The restriction on arrival of flights to the Kolkata Airport from six cities has been extended up to August 31, the airport said in a tweet today. The six cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad — are coronavirus hotspots.
The successful implementation of containment strategy, aggressive testing coupled with standardised clinical management of critical patients have resulted in the rise of COVID-19 recovery rate to nearly 70% while the case fatality rate has fallen below 2%, said the Union Health Ministry today. With more patients recuperating and being discharged from hospitals and home isolation (in case of mild and moderate cases), the total recoveries have jumped to 15,83,489 with 47,746 patients getting discharged in a span of 24 hours, it said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding a meeting with chief ministers of 10 states to discuss the Covid-19 situation as India recorded over 53,000 new cases in a span of 24 hours. With 53,601 new cases, India’s Covid-19 tally climbed to 22,68,675. In the last 24 hours, 871 additional deaths have been reported and the total number of fatalities has risen to 45,257. The states expected to be part of the conference are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Bihar, Gujarat, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. In his earlier interaction with chief ministers, PM Modi had rubbished speculations of imposition of a lockdown and asked all CMs to decide on the strategy to fight the pandemic.
Meanwhile, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that “green shoots of hope” are emerging at this point in the pandemic and added that all countries should remember it is never too late to turn the Covid-19 outbreak around.”… I want to be clear, there are green shoots of hope and no matter where a country, a region, a city or a town is – it’s never too late to turn the outbreak around. India has reported more confirmed new cases than the United States and Brazil for seven consecutive days. The confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the world has reached 20 million. That’s according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Health officials believe the actual number is much higher, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40% of all those who are infected have no symptoms.
Noted Urdu poet Rahat Indori said on Tuesday that he tested positive for Covid-19. In a tweet in Hindi, he said that he got himself tested on Monday after he experienced initial symptoms of the disease.
The WHO said that there is no indication of there being seasonality with this virus. “This virus is still circulating and we know the majority of the population is still susceptible.” the apex global health agency said.
