Coronavirus live updates | Over 1 crore vaccine doses administered so far, says Health Ministry

PM Modi on Monday, appealed to all those who are eligible to take the vaccine. “Together, let us make India COVID-19 free!”, he said after after taking the first shot of COVAXIN at the AIIMS.

Twenty-five lakh potential beneficiaries had registered on the Co-Win portal on Monday, the first day of the second phase of COVID-19 vaccination covering those over 60 and people with specified comorbidities over the age of 45, the Union Health Ministry said.

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:

KMC lab finds new COVID-19 variant with origin in Kurnool

Kurnool Medical College’s VRDL is the first laboratory in South India to collaborate in employing a new protocol – ‘COVIDSeq Next-Generation Sequencing’ – for diagnosis and phylogenetic analysis of SARS nCoV-2 (COVID-19) samples.

This is the next-generation confirmatory test for COVID-19 done at CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, and will be useful for other viruses in the future.

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Comorbidities list for vaccine eligibility seen as too narrow

The Union Health Ministry’s list of 20 comorbidities that make people in the 45-59 year age group eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine is seen by some medical professionals as too narrow.

“The list of comorbidities provided by the Health Ministry is overly restrictive and complicated. Many conditions, including obesity, have been left out,” said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, Professor of Microbiology at CMC Vellore.

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CICSE class 10 exams from May 5, class 12 papers from April 8

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) will conduct its Class 12 exams from April 8 to June 16 and Class 10 board exams from May 5 to June 7. The board examination results will be declared by July.

In 2020, the CISCE’s board examinations were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with all schools shutting their doors from mid-March. Students were evaluated on the basis of internal assessment for the papers they had missed.

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A year since first COVID case in TS, concerns about surge prevail

Exactly a year ago, the first COVID-19 case was detected in Telangana. Thereafter, lives of crores of people haven’t been the same. Many lost their parents, children, spouses and dear ones to the infectious virus.

Twelve months later, the pandemic situation is not very different from how it was when the first case was reported on March 2, 2020, although fear of contracting the virus has come down and people hardly seem to have any qualms about letting their guard down.

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WHO: ‘Premature,’ ‘unrealistic’ to think COVID-19 will end soon

A senior World Health Organization official said Monday it was “premature” and “unrealistic” to think the pandemic might be stopped by the end of the year, but that the recent arrival of effective vaccines could at least help dramatically reduce hospitalizations and death.

The world’s singular focus right now should be to keep transmission of COVID-19 as low as possible, said Dr. Michael Ryan, director of WHO’s emergencies program.

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(With inputs from our Correspondents and agences)

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