capital Delhi, which reported a record daily increase on Wednesday with 3,788 new cases, soldiers have been deployed to assist medics in treating Covid-19 patients.

Meanwhile, our India correspondent Soutik Biswas has looked into how Asia's biggest slum contained the coronavirus.
 
India sees biggest jump in daily cases

With nearly 17,000 new infections, India has set another record for daily infections. The country has had more than 470,000 cases since the outbreak began, including 14,894 deaths.

On Wednesday, Delhi overtook Mumbai to become the worst-hit city in the country as it added 3,788 new cases, taking its total tally to more than 70,000.

Almost a third of cases in the city have been registered in the past week or so.

But the rise in cases could be down to increased testing in Delhi - the city conducted around 100,000 tests in the past week alone. In total, around 400,000 tests have been carried out in the capital so far.

The state government has been on high alert, announcing a new plan that would entail every house in Delhi to be screened starting this week.

The city is also building the largest "temporary hospital" in India, with 10,000 beds. It will be the size of roughly 22 football fields.
 
India is to conduct house-to-house coronavirus screening of all 22 million residents of capital New Delhi, which has passed Mumbai to become the country’s worst-hit city.

Officials will visit each household to record each resident's health details during the next two weeks and administer a test for the virus to those who show or report symptoms, Delhi government officials said.

The exercise will be completed by July 6, according to a plan issued by the Delhi government, as the city recorded more than 70,390 confirmed cases.

The annoucement came as India on Thursday registered another record 16,922 cases, taking the total to 473,105, making it the fourth worst-hit country in the world.

The federal health ministry also reported another 418 deaths, taking fatalities to 14,894. The ministry said the recovery rate was continuing to improve at 56 percent.

In New Delhi, police will be deployed to enforce physical distancing and prevent the mixing of the population inside more than 200 containment zones where large clusters of cases have been confirmed. CCTV or drone monitoring will also be used.

Police will have to ensure strict perimeter control and "absolute restriction of outward and inward movement of the population," the city government said.

Delhi's city government has projected that cases in the capital area alone could expand to more than half a million by late July, and is considering taking over luxury hotels and stadiums to convert into field hospitals.

Armed forces personnel are providing medical care and attention to coronavirus patients kept in railway coaches that have been turned into medical wards at nine locations in the capital.

The health ministry said it has ramped up testing to more than 200,000 people per day across the country, raising the total number of samples tested so far to nearly 7.3 million.

India's financial capital of Mumbai and manufacturing hub Chennai are also among India's hardest-hit areas.

The premier Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai announced it would scrap all face-to-face lectures for the rest of the year due to the pandemic, becoming the first major educational institution in India to do so.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...creening-delhi-residents-200625061938897.html
 
India cancels trains as cases rise

Indian Railways have cancelled all passenger, mail and express trains until 12 August as cases continue to rise across India.

Those with booked tickets will get a refund, officials said in a statement.

However, the special trains set up in May to take migrant workers back home will continue.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants were left stranded in cities away from their homes when India went into lockdown in March.

Infections have been sprinting ahead in the country - India has broken its daily record twice in two days, reporting more than 17,000 cases in the last 24 hours.

It has had more than 490,000 cases, including 15,301 confirmed deaths, according to data from the health ministry.
 
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/cor...-covid-19-vaccine-2252557?pfrom=home-bigstory

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said Uttar Pradesh, with a population size the same as four European countries badly hit by the coronavirus, had only a fraction of their death count because of its singular efforts in fighting the deadly contagion.

"England, France, Italy and Spain - these countries at one time had conquered the world and were the biggest powers of the world, but if you add up the populations of all these countries it comes to 24 crore, but in India, UP alone has 24 crore. How effective UP has been can be seen from the fact that the four European nations together had 1,30,000 deaths due to COVID-19. But in UP, the number of deaths is 600. It shows that UP has been tacking the issue proactively and effectively," said the P
 
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One a Feku, always a Feku. So he is praising his party man and putting down other nations? And what about the no. of tests done by UP vis-a-vis England, France, Italy and Spain?

However his followers will surely believe his uninformed ramblings.
 
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Lol, so number of deaths is low so UP has handled it well. I read about a fortnight back that UP has tested less than 1% of its total population. So there you go.
 
India's cases spike again to near half-million

India neared half a million coronavirus cases on Friday, recording its biggest 24-hour spike with 17,296 new infections.

The cases took India's total to 490,401. The health ministry also reported another 407 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities up to 15,301.

Indian Railways was due to resume regular train services on June 30 but said on Thursday that services would not fully resume until August 12. Special trains linking main cities have been running since mid-May as part of the easing of the lockdown.
 
Assam will enforce a complete shutdown in the Kamrup Metropolitan district from June 28 for a fortnight and urban areas of the state will be brought under lockdown during the weekend as the number of coronavirus cases (Covid-19) surged in the northeastern state, its health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

“A complete lockdown will be imposed in the entire Kamrup Metropolitan district from the midnight of June 28 for the next 14 days due to the rise in Covid-19 cases. Medical stores will remain open during the lockdown,” Himanta Biswa Sarma was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The minister said that a lockdown on Saturdays and Sundays will be enforced in Assam’s urban areas.

“Areas falling under the jurisdiction of town committees and municipalities will come under the ambit of the weekend lockdown and will continue until further notice,” Sarma added.

Assam has reported 6,321 cases of the coronavirus disease and nine people have died till date, according to the Union health ministry.

There are 2,279 active cases and 4,033 patients have been discharged from hospitals.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...th-minister/story-LqaC52SMNc4BzYKtyajQIO.html
 
India's cases spike again to near half-million

India neared half a million confirmed coronavirus cases with its biggest 24-hour spike of 17,296 new infections, prompting a delay in resumption of regular train services of more than a month.

The new cases took India's total to 490,401. The Health Ministry also reported 407 more deaths in the previous 24 hours, taking its total fatalities to 15,301.

The ministry said the recovery rate was continuing to improve at 57.43%. Also, deaths per 100,000 stood at 1.86 against the world average of 6.24 per 100,000, it said.

Indian Railways was due to resume regular train service on June 30 but said Thursday that it wouldn't fully resume until August 12.

Trains were halted when the government declared a nationwide lockdown in late March. Special trains linking main cities have been running since mid-May as part of an easing of the lockdown.
 
India crosses 5 lakh mark as it reports highest single-day spike of 18552 new COVID19 cases; 384 deaths in last 24 hours.

Positive cases in India stand at 508953 including 197387 active cases, 295881 cured/discharged/migrated & 15685 deaths: Ministry of Health & Family Welfare
 
A municipal commissioner and a sanitary inspector of a town in Andhra Pradesh were suspended for allegedly permitting the local civic staff to tow away the body of a Covid-19 victim with an earth mover to the cremation ground on Friday.

The incident happened in Palasa-Kasibugga municipality of Srikakulam district. Collector J Nivas suspended municipal commissioner T Nagendra Kumar and sanitary inspector N Rajeev, after a video of the municipal staff carrying the packed body of a 72-year old Covid-19 victim in the front portion of the a JCB earthmover went viral in the social media and was flashed in the television channels in the afternoon.

A senior official in the Srikakulam information department said the deceased, who had worked as a Class IV employee in the municipal office in the past, was already ailing and suffering from comorbidities. He succumbed at his residence in Udayapuram area on Thursday night.

“The doctors of Palasa government hospital said they would have to conduct Covid-19 tests on the body as per the protocol. On Friday morning, it was revealed that he was Covid-19 positive,” the official said.

While the family members had not come forward to cremate the body, the neighbours brought pressure on the municipal authorities to take the body from the area at the earliest.

“Since it was a small town, there was no ambulance facility to take the body to the cremation crowd. The municipal authorities thought of bringing ambulance from Srikakulam, but the neighbours were not willing to wait till then. Hence, the municipal commissioner had no option but to shift the body to the cremation ground using an earthmover,” the official said.

He said none of the family members came to the cremation ground though the municipal staff offered them PPE kits and masks.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/andh...-towed-away/story-6Vq1zliN1qVh4sN4dcKhzN.html
 
I guess interest in this losing steam in India.

No posts by indian posters on the thread for few days and I saw on an Indian forum coronavirus wasn’t even in top 15 topics of a time pass equivalent sub forum
 
Hotels and ashrams are being repurposed for coronavirus care in Delhi, India, following a surge of coronavirus cases.

AFP reports:

Staff at the luxury Suryaa hotel used to wear bright saris as they welcomed guests. Now they must don medical suits and handle gurneys as New Delhi desperately prepares for a predicted surge in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks.

The pandemic is still raging in India with more than half a million cases. The capital, home to 25 million people, is the country’s worst-hit city - its hospitals at breaking point and authorities reaching deep to confront the crisis.

“For doctors and nurses it is a part of their lives. For us this is a totally new experience and a very difficult one at that,” said Ritu Yadav, operations manager at the five-star Suryaa, as staff in masks rush to deep clean the building.

“We have got training from the hospital on how to wear the PPE and then take it off but this is something I never thought I would have to do when I chose hospitality as my career.”

Delhi, home to some of India’s most crowded slums, has around 75,000 cases so far, but the city government predicts this will soar to half a million by the end of July.

With newspapers full of reports about patients being turned away from overflowing hospitals, Delhi told the city’s hotels earlier this month they would be roped in to provide hospital care.

It is also converting wedding halls, and has several hundred repurposed railway coaches standing by - without air conditioning despite outside temperatures over 40C (105F).

The Delhi authorities have even started converting a spiritual centre or ashram into a coronavirus isolation facility and hospital with 10,000 beds, many made of cardboard.
 
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