Omicron variant Updates: Schools, colleges to reopen in Uttar Pradesh from February 7

Tamil Nadu has inoculated 90.78 per cent of people above the age of 18 with the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 by administering the vaccine to 1,86,785 people. At the 21st mega vaccination camp held on Saturday, the State Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said as much as 70.02 per cent received the second dose with 5,77,397 people getting the jab. He inspected the vaccination at the Government Omandurar Medical College and Hospital in the city.

Haryana on Saturday reported 14 more Covid-related deaths while 1,980 fresh cases took the infection tally to 9,63,319, according to a health department bulletin. So far, 10,386 people have died from the infection in the state. Gurugram district reported 682 fresh cases while 253 infections were from Faridabad. The fatalities included two each from Sirsa, Yamunanagar and Kaithal among other districts, as per the bulletin.

 The COVID-19 tally in Madhya Pradesh crossed the 10 lakh-mark on Saturday and reached 10,00,582 with the detection of 5,533 cases, while eight deaths in the last 24 hours took the toll to 10,656, a health department official said.
The positivity rate, or cases detected per 100 tests, dipped to 7 per cent from 8.2 per cent a day earlier, he pointed out.
The recovery count stood at 9,41,940 after 8,558 people were discharged during the day, leaving the state with an active tally of 47,986, the official said.
Bhopal and Indore, the two worst coronavirus-hit cities of Madhya Pradesh, registered 1,098 and 679 cases, respectively, in the last 24 hours, he added.
With 78,071 samples examined during the day, the number of tests in MP went up to 2,63,16,357, the official said.

Maharashtra on Saturday recorded 11,394 new coronavirus positive cases, a drop of 2,446 from the day before, and 68 fatalities, including 28 in the Pune circle, due to COVID-19 related complications, the state health department said.
On Friday, the daily number of cases had dropped by 1,412 from Thursday's count of 15,252 when 75 people succumbed to COVID-19 infection, the health department said.

Rajasthan on Saturday recorded 19 more deaths and 5,602 new cases of COVID-19, officials said.
According to the health department, the new cases include 916 in Jaipur, 615 in Jodhpur, 465 in Alwar, 341 in Udaipur and 311 in Sriganganagar.
On Friday, 9,309 people recovered from the infection, while 51,143 Covid patients are under treatment in the state, they said.
Of the 19 deaths, six were reported in Jaipur, three in Sirohi, two each in Sikar and Bikaner and one each in Karauli, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bhilwara, Barmer and Pali.
The state's Covid death toll stands at 9,372.

Daily COVID-19 cases continued to show a declining trend in Telangana on Saturday, with 2,098 fresh infections being reported taking the tally to 7,76,313, a health department bulletin said. The state had recorded 2,387 cases on February 4. The number of recoveries also continued to outnumber fresh infections on Saturday, with 3,801 people recuperating from the infectious disease. Active cases stood at 29,226. The cumulative number of recoveries till date was 7,42,988.

Karnataka on Saturday registered a further decline in daily coronavirus infections, as the state reported 12,009 new cases and 50 fatalities, taking the tally to 38,87,733 and toll to 39,300. The state on Friday had reported 14,950 fresh infections. There were 25,854 discharges today, taking the total number of recoveries to 37,39,197, a health bulletin said. 

Mumbai on Saturday reported 643 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the tally in the metropolis to 10,50,837, while four deaths increased the toll to 16,658, a civic official said.
It is the third consecutive day when new cases remained below 1,000, with Friday and Thursday seeing 846 and 827 infections, respectively, he said.
He also said 553, or 86 per cent, of the 645 cases detected were asymptomatic, with 92 required hospitalisation in the last 24 hours, of who 18 needed oxygen support.

With schools gearing up to reopen for classes 9 to 12 from Monday, authorities have inoculated 82 per cent adolescents in Delhi with the first dose since the exercise to vaccinate them against coronavirus commenced from January 3. According to official data, 8.33 lakh adolescents have received the first dose and 0.39 lakh have been jabbed with the second dose. Delhi has around 10.14 lakh beneficiaries in the 15-18 age group.

According to officials, 95 per cent of government school students have been vaccinated, while 73 per cent students of aided school students have received at least one dose. Sixty-two per cent private school students have been inoculated with at least one dose. The maximum number of adolescents have been inoculated with the first dose in southwest district at 1,12,521 followed by northwest at 10,87,99 and west at 84,958.

 Kerala continued to witness a dip in the daily COVID-19 infection rate for the third consecutive day, with the state reporting 33,538 new positive cases on Saturday taking the caseload to 62,44,654.
The health department said 46,813 persons recuperated from the disease today, taking the number of recoveries to 58,33,762.
"Currently, there are 3,52,399 active COVID-19 cases in the state of which only three per cent of the patients are admitted to hospitals," it said.

Tripura logged 52 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, 10 less than the previous day's figure, taking the tally to 1,00,637, a health department official said here. One more coronavirus patient succumbed to the disease in the past 24 hours raising the death toll to 913. Altogether 594 patients recovered from Covid-19 on Saturday. The total number of people who have been cured of the disease till now is 98,472.

The Centre has placed a purchase order with Biological E for five crore doses of Covid vaccine Corbevax each costing Rs 145 excluding taxes, official sources said on Saturday. The government is yet to decide on which segment of beneficiaries this new vaccine would be administered. However, according to sources, discussions are underway in technical groups and in the Health Ministry's immunisation division about expanding the scope of the precaution doses which are currently being given to healthcare and frontline workers, and comorbid senior citizens.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Saturday said that there is a shortage of vaccines for the age group of 15-17 years in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad due to which the pace of inoculations in the area has slowed down. "It has come to notice that vaccine stock for the 15-17 age group isn't enough in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. 

Israel's Health Ministry has decided to ease the Covid-19 Green Pass system, which stipulates that only those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease can enter crowded indoor or outdoor places. According to the decision, which will take effect on Monday, restaurants, cinemas, hotels, and gyms, among other places, will no longer require a green pass upon entry, reports Xinhua news agency. A green pass, however, is needed at venues where there is a significant danger of infection, such as event halls and nightclubs. According to the Health Ministry, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Israel has risen to 3,111,307, with 46,429 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. The country's death toll rose by 38 to 9,111, while the number of patients in critical condition decreased from 1,147 to 1,130, according to the Ministry.

A total of 45 new positive tests for COVID-19 have been announced by organizers of the Beijing Olympics. Athletes and officials account for 25 of the cases, with 20 detected in people arriving at the airport in Beijing and five more in daily PCR tests taken by everyone at the games. The 20 other cases involved people working at the games, including media, with six at the airport and 14 inside the Olympic bubbles. Organizing committee official Huang Chun says the numbers are “within our expectations.” A drop in cases is expected in the days ahead as fewer people arrive for the games and those inside the bubbles have already returned several days of negative tests. The overall total of COVID-19 cases at the games is 353 since Jan 23. More than 12,000 people have arrived from outside China.

After Moderna refused to share its mRNA vaccine knowledge, South African scientists backed by the World Health Organization (WHO), made a copy of the jab developed by the US drugmaker. The vaccine developed by new vaccine - Afrigen Biologics may help boost vaccination rates across Africa, which has the lowest uptake of Covid shots in the world, the BBC reported. The Cape Town-based company hopes to begin clinical trials in November. Moderna previously said it would not enforce the patents on its vaccine, allowing scientists in Cape Town to make their own version of it, the report said. "We have used the sequence, which is the same sequence as the Moderna vaccine 1273," Petro Terblanche, director of Afrigen Biologics, was quoted as saying.

Singapore has detected a record 13,208 COVID-19 infections and six new deaths, taking the total number of cases to 379,681 with 866 fatalities recorded in the country, the health ministry has said. The number of locally transmitted COVID-19 infections tripled to 13,046 on Friday from 4,087 cases reported on Thursday. The cases reported on Friday included 162 people arriving here through the vaccinated travel lanes. As for the Friday wave record, 10,312 cases were identified by antigen rapid tests and were assessed to have mild symptoms and are of low risk. The other 2,734 local cases were detected through polymerase chain reaction tests, said the Ministry of Health said in its daily virus update on its website. Six deaths linked to COVID-19 complications were reported on Friday, it said.

The educational institutions were closed in wake of coronavirus pandemic in the state of Uttar Pradesh. 

All schools for all classes in the Pune district are allowed to open full day (regular hours) from Monday, 7th February: Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar. 

Due to unequal distribution, people over the age 65 at the highest risk for severe Covid-19 have often been the least likely to receive monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), according to new research. Monoclonal antibodies are very effective at treating mild to moderate Covid-19 infection among non-hospitalised patients. But during the pandemic, mAbs have been in short supply. "Monoclonal antibodies should first go to patients at the highest risk of death from Covid-19, but the opposite happened -- the healthiest patients were the most likely to get treatment," said Michael Barnett, Assistant Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "Unfortunately, our federal and state system for distributing these drugs has failed our most vulnerable patients," he added.

Claiming that the COVID-19 situation in Madhya Pradesh has come under control, state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced lifting of the restriction on the number of people attending wedding ceremonies from Saturday. Due to a spike in coronavirus positive cases, the state government had capped the number of people attending weddings at 250 starting January 15. "Wishing you all a very happy Basant Panchami. It is a matter of satisfaction that COVID-19 is under control in the state, hence the restrictions on the number of guests in marriages and other auspicious functions are being lifted from Basant Panchami," Chouhan said in a tweet on Friday night, in which he also urged people to follow guidelines. The state home department later issued an order stating that the restriction of 250 attendees in wedding ceremonies is being withdrawn with immediate effect.

The COVID-19 tally of Andaman and Nicobar Islands rose to 9,883 on Saturday as 16 more people tested positive for the infection, a health bulletin said. One new patient has travel history, while 15 infections were detected during contact tracing, it said. The Union territory now has 211 active cases, while 9,543 people have recovered from the disease so far, including 53 in the last 24 hours. The death toll remained unchanged at 129 as no fresh fatality was recorded. The administration has tested over 6.88 lakh samples for COVID-19, and inoculated over 3 lakh people with two doses of the vaccine. Meanwhile, the administration has decided to reopen all government, government-aided and private schools for classes 6-9 on an alternate day basis from February 8 with strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols, a notification said. However, physical attendance will not be compulsory as classes will also continue in the online mode. Those attending offline classes would be required to get written consent of their guardians, it said. Students of standards 1-5 will, however, continue to attend classes through the online mode, it added.

Arunachal Pradesh reported 196 fresh COVID-19 cases, while 407 more patients recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, a health department official said on Saturday. The state’s coronavirus tally rose to 63,315 with the single-day infections, and the recovery count stood at 61,039, he said. The death toll remained at 291, as no new fatality was reported since Friday, State Surveillance Officer Lobsang Jampa said. Arunachal Pradesh now has 1,985 active cases, with the Capital Complex Region, comprising Itanagar, Naharlagun, Nirjuli and Banderdewa areas, topping the list with 669 active infections, followed by Lower Subansiri (246) and West Kameng (127). A total of 12,46,692 samples have been tested for COVID-19 so far, including 1,747 on Friday, Jampa said, adding, the positivity rate dipped to 11.21 per cent from 11.31 per cent the previous day. State Immunisation Officer Dimong Padung said 15,89,939 people have been inoculated till date.

Ladakh's COVID-19 caseload increased to 26,710 on Saturday as 150 more people tested positive for the viral disease, officials said. The death toll remained unchanged at 226. While Leh reported 86 fresh cases, Kargil reported 64, the officials said. Of the total 226 deaths, 167 were reported from Leh and 59 from Kargil. As many as 218 more COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovering from the disease. Of these, 125 patients were discharged in Leh and 93 in Kargil, the officials said. With this, the total number of recoveries in Ladakh has increased to 25,405, they said. There are 1,079 active cases- 666 in Leh and 413 in Kargil- in Ladakh. The positivity rate stands at 4.2 per cent, they said.

The Central Government on Saturday said that over 11.02 crore balance and unutilized COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the States and Union Territories (UTs).According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, "More than 166.17 crore (1,66,17,16,335) vaccine doses have been provided to States/UTs so far through Govt. of India (free of cost channel) and through direct state procurement category.""More than 11.02 Cr (11,02,64,356) balance and unutilized COVID Vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered," the Ministry said.The vaccination drive has been ramped up through the availability of more vaccines, advanced visibility of vaccine availability to States and UTs for enabling better planning by them and streamlining the vaccine supply chain.The Centre has been supporting the States and UTs by providing them COVID Vaccines free of cost.In the new phase of the universalization of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, the government will procure and supply (free of cost) 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the vaccine manufacturers in the country to States and UTs.The nationwide COVID-19 vaccination started on January 16, 2021. The new phase of universalization of COVID-19 vaccination commenced from June 21, 2021.

READ FULL STORY HERE:

With the addition of 408 coronavirus positive cases, the infection count in Thane district of Maharashtra grew to 7,05,037, an official said on Saturday. These cases were reported on Friday, he said. As the virus claimed the lives of five patients during the day, the death toll in the district rose to 11,812. Thane's COVID-19 mortality rate is 1.67 per cent now, he added. In neighbouring Palghar district, the caseload has gone up to 1,62,691 and the death toll to 3,384, another official said.

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 390.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.72 million and vaccinations to over 10.02 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Saturday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 390,541,923 and 5,724,286, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 10,026,600,679. The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 76,344,963 and 901,288, according to the CSSE. The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (41,952,712 infections and 500,055 deaths), followed by Brazil (26,326,454 infections and 631,265 deaths). The other countries with over 5 million cases are France (20,517,059), the UK (17,809,813), Russia (12,257,664), Turkey (12,051,852), Italy (11,449,601), Germany (10,779,641), Spain (10,199,716), Argentina (8,555,379), Iran (6,520,707), Colombia (5,943,783), Mexico (5,106,048) and Poland (5,083,332), the CSSE figures showed.

Mumbai on Friday reported 846 new coronavirus cases and seven deaths, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. The tally of infections in the city rose to 10,50,194 and death toll to 16,654. On the second day in a row, the city reported less than 1,000 COVID-19 cases. On Thursday, Mumbai had reported 827 new cases and seven fatalities. The positivity rate (number of infections found per 100 tests), fell to 1.90 per cent from 2.29 per cent a day before. In the last 24 hours, 44,323 COVID-19 tests, nearly 8,000 more than the previous day, were carried out in the city, taking the tally of tests conducted so far to 1,54,67,411. With 1,297 patients recovering during the day, the tally of recoveries jumped to 10,23,589. The city's rate of recovery is 97 per cent.

The daily COVID-19 positivity rate in Bengaluru has fallen to 9.17 per cent, the lowest since January 8, said the state health minister K Sudhakar on Friday. He also said that daily new cases in the city have fallen by 80 per cent from the peak of 30,540 cases on January 20 and active cases are currently at around fifty-one thousand."Positivity rate in Bengaluru falls to a single digit (9.17 per cent), lowest since January 8. Daily new cases have fallen by 80% from the peak of 30,540 on Jan 20. Active cases at 51k and falling sharply #Bengaluru #COVID19@BSBommai @mansukhmandviya," said a tweet from the minister.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has endorsed recommendation from its vaccine advisers for use of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine for people ages 18 years and older. The recommendation came after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday granted full approval to the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, Xinhua news agency reported. "We now have another fully approved Covid-19 vaccine," said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in a statement. "If you have been waiting for approval before getting vaccinated, now is the time to join the nearly 212 million Americans who have already completed their primary series. CDC continues to recommend that people remain up to date on their Covid-19 vaccines, including getting a booster shot when eligible," she said. Earlier on Friday, the CDC's vaccine advisers voted unanimously to recommend the two-dose Moderna Covid-19 vaccine for people ages 18 years and older. The vaccine, named Spikevax, joins Pfizer-BioNTech's formulation as the two fully-approved Covid-19 vaccines in the United States. The full approval suggests Spikevax meets the FDA's rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality.

Of the 693 fatalities recorded in Delhi between January 13 and February 3, COVID-19 was the primary cause of death in only 23.5 per cent of the cases, according to official data. In 530 cases, the COVID-19 finding was incidental while in nine cases, the virus was detected among trauma patients. An analysis of the data showed that of the 693 deaths recorded during the period, the virus was the primary cause in 163 cases. In 530 fatalities, the finding of the virus was incidental as the patients had comorbidities and were ailing for long, according to officials. "The deaths where COVID-19 is reported in the patients are treated as coronavirus deaths. It is an established principle. We have a panel of experts and the analysis was done to see whether there was a pattern to the pneumonia that was typical of Covid, but it was found that the fatalities were among those who were end-stage patients," an official had said earlier. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain has been stressing that a majority of the patients who succumbed to COVID-19 during the third wave of the pandemic had comorbidities.

Vaccine effectiveness of 99.3 per cent has been seen in individuals fully inoculated against Covid as per the data uploaded on India Covid-19 Tracker till January 2, the Parliament was told on Friday. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has developed the India Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker, by merging mainly three national databases- CoWIN, National Covid-19 Testing database and Covid-19 India portal, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. "The latest data analysed and uploaded till January 2, 2022 depicts vaccine effectiveness of 99.3 per cent in fully vaccinated individuals against Covid-19," he said, adding that the tracker is updated periodically and displays the effectiveness of partial and full vaccination against Covid-19. He said that the Omicron variant is the dominant variant in the country presently. Whole genome sequencing for Omicron variant is done for all RTPCR positive samples from international travellers arriving since November 28, 2021. Stressing that the Centre is supporting states in their endeavour to manage Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, Mandaviya said that given the emergence of mutated variants with variable impact on transmissibility, virulence and effectiveness of vaccines, the likelihood of resurgence of Covid-19 trajectory in the country is monitored by various expert committees under ICMR, DGHS and other departments.

Experts in Mizoram believe that spread of the Omicron variant is behind the rapidly rising number of cases of COVID-19 in the state even though this is yet to be confirmed by genome sequencing. State nodal officer for Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and official spokesperson on COVID-19, Dr Pachuau Lalmalsawma, said that Omicron variant could be the reason for the high infection rate in Mizoram although genome sequencing to prove that Omicron variant has spread to this hilly border state is still awaited. “Our main suspect behind the rapid increase in COVID-19 case is Omicron, as most patients developed symptoms of the new variant,” he told PTI. The number of daily infections in the state rose from 33 cases on December 20, 2021, just before Christmas to 265 a day on New Year's day 2022, to 2,531 cases on February 1, this year. Mizoram's spike continues even as cases have started falling in most major cities and states including eastern India's biggest connectivity hub - Kolkata.

The number of US deaths caused by the novel coronavirus disease surpassed 9,00,000, according to the tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).On Friday afternoon, the JHU tally showed 9,00,334 people in the United States have died due to COVID-19 and more than 76 million cases have been confirmed in the country since January 2020. Less than two months ago, in mid-December, the United States passed the 8,00,000 mark in Covid-related deaths as the more-transmissible Omicron variant spread through the country. 

Maharashtra reported 13,840 new COVID-19 cases during the last 24 hours, said the state Health Department on Friday. However, no case of the Omicron variant of the virus was reported during the last 24 hours. The cases of Omicron variant in the state currently stand at 3,334.With this, the total cases of COVID-19 in the state have gone up to 77,82,640. During the last 24 hours, 27,891 people recovered from the infection, taking the total recoveries in the state to 74,91,759.81 people lost their lives to the deadly virus during the last 24 hours. The death toll in the state due to the virus currently stands at 1,42,940. There are currently 1,44,011 active COVID-19 cases in the state.

Chile set a new record for daily Covid-19 infections, after registering 37,468 cases in a day and topping 37,000 for the first time, for a total of 2,296,712 infections, the Ministry of Health has said on Friday. It also announced that in the same period, 43 deaths associated with Covid-19 were reported, bringing the death toll to 39,867, Xinhua news agency reported. The 24-hour Covid-19 positivity rate was 23.92 per cent nationally, and 23.95 per cent in the Santiago Metropolitan Region. Meanwhile, Health Minister Enrique Paris explained on Friday that the virus "is producing an increase in cases worldwide, with 3 million cases recorded around the world yesterday." In recent weeks, Chile has registered new peaks in infections, with over 35,000 new cases in one day and more than 125,000 active cases, driven by the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.