Month: January 2022

India reported 2,47,417 fresh COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Thursday.

Today’s fresh COVID-19 cases are about 27 per cent higher than compared to yesterday’s figures. On Wednesday, the country logged 1,94,720 new COVID-19 cases.
In today’s figures, Maharashtra reported 46,723 new COVID-19 cases, Delhi reported 27,561 new cases, Kerala reported 12,742 new COVID-19 cases and the rest of the cases were reported by other states.

Out of the fresh infections of COVID-19 logged in the last 24 hours in the country, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is found in 5,488 cases.

Maharashtra reported 1,367 cases, Rajasthan reported 792 cases, Delhi reported 549 cases, Kerala reported 486 cases, Karnataka reported 479 cases, West Bengal reported 294 cases of the Omicron variant.

India’s active caseload currently stands at 11,17,531 which accounts for 3.08 per cent of the active cases.

Moreover, 84,825 recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours by the health ministry thereby taking the total recoveries from Coronavirus to 3,47,15,361. The recovery rate currently is at 95.59 per cent.

However, 380 COVID-19 infected patients lost lives in India in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 4,85,035, the Union Health Ministry said.

Of the 69.73 crore total tests conducted so far, a daily positivity rate of 13.11 per cent was reported in the country. Further, the weekly positivity rate is at 10.80 per cent.

As far as the COVID-19 vaccination status is concerned, 154.61 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. (ANI)

BJP is considering fielding Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya in the upcoming Assembly elections, sources in the party said on Wednesday as senior leaders met to finalise candidates.

On the second day of the three-day meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party Core Committee on Uttar Pradesh, the names of the candidates for nearly 175 Assembly seats have been finalised, sources in the party said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is likely to be fielded from Ayodhya and his name could appear on the first list to be released by the party soon.

The BJP has scrutinized the candidates for more than 300 assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh in the meeting. Deliberation will continue on the names of the candidates on Thursday, the last day of the meeting, said sources.

In the Central election committee scheduled to be held tomorrow, the names of the candidates could be finalised.

On the seats (90) where the party had suffered loss in the 2017 Assembly elections, it is expected to field new candidates on almost half of the number of seats.

The seats of some of the sitting ministers could also be changed whose report card has not had much to show, thus has brought displeasure among the voters, said the sources.

Meanwhile, the meeting of the BJP Core Committee on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls held on Tuesday lasted for nearly 10 hours wherein Union Home Minister Amit Shah conducted a sector-wise review of six areas and took feedback from the regional in charges about the ground reality in the state.

Earlier the sources had said that the names of the candidates considered in Tuesday’s meeting will be placed before the Central Election Committee on Thursday for the final go-ahead from the top leadership.

The BJP’s 24-member Uttar Pradesh election committee met on Monday in Lucknow and deliberated on the names of probable candidates for 113 constituencies that will go to the polls in the first two phases of the seven-phase Assembly elections that begin on February 10.

Elections for the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10, the Election Commission said. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases.

The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)

The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is a “dangerous virus” particularly for those who are unvaccinated, World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

“While Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta, it remains a dangerous virus, particularly for those who are unvaccinated,” Tedros said during a media briefing on COVID-19.

This huge spike in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant, which is rapidly replacing Delta in almost all countries, he said.

WHO chief also highlighted Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination rate and said “in Africa, more than 85 per cent of people are yet to receive a single dose of vaccine. We cannot end the acute phase of the pandemic unless we close this gap.”

“We are making progress. In December, COVAX shipped more than double the number of doses it shipped in November, and in the coming days, we expect COVAX to ship its 1 billionth vaccine dose,” he stated.

He further stated that some of the supply constraints we faced last year are now starting to ease, but we still have a long way to go to reach our target of vaccinating 70 per cent of the population of every country by the middle of this year.

90 countries have still not reached the 40 per cent target, and 36 of those countries have vaccinated less than 10 per cent of their populations, he added.

“WHO and our partners are actively supporting these countries to overcome the bottlenecks they face, in leadership and coordination, lack of supply visibility, short shelf-life of donated vaccines, limited cold chain capacity, vaccine confidence, health worker shortages, and competing priorities,” he added. (ANI)

Amid several COVID-19 restrictions in place to contain the spread of the disease, Delhi’s dhaba owners have scaled down their manpower while street vendors are once again heading back to their native states.

Several dhaba owners and street vendors that ANI spoke to claimed that their income has decreased by 2-6 per cent since the COVID restrictions came into effect again.

In an effort to curb the rise of coronavirus cases in the national capital, Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) restricted restaurants and eateries to take away only, however dhaba owners says “lockdown would have been better than this order.”

While speaking to ANI dhaba owners at several places in Delhi said that with private offices closing down, they are again struggling to make ends meet because they hardly get any customers.

The dhaba owners say they are forced to restort to curtailing manpower following zero business in the national capital.

Rajesh who owns a dhaba at Mandi House said, “This is a major office hub in Delhi. If the government closes down offices and ask the employees to work from home how can we get continue with the business? It would have been much better if government would have asked us to close down too till offices are not functioning properly.”

Lalit Sharma, owner of Vaishno Dhaba said, “Our peak time starts from 1 pm and continues till 3:30 pm but since last two days we could do only two per cent of our businesses. Earlier before COVID we had 18 men, then it reduced to eight. Now we have only three. What can we do? We have to pay the salary, the rent, the electricity there is no exemption for us, how will we pay?”

A lot of vendors who used to sell lunch in their carts in Delhi are facing a tough time.

Many said that since the beginning of third COVID wave they could not sell even a single plate of lunch and owing to various restrictions and situations they had to wrap up their businesses.

One Ramniwas, who sells lunch items near Ashoka Road said, “I am going back to my village Etawah in UP today. Will come back once this wave ends. I am not in a state to spend even rupees 10 unnecessarily.”

Before this DDMA allowed restaurants and bars to operate at 50 per cent seating capacity.

Delhi follows Rajashthan and Maharashtra in the number of COVID-19 cases reported. (ANI)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with the Chief Ministers of all states on Thursday at 4:30 pm via video conferencing on the COVID-19 situation.

The Prime Minister had also chaired a meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in the country on January 9, through video conference.
During that review meeting, PM Modi had stressed on the need to ensure adequate health infrastructure at the district level. He had asked officials to maintain coordination regarding this with the states.

In that meeting, he had said that a meeting with Chief Ministers will be convened to discuss state-specific scenarios, best-practices and the public health response.

India has witnessed a surge in COVID-19 cases in the recent past.

According to the Union Health Minister, India on Wednesday reported 1,94,720 new COVID-19 cases and 442 fatalities. The daily positivity rate due to this virus in the country is 11.05 per cent. Active cases account for 2.65 per cent of the total cases. (ANI)

Delhi reported 27,561 new COVID-19 cases during the past 24 hours, the highest number of COVID cases in a single day in the past eight months.

Delhi had reported 28,395 cases on April 20 last year during the second wave of COVID-19.
According to Delhi governemnt health bulletin, 40 people have succumbed to the coronavirus infection in the past 24 hours, the same as June 4 last year.

The active caseload in the city has gone up to 87,445 marking a surge during the third wave of the pandemic seen to be driven by Omicron variant.

The total COVID-19 case count in the national capital is 16,17,716. The cumulative positivity rate is 4.79 per cent while the daily positivity rate stands at 26.22 per cent.

The cumulative death toll in Delhi has gone up to 25,240. The case fatality rate is 1.56 per cent.

The bulletin said 14,957 people have been recovered from COVID-19 today and the total number of recoveries has risen to 15,05,031.

It said 56,991 COVID-19 patients are under home isolation and 2,264 patients are hospitalized.

Under the nationwide COVID vaccination drive, 2,79,08,084 beneficiaries have been administered COVID vaccines doses so far. (ANI)

Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech on Wednesday claimed that its COVID vaccine Covaxin can neutralise both Delta and Omicron variants of coronavirus.

In a statement, Bharat Biotech said, “Results from a study conducted at Emory University demonstrating that sera from subjects who received a booster dose of Covaxin (BBV152) six months after getting a primary two-dose series of Covaxin, neutralized the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants.”
It also mentioned that earlier studies demonstrated the neutralizing potential of Covaxin against SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern Alpha, Beta, Delta, Zeta and Kappa.

The study will be published on the pre-print server, medRXiv, shortly.

Sera samples from individuals who received a booster of Covaxin were observed to be effective in neutralizing Omicron and Delta variants on a live virus neutralization assay.

The Hyderabad based company claimed that the neutralization activity of Covaxin boosted sera was comparable to what has been observed in mRNA vaccine-boosted sera against the Omicron variant and found more than 90 per cent of all individuals boosted with Covaxin showed neutralizing antibodies.

All participants received an initial two-dose schedule of Covaxin on Day 0 and Day 28.

“As the dominant COVID-19 variant throughout the world, Omicron poses a serious public health concern,” said Mehul Suthar, PhD Assistant Professor, Emory Vaccine Center who led the laboratory analysis.

Data from this preliminary analysis show individuals receiving a booster dose of Covaxin have a significant immune response to both the Omicron and Delta variants. These findings suggest that a booster dose has the potential to reduce disease severity and hospitalizations, said the statement.

“We are in a continuous state of innovation and product development for Covaxin. The positive neutralization responses against the Omicron and Delta variants validate our hypothesis of a multi-epitope vaccine generating both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses. Our goals of developing a global vaccine against COVID-19 have been achieved with the use of Covasxin as a universal vaccine for adults and children,” said Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech.

“The global impact of Omicron shows us that the fight against COVID-19 continues, and we are encouraged that these data demonstrate the value of Covaxin as a primary and booster vaccine. These results show how a broad-spectrum vaccine has the potential ability to address ever-shifting public health challenges such as new variants and mutations,” said Dr Shankar Musunuri, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, Ocugen, Inc. (ANI)

Actor Siddharth apologised to Saina Nehwal on Tuesday night, after receiving heavy criticism for his “rude joke” on the badminton player on Twitter.

The actor had, in a Twitter post on January 6, retweeted a post by Nehwal in which she had expressed her concern over the security breach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Punjab visit on January 5.
In his letter of apology posted on Twitter, Siddarth began, “Dear Saina, I want to apologise to you for my rude joke that i wrote as a response to a tweet of yours, a few days ago. I may disagree with you on many things but even my disappointment or anger when i read your tweet, cannot justify my tone and words. I know I have more grace in me than that.”

Further, he apologised for his joke.

“As for the joke…If a joke needs to be explained, then it wasn’t a very good joke to begin with. Sorry about a joke that didn’t land,” he penned.

Siddharth clarified that he had no “malicious” intent and that he is a “feminist ally”.

“I, however must insist my word play and humour had none of the malicious intent that so many people from all quarters have attributed to it. I am a staunch feminist ally and i assure you there was no gender implied in my tweet and certainly no intent to attack you as a woman,” he added.

He concluded with the hope that she will accept his letter.

“I hope we can put this behind us and that you will accept my letter. You will always be my Champion. Honestly, Siddharth,” he signed off.

Previously, Saina Nehwal’s father Harvir Singh Nehwal on Tuesday said that the ace Indian shuttler is unhappy after the remarks made by actor Siddharth against her.

“A person from the cinema industry (actor Siddharth) has made some bad remarks against Saina (Nehwal) on Twitter. I condemned his statement. He should come out in open and apologise. Our family is really disturbed. Saina is also unhappy,” Harvir Singh Nehwal told ANI.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) had also asked Twitter to block the account of actor Siddharth over his “sexist” tweet against ace badminton player Saina Nehwal.

Various activists have slammed Siddharth over his comments, calling it “sexist, misogynistic” and demanded that he should apologise to Nehwal.

Following the controversy, Siddharth had also responded on Monday that he did not mean to disrespect anyone and his “subtle cock” tweet contained no kind of insinuation.

“Cock and bull. That’s the reference. Reading otherwise is unfair and leading. Nothing disrespectful was intended, said or insinuated. Period,” he tweeted. (ANI)

Dense or very dense fog is likely to occur in isolated pockets during the night or morning hours over plains of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during the next two days, said the India Meteorological Department on Wednesday.

IMD also predicted the same weather conditions for north Rajasthan during the next three days; over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, Uttar Pradesh during next four to five days; over Assam and Meghalaya on January 14 and 15 and over Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura on January 15, 2022.
Taking to Twitter, IMD said, “Dense/Very Dense Fog in isolated pockets in night/morning hours very likely over plains of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during next 2 days; north Rajasthan during next 3 days; over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, Uttar Pradesh during next 4-5 days; over Assam and Meghalaya on 14th and 15th and over Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura on 15th January 2022.”

Earlier today, cold waves gripped parts of India in the morning leading to low visibility and dense fog in isolated pockets over Rajasthan, Punjab and Southwest Uttar Pradesh.

“Fog observed (at 0830 hours IST of today): Dense to very dense fog in isolated pockets over Northwest Rajasthan; Dense fog in isolated pockets over Punjab, Southwest UP, east Bihar, Jharkhand and plains of Uttarakhand and moderate fog at isolated pockets over NE Rajasthan,” tweeted the weather agency. (ANI)

Revealing the 10-point agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the upcoming Punjab assembly election, party national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that the party would focus on generating employment opportunities in the state.

Addressing a press conference here today, Kejriwal said, “We have prepared a 10-point ‘Punjab Model’ to make the state developed and prosperous if AAP comes to power. We will make such a prosperous Punjab that the youth who went to go to Canada for employment will return in the next 5 years.”
He further said, “Our aim is to make Punjab a drug-free state. There is a tie-up between politicians and drug mafia in Punjab. If AAP forms the government, then we will break this syndicate.”

On sacrilege incident, Kejriwal said, “There has been growing number of sacrilege in Punjab. Due to this, there is a law and order issue in the state. Those who are accused of sacrilege will be brought to justice. We bring back peace and harmony in the state.”

He added, “Punjab has a debt of Rs 3 lakh crore. We will make a corruption-free state.”

The Delhi CM also said that the AAP would focus on improving education and schools in the state, and 16,000 mohalla clinics will be set up Punjab and provide free medical treatment to all citizens of the state.

Earlier, the Delhi CM had said that the AAP would provide Rs 1,000 to every woman, who is above the age of 18 years. (ANI)