Eminent virologist T Jacob John said XE means there were XA, XB, XC and XD earlier but none of them were given much attention.
Tag: Pandemic
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Kelsea Ballerini tests positive for Covid-19
By ANI
WASHINGTON: Singer Kelsea Ballerini is not in the pink of health as she has tested positive for Covid-19. She was unable to make it to the CMT Awards due to her illness and co-hosted the show from home, CNN reported. Just a few hours before the ceremony, Kelsea took to Instagram to update her fans and followers about her diagnosis.
“A couple days ago I tested positive for Covid. The CMT Awards are tonight, so unfortunately I cannot be there in person anymore, and I am devastated. I’m gutted. The good news is that I’m feeling a lot better,” she said in a video posted on her Instagram account.
She continued, “The incredible CMT family and my team have brought part of the CMT set to my house, to my bubble, and set it up to where I can still host and perform. It is certainly not what we had expected and planned for, but we are doing our damn best. I will still see you tonight on the awards and let’s make some lemonade together out of these very bitter lemons. I am so sorry, but have so much for me if you’re going to the show, and if you’re watching on TV, I will see you there.”
The 2022 CMT Music Awards took place at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium on Monday.
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No reason to worry until a new Covid variant of concern gets detected, says Satyendar Jain
By PTI
NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is keeping a watchful eye over the COVID-19 situation and there was no reason to worry until a new variant of concern is detected, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Monday.
Interacting with reporters here, the minister also sought to allay apprehensions over the steady rise in daily cases in Delhi and the positivity rate being recorded beyond one per cent in the last few days.
“The count of daily cases in Delhi is being reported in the range of 100-200. We are keeping an eye on hospital admissions, and that is going down. Focus shouldn’t be on positivity rate much as of now,” Jain said.
Delhi reported 141 fresh Covid cases and one more death on Sunday, while the positivity rate stood at 1.29 percent, according to data shared by the city health department.
The minister’s remarks comes amid the scare of a new coronavirus variant. Jain said, “everyday a new variant is getting generated as the virus is mutating”.
“The Delhi government is keeping a watchful eye over the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The World Health Organisation has not declared any new variant of concern. There is no reason to worry until a new variant of concern gets detected,” he said.
The genomic analysis of the COVID-19 XE variant sample from Gujarat is still underway and results are expected soon, Union health ministry sources had said on Saturday.
The WHO has issued a warning against XE, a new variant of Omicron first detected in the UK, and suggested that it could be more transmissible than any COVID-19 strain so far.
The XE variant is a combination or recombinant of both sub-variants — BA.1 and BA.2 — of Omicron.
Gujarat reported its first case of the XE variant after a man from Mumbai tested positive for COVID-19 during his visit to Vadodara, a state official had said.
Earlier to this, Mumbai civic body officials had said that a woman who had arrived from South Africa in February-end and tested positive in March has been infected by the XE variant, but the health ministry has not confirmed it to be so. The ministry had said that present evidence does not yet indicate that it is a case of the XE variant.
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COVID-19 has not gone, is changing forms and resurfacing: PM Modi
“Corona (pandemic) was a big crisis, and we are not saying that the crisis is over. It may have taken a pause, but we never know when it will resurface.”
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After Mumbai, Vadodara reports case of XE variant of Omicron
Express News Service
NEW DELHI//AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government on Saturday reported the first case of Omicron’s sub-variant XE in the state. Said to be 10 per cent more transmissible, this was detected in a man from Mumbai who tested positive for Covid-19 during his visit to Vadodara. He has gone back to Mumbai and is said to be in stable condition.
This is the second reported case of the variant in India, after one in Mumbai earlier this week. The Central government, which denied that the case in Mumbai was one of XE, did not comment on the Gujarat case till late in the evening. Experts have advised not to panic, saying that this combination of the BA.1 and BA.2 strains of Omicron will not be dangerous for a vaccinated population.
Officials at the Indian Sars-coV-2 Genome Consortium (INSACOG), a network of labs that tracks sequences, and the Union health ministry are yet to confirm if the Gujarat case is actually an XE variant.
According to Gujarat health department officials, a test was conducted on a 67-year-old man who came to Vadodara from Mumbai last month. He took a Covid-19 test after complaining of fever. The report was positive. This was around March 15. His samples were sent for genome sequencing to Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre in Gandhinagar for testing as per ICMR guidelines. The report came on Friday night.
Those who came in contact with the man from Mumbai have tested negative. “Covid test reports of three persons who came in contact with the patient are negative,” the Gujarat health department said. “Condition of the patient was stable when the health department had a conversation with him over the phone. As precautionary measures, action has been taken in that area in Vadodara as per Covid guidelines,” said the health department in a media statement.
Gujarat’s Additional Chief Secretary of Health, Manoj Agarwal said, “Transition capability of the XE variant is higher than Omicron. The hospitalisation process is the same. The Centre will continue to provide guidance.” The current variant has generated concern worldwide and in India, which has just lifted all Covid-related restrictions, with many states making it not mandatory to wear masks anymore.
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India logs 1,033 new COVID-19 cases
By PTI
NEW DELHI: With 1,033 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,30,31,958, while the active cases dipped to 11,639, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.
The death toll climbed to 5,21,530 with 43 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated. The active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent, the ministry said.
A reduction of 232 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The daily positivity rate was recorded as 0.21 per cent and the weekly positivity rate as 0.22 per cent, according to the ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,24,98,789 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.21 per cent.
The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 185.20 crore.
India’s 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.
The 43 new fatalities include 32 from Kerala. A total of 5,21,530 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,47,800 from Maharashtra, 68,228 from Kerala, 40,056 from Karnataka, 38,025 from Tamil Nadu, 26,155 from Delhi, 23,497 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,200 from West Bengal.
The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.
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India logs 795 new COVID-19 cases; active cases dip to 12,054: Union Health Ministry
By PTI
NEW DELHI: With 795 new coronavirus infections reported in a day, India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,30,29,839, while the active cases dipped to 12,054, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.
The death toll climbed to 5,21,416 with 58 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated. The active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent, the ministry said.
A reduction of 543 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.17 per cent and the weekly positivity rate was at 0.22 per cent, according to the ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,24,96,369, while the case fatality rate was recorded as 1.21 per cent. The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 184.87 crore.
India’s 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.
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Thane district logs six new coronavirus positive cases
By PTI
THANE: With the addition of six new coronavirus positive cases, the infection count in Thane district of Maharashtra mounted to 7,08,796, an official said on Sunday.
These new cases were reported on Saturday. With no fresh fatality, the COVID-19 death toll in the district remained 11,883. The mortality rate is 1.67 per cent, the official added.
In neighboring Palghar district, the COVID-19 case count is 1,63,591 while the death toll is 3,407, an official from Palghar said.
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Covid: Around 83 per cent of adult population fully vaccinated in UP, says government
By PTI
LUCKNOW: Around 83 per cent of the adult population in Uttar Pradesh has received two doses of the covid vaccine while “over 100 per cent” have got one dose, a state government statement said on Thursday.
In the age group of 15-17, around 93 per cent children have received at least one dose. Calling it a milestone, the statement said according to the CoWin portal, around 30 crore doses have been administered in the state till 2 pm on Thursday.
Uttar Pradesh became the first state in the country to have administered more than 30 crore doses, the government said.
About 83 per cent of the adult population is fully vaccinated while “over 100 per cent” has received one dose, the statement said.
So far, 2,05,03,327 children in the age group of 15-17 and 9,60,066 aged between 12 and 14 have been administered the vaccine in the state, it added.
Over 24.25 lakh “precautionary doses” have been administered in the state so far. To speed up the vaccination drive for children, CM Yogi Adityanath has asked officials to ensure adequate availability of vaccine doses in Uttar Pradesh, the statement said.
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India has ‘lowest’ 374 COVID-19 deaths per million population: Centre
By PTI
NEW DELHI: India has one of the “lowest” 374 COVID-19 deaths per million population, according to the World Health Organisation, compared to similarly affected countries like the USA, Brazil, Russia and Mexico, the government said on Tuesday.
In a written reply, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar told the Rajya Sabha that at times, certain reports have speculated excess deaths, that is, higher than the official number of COVID-19 fatalities reported by India.
“These reports have mostly relied on unvalidated methodologies, or data sources used to derive ‘estimates’ are not reliable. In most of these studies, the results have been obtained using mathematical modelling techniques from a limited sample of small sub-population subgroups which is extrapolated to the entire country,” she said.
The minister was responding to a question on recent reports showing India having the highest number of deaths during the Covid pandemic and whether the official death toll does not match the data on the civil registration system.
“According to the data available with World Health Organisation (WHO), India has one of the lowest deaths per million (374 deaths per million population) which is much lower compared to similarly affected countries like the United States of America (2,920 deaths per million population), Brazil (3,092 deaths per million population), Russia (2,506 deaths per million population) and Mexico (2,498 deaths per million population),” she mentioned in her reply.
In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, detailed guidelines for reporting of deaths have been issued by the Union health ministry to all states and Union territories (UTs).
The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) had on May 10, 2020 issued ‘Guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 related deaths in India’.
Accordingly, all states/UTs report cases and deaths to the health ministry and the same is also put in public domain on a regular basis.
A large number of states have regularly reconciled their death numbers and have reported arrear deaths in a broadly transparent manner, Pawar said.
Furthermore, it must be noted that there is a monetary incentive in India to report COVID-19 deaths as they are entitled to ex-gratia compensation.
India has a robust Civil Registration System (CRS) and Sample Registration System (SRS) which predates the COVID-19 pandemic and covers all states/UTs.
The registration of deaths in the country is done under the Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969 by functionaries appointed by the state government, she added.