News Analysis India

Tag: second covid wave

  • Mahakumbh shoots up Covid superspreader concerns as 5 crore pilgrims set to congregate

    Express News Service
    DEHRADUN: With 500 cases surfacing on Thursday, the day Mahakumbh started, there are fears that the religious congregation may become a ‘Superspreader’ event if requisite measures are not in place. 

    On Friday, a total of 364 cases surfaced taking the tally of active cases in the state to 2404. 

    Anoop Nautiyal, whose Social Development for Communities Foundation has been analysing the Covid data since March 2020 when the first case of Covid surfaced in Uttarakhand, says: “This is a collective responsibility of the government, people, as well as the pilgrims visiting the Mahakumbh to ensure that the most esteemed religious congregation does not become a ‘Superspreader’ event. Increase testing, practise safety measures and vaccinate as much people as possible to avoid getting back to bad Covid situation.” 

    Amit Negi, State Health Secretary said, “We in Uttarakhand have the rate of testing at 24.75% against the national percentage rate of 18.41%. We have vaccinated around 40% of people who are 60 years or above. Every step is being taken to ensure check Covid spread.”

    Meanwhile, Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat held a Covid review meeting and instructed the officials to strengthen safety measures, increase testing, and website that the Covid situation is under control.

    “Every arrangement is at the place to check the spread of Covid and make the Mahakumbh a grand and successful. Families and safety measures for pilgrims and other people are in place,” said the CM. 

    ALSO READ | Mahakumbh 2021 begins in Haridwar with Covid guidelines

    Uttarakhand High Court has already directed to increase the number of testing in Haridwar to a minimum of 50,000 per day instead of 5,000 at present in the wake of Mahakumbh. 

    “Until and unless a larger section of the population is tested for the presence of coronavirus, it would be impossible to detect the spread of the disease,” the court remarked in its order dated Match 31, 2021. 

    Again, according to estimates, over 1 crore devotees may visit Haridwar on April 14, which is also the day of the Baisakhi festival. Officials say over 2 crore devotees may visit Haridwar between April 11 and April 14. Earlier estimates said only 50-60 lakh people will congregate for the Haridwar event. 

    Over 5 crore pilgrims are expected to participate in the event which spans over months. More than 100 drones will be monitoring the congregation round the clock along with 1500 CCTVs. 

    The first royal bath was on March 11, 2021 (Mahashivratri), the second one is on April 12 (Somwati Amavasya), the third on April 14 (Baisakhi Kumbh snan), and the fourth on April 27 (Chaitra Purnima).  Other important baths will take place on the occasion of April 13 (Nav Samvatsar) and April 21 (Ram Navami).

  • This Chhattisgarh district goes under total lockdown for nine days

    Express News Service
    RAIPUR: In the wake of the spike in Covid-19 cases in Chhattisgarh, the Durg district administration has declared to impose a total lockdown for nine days from April 6.

    Collector Sarveshwar Bhure said that the decision was taken owing to a consistent rise in coronavirus cases recently. Durg district is about 40 km west of Raipur.

    “We are working out on which activities will be permitted and regulated during the lockdown duration that will continue till April 14. It will be issued soon”, Bhure said.

    Chhattisgarh recorded 4,617 Covid cases on a single day on Thursday which is only next to Maharashtra with 43,183 infections on that day.

    With the fresh cases consistently on the rise, CM Bhupesh Baghel has appealed to all eligible citizens to visit their nearest immunization centre and get vaccinated. 

  • 21 test positive for Covid-19 in Jharsuguda Engineering School in Odisha

    By Express News Service
    JHARSUGUDA (Odisha): As Covid-19 continues to witness a spike, 21 persons from a State Government-run engineering college in Jharsuguda tested positive on Saturday. Of them, eight are students while 13 are staff members.

    Jharsuguda Engineering School, where the cases were detected, is a diploma engineering college of the State Government. Immediately after the cases surfaced, Jharsuguda tehsildar Dilip Pradhan, municipality officer Jogendra Majhi, and the medical team visited the school premises to assess the situation.

    All the positive persons have been kept in isolation in hostel premises and contact tracing is continuing. On the other hand, college and hostel premises are being sanitised. No officials, however, provided any information on how the transmission started.

    Jharsuguda CDMO LM Routray said,”Our team is investigating the situation at the engineering college. We will have more clarity about the numbers only after they report the preliminary findings.” 

  • Covid resurgence: UP govt scraps annual exams, promotes 1.6 crore students to next level

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: In the wake of the increasing number of Covid cases, the Yogi Adityanath government has promoted over 1.6 crore students of Class I to Class VIII in the state without making them appear for annual examinations.

    The state government scrapped annual examinations in about 1.3 lakh primary schools. The exams scheduled for March 25 and 26 were cancelled and schools were closed for the Holi holidays till March 31 owing to the surge of Covid cases in about 65 districts.

    Active Covid cases doubled in the state during the last six days with 55% of the cases surfacing in nine districts led by state capital Lucknow.

    During the last 24 hours, the state registered 836 fresh cases with four persons died of Covid.

    The state government had declared the closure of primary schools in March last year. They were reopened on February 10 (for Class V to VIII) and March 1 (for classes I to IV) after nearly a year.

    The Director General of Primary Education Vijay Kiran Anand said that the new session of Class 1 to VIII would begin from April 1. A decision on holding offline or online classes would be taken shortly after assessing the Covid situation.

    A letter to the principals of all government and private schools directed them to promote students of Class 1 to VIII to the next level.

    The DG, however, said that a performance-based assessment of students would be done in April last. “But no student will be denied promotion to the next level under the Right to Education Act,” he added.

    Promotion to students for Class IX to XI will be given only after holding annual examinations. The Deputy Chief Minister Dr Dinesh Sharma has already announced to reschedule UP Board examinations in view of three-tier Panchayat polls.

  • Nearly 40,000 fresh Covid-19 cases recorded in India, highest single-day spike in 2021

    By Agencies
    NEW DELHI: India saw 39,726 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, the highest single day rise recorded so far this year, taking the nationwide COVID-19 tally to 1,15,14,331, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

    Registering an increase for the ninth day in a row, the total active caseload has reached 2,71,282, which now comprises 2.36 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 96.26 per cent, the data stated.

    The daily rise in infections (39,726) was the highest recorded in 110 days, while the death toll increased to 1,59,370 with 154 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

    As many as 41,810 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours on November 29.

    The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,10,83,679, while the case fatality rate has further to 1.38 per cent, the data stated.

    ALSO READ | South India staring at second Covid wave?

    India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 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.

    According to ICMR,  23,13,70,546 samples have been tested up to March 18 with    10,57,383 samples being tested on Thursday.