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Is India heading towards a fifth wave of COVID-19? Will this new recombinant variant XBB.1.16 lead to a massive surge in cases? Several questions are back in the minds of people residing in the national capital as the city reported over 300 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. According to the data, this is the first time that Delhi saw a big jump in the daily infection rate ever since September 2022. CM Kejriwal Calls For Emergency Meeting Amid Huge Spike In Cases Taking cognizance of the deteriorating COVID situation in the national capital, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government called for an emergency meeting on Thursday. The panel in the meeting will discuss key points on how prepared the city is when it comes to handling a fresh COVID surge. The meeting has been called by Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj who will be accompanied by senior health department officials, medical directors of state-run hospitals and other stakeholders. The meeting comes a day after Delhi ...

Air passengers travelling from China to the US will no longer be needed to get tested for COVID-19 and produce a negative test result. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday lifted mandatory COVID-19 test requirements for travellers from China. Staring January 5, the US had made pre-departure negative COVID tests mandatory for travellers flying from China, considering the sudden surge in coronavirus cases in China in December last year. With the new decision coming into effect on Friday evening, passengers on flights departing to the US from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, didn't require to show pre-departure negative COVID tests, as reported by Xinhua news agency. Global COVID-19 update: US records highest numbers of new cases According to WHO, nearly 4.5 million new COVID-19 cases and 32,000 deaths related to the disease were reported worldwide from February 6 to March 5, 2023 (total 28 days). The number of new cases and deaths decreased by 5...

The Serum Institute of India has offered two crore doses of Covishield vaccine to the central government free of cost amid a rise in COVID-19 cases in some countries, official sources said today. According to an official source, Prakash Kumar Singh, Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Serum Institute, has written to the Health Ministry offering the doses worth ₹ 410 crore free of cost, reported Press Trust of India. It is learnt that Mr Singh has sought to know from the ministry how the delivery can be made. Serum Institute of India or SII has so far provided more than 170 crore doses of Covishield to the government for the national immunisation programme.Amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in some countries, including China and South Korea, the government has sounded an alert and asked states and Union territories to prepare for any eventuality.India has stepped its surveillance and genome sequencing of Covid positive samples. With only 27 per cent of the eligible adult...

Testing and genome sequencing will be increased in the state of Haryana Anil Vij also informed Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya through a virtual meeting about the preparations made to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the state of Haryana. At the same time, while talking to Mansukh Mandaviya, he said that the way the central government has taken necessary measures on time to fight the new variant. Similarly, preparations are being made in Haryana at the state level. Instructions have been issued to the officers of the department. With all, Apart from corona, RTPCR test will also be done in cases of severe and acute respiratory infections. 26 RTPCR labs are functioning in 22 districts of Haryana State. At the same time, all the health workers have been ordered to wear Covid masks and gloves while on duty. Orders have also been issued for carrying out genome sequencing. Along with this, the Health Department is following the test-track-treat and vaccine proces...

Chinese cities are witnessing a wave of Covid-19 cases, with concerns growing that the government may be hiding the true toll of the virus after years of insisting that the Communist Party had handled the virus more skillfully than the West. On Monday, police and security guards pushed journalists back from a Beijing crematorium. A spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about Price's remarks. Covid-19 U-Turn The outbreak has grown following the government's decision to lift a raft of strict restrictions, including quarantine and isolation protocols, that had largely insulated China's 1.4 billion people from the worst impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. China's U-turn on Covid-19 followed protests in late November in numerous Chinese cities after the containment measures were blamed for deaths after a fire in the country's western Xinjiang region. Health agencies, including the US Centers for Diseas...

The active cases comprise 0.04 percent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.77 percent.Active Covid-19 caseloads fell by 485 in a span of 24 hours.Daily positivity rate stood at 1.02 percent, and the weekly positivity rate was at 1.08 per cent.Case fatalitity rate was at 1.18 percent, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease rose to 4,41,04,933. India' COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year. It crossed the four-crore mark on January 25 this year. According to ministry data, 219.63 crore doses of vaccines have been administered in the country so far under t...