Coronavirus live updates | Kuwait suspends commercial flights from India

In view of the high demand for oxygen in the country following a record spike in coronavirus cases, the railways has decided to run ‘Oxygen Express’ trains to transport liquid medical oxygen and oxygen cylinders across the country. One such train carrying three tankers of liquid medical oxygen arrived in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday morning.

India registered a new single-day high of 3,45,799 COVID-19 cases as of 11.15 p.m. IST on April 23, the third consecutive day with over 3 lakh recorded cases. As many as 2,624 deaths were also recorded on the day.

The country has so far reported a total of 1,66,03,126 cases and 1,89,553 deaths.

You can track coronavirus cases, deaths and testing rates at the national and State levels here. A list of State Helpline numbers is available as well.

Here are the latest updates:

20 COVID-19 patients die in Delhi Jaipur Golden Hospital

As many as 20 critically-ill COVID-19 patients died at Jaipur Golden Hospital in the national capital on Friday night due to low stock of oxygen. The hospital on Saturday morning also have oxygen for only 45 minutes and they sought for urgent government help.

The city has been grappling with shortage in oxygen supply for the past seven days amid a huge surge in coronavirus cases.

"20 critically ill COVID patients died last night over oxygen crisis. The oxygen stock was never completely dry, but the pressure was low as we were running out of stock," Dr. D.K. Baluja, Medical Director of Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi told The Hindu.

Madhya Pradesh Cong. MLA Kalawati Bhuria dies of COVID-19

Kalawati Bhuria, a Congress MLA in Madhya Pradesh, died at a private hospital here early on Saturday while undergoing treatment for coronavirus, family sources said. She was 49.

Kalawati, who represented Jobat assembly constituency in Alirajpur district, was admitted to Shalby Hospital 12 days ago, the family sources said. Hospital’s medical superintendent Vivek Joshi said that her lungs were 70 per cent infected and she was on ventilator support. “Her condition deteriorated and she could not be saved”, Dr. Joshi said.

Kalawati was former Union Minister Kantilal Bhuria’s niece. She had become a legislator after winning the Jobat seat in 2018.

Kuwait suspends commercial flights from India

Kuwait’s directorate general of civil aviation said early on Saturday in a tweet that it had suspended all direct commercial flights coming from India, effective April 24 and until further notice.

The move was on the instructions of health authorities after an evaluation of the global coronavirus status.

All passengers arriving from India either directly or viaanother country will be banned from entering unless they have spent at least 14 days out of India, the statement said.

Kuwaiti citizens, their first degree relatives and their domestic workers will be allowed to enter. Cargo is unaffected.

– Reuters

People from Bengaluru now scouting for beds in other cities

Reeling under severe shortage of ICU beds, oxygen beds and ventilators, families of COVID-19 positive patients from Bengaluru are travelling to ensure their kin get proper medical care in the time of acute distress. Residents are now occupying a good chunk of these beds in faraway places like Hubballi and Mysuru where the situation is still under control.

What has caused anxiety in the Health Department is a possible acute shortage of facilities in these tier-2 cities that are also progressively reporting increasing number of COVID-19 patients. For example, Mysuru has a high COVID-19 positive ratio in respect to the population. If the beds are occupied by outsiders and a need arises for locals, the crisis may blow out of proportion, sources said.

One of the reasons for such long distance travel for treatment, government sources said was availability of infrastructure in tier-2 places. “More than 90% of government facilities in Bengaluru are already occupied. This is because, of the total cases in the State, 60% are from Bengaluru while the city has less than 20% of the total government capacity in health services. Beds are still available outside Bengaluru and cases are relatively low there.”

30 COVID-19 patients flee Tripura

Law enforcing agencies in Tripura failed to prevent 30 patients, who fled from a COVID Care Centre (CCC) here late on Wednesday night, from leaving the State.

Their mobile phone locations were detected at different places outside the State, officials said here on Friday.

Around 65 youths who had come from various States to appear for interviews for recruitment in the paramilitary Tripura State Rifles (TSR) underwent COVID-19 test. Forty of them tested positive and were shifted to the CCC at Arundhutinagar.

Thirty inmates subsequently broke a window at the back of the building, scaled the boundary wall and escaped, West Tripura district magistrate Shailesh Yadav told newsmen earlier.

At testing centres, queue forms at 4 a.m., one’s turn can take 2-3 days

People are waiting outside government-run COVID-19 testing centres from as early as 4 a.m. in parts of the city. Of them, many do not get a chance to test as the centres were testing only a limited number of people.

One centre took 40 people, while the other took only 10, officials at the centre said. Many of them had come for the second and third day on the trot to get tested. But their wait goes on. The process is relatively smooth in private testing centres, some of which even offer round the clock testing.

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Jaishankar welcomes EU’s support to fight COVID-19

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Friday welcomed the offer of support from the European Union to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in India.

The Minister had a virtual discussion with Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, in charge of the digital issues.

“Appreciated the support offered by EU on COVID challenges currently faced by India. Confident that EU will help strengthen our capabilities at this critical juncture,” said Mr Jaishankar after his video conversation with Ms. Vestager.

Teachers anxious to work from schools amid second wave

With lack of clear instructions from the State government, teachers working in government, aided and private schools remain anxious on having to work from their schools amid the second wave of COVID-19.

According to T. Arulanandam, a Coimbatore-based school teacher and State auditor of Tamil Nadu High Higher Secondary School Graduate Teachers Association, many instances of school teachers testing positive and even dying due to complications have been occurring across the district of late. “These are not being highlighted separately,” he alleged. “Last year, they allowed us to work from home. The school work can be done from home by the teachers,” he said.

When contacted, Coimbatore Chief Educational Officer M. Ramakrishnan said he had instructed the headmasters and other heads of schools to coordinate with the Health Department if any teachers or staff members tested positive for COVID-19 in their respective schools.

Delhi govt. deputes teachers for monitoring bodies

The Delhi government on Friday issued an order deputing six teachers at the GTB Hospital in the city for monitoring of dead bodies and ensuring that calls for hearse vans are disposed of timely.

The order, which comes following a recent spike in deaths due to COVID-19, has attracted the ire of the teachers’ association, which said the task was not apt for someone holding the post of a teacher.

“The teachers are deployed for monitoring of dead bodies coordinating with GTB Hospital with immediate effect. The teachers will, according to their shift, contact the nodal officer of GTB for the purpose and ensure that COVID guidelines are being followed by rightful authorities,” said the order issued by the sub-divisional magistrate of North East Delhi.

Bengaluru’s COVID-19 positivity rate hits six-month high

As Karnataka continues to post new records in COVID-19 positive cases in the second wave of the pandemic, Bengaluru has been reporting staggering numbers. The positivity rate in April hit a six-month high of 9.78% on Thursday.

According to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s war room bulletin, the 9.78% positivity rate is against 16.48 lakh tests up to April 22. In March, the positivity rate was 2.31% against 13.78 lakh tests. When the number of cases had tapered off in January and February, it was below 1%. The number of tests too, though, were lower in those two months.

The last time the positivity rate was higher than it is now was in September 2020 when it was 12.21% against 8.52 lakh tests. This, however, was far lower than the peak pandemic period in July when it was a whopping 23.84% against 2.19 lakh tests.

Prevalence of U.K. variant rises in Delhi

The proportion of the U.K. variant (B.1.1.7) in genome samples sequenced from COVID cases in Delhi has risen from 28% in the second week of March to the 50% in the last week, Dr. Sujeet Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said in a webinar on Friday.

The U.K. variant has a mutation N501Y that is reported to increase the transmission of the virus leading to more numbers and a knock-on consequence of increasing disease severity and mortality.

Speaking at the webinar organised by the Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Singh said there was also a rise in the Indian variant (B.1.617), that has two mutations associated with increased efficacy and decreasing the potency of vaccines.

Oxygen Express train carrying 3 tankers of liquid medical oxygen reaches U.P.

An Oxygen Express train carrying three tankers of liquid medical oxygen arrived in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday morning as the state battles a surge in coronavirus cases

In view of the high demand for oxygen in the country following a record spike in coronavirus cases, the railways has decided to run ‘Oxygen Express’ trains to transport liquid medical oxygen and oxygen cylinders across the country.

Roll-on-roll-off trucks are being transported on flat wagons by the trains for quick supply of medical oxygen.

"Two trucks of medical oxygen arrived in Lucknow around 6.30 am while one truck was offloaded in Varanasi. Each truck has a capacity of containing 15,000 litres of medical oxygen," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi told PTI.

U.S. to resume J&J COVID-19 vaccinations despite rare clot risk

U.S. health officials lifted an 11-day pause on COVID-19 vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweigh a rare risk of blood clot.

The government uncovered 15 vaccine recipients who developed a highly unusual kind of blood clot, out of nearly 8 million people given the J&J shot. All were women, most under age 50. Three died, and seven remain hospitalized.

But ultimately Friday, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided that J&J’s one-and-done vaccine is critical to fight the pandemic — and that the small clot risk could be handled with warnings to help younger women decide if they should use that shot or an alternative.

Calls grow for U.S. to help India with spare COVID-19 vaccines

As a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic rages in India, calls are growing in the United States to send spare vaccine doses to New Delhi. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Indian and U.S. officials were in touch about possible U.S. help to India at this time, but did not comment on whether the U.S. would send vaccines from its stockpiles.

“Let me first say that the United States offers our deepest sympathy to the people of India who are clearly suffering during this global pandemic and we are working closely with Indian officials at both political and experts level to identify ways to help address the crisis,” Ms. Psaki said on Friday in response to a question on whether there are plans for the U.S. to send vaccines, such as from its AstraZeneca stockpile, to India.

“So there are ongoing discussions. I don’t have anything more to preview but we are in touch with the at a range of levels about how we can help them get through this period of time,” Ms. Psaki said.

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