India's Daily Covid Deaths Fall Below 300 For The First Time In Over 6 Months

Maharashtra, along with four southern Indian states - Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala - remained the most affected of all in the country even as authorities kept an eye out for the new, more rapidly transmitting mutant version of the virus.  

Eight persons who recently returned from the UK to Delhi have so far been found infected with the coronavirus, officials said on Friday following a contact drive. Up to 19 passengers out of over 13,000 who landed from the UK at the IGI airport here between November 25 and December 21 have been found positive for the virus. Eleven tested positive at the airport, and eight during the door-to-door drive.

Delhi has recorded 758 fresh COVID-19 cases and 30 new fatalities on Friday, the lowest in over four months, authorities have said. The total number of infections in the city mounted to over 6.21 lakh while the death count hit 10,414, they said. This is also the lowest positive rate in over eight months at 0.88 per cent - the previous low being 0.99 per cent on December 23.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday said it was "inhumane" to keep thousands of ICU beds reserved in private hospitals for COVID-19 patients when the positivity rate of the infection and number of coronavirus cases was going down in the national capital. Justice Navin Chawla said that in the prevailing situation today keeping so many ICU beds reserved for COVID-19 patients "cannot be sustained" and if in future there was an increase in COVID-19 cases, then the reservations can be brought back.

Not a single COVID-19 case has been reported in Mumbai's Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, for the first time since the pandemic reached India earlier this year. Healthcare workers and researchers have been paying undivided attention to the situation. COVID-19 in Dharavi would have otherwise spread fast, but due to good intervention, isolation and testing of patients, the authorities have managed to keep Dharavi away from a possible rise in infection, health workers say.

A four-year-old girl child, who has recently returned here from the UK has tested positive, informed Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation on Friday. Swab samples of the child's parents have also been collected for the Covid-19 test. On Thursday, a 24-year-old male who arrived in Bhubaneswar from the UK on December 18 tested positive for Covid-19. His swab sample has been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune for genome sequencing to ascertain whether he has been infected with the new mutant strain of Covid-19 defected in the UK.

Around 300 expats, mostly Indians, stranded in the UAE, after Saudi Arabia and Kuwait closed their borders to prevent the spread of the new strain of the coronavirus, have been provided free accommodation, according to a media report on Friday. The expats have taken an indirect route of flying via the UAE, to Saudi and Kuwait, since there were no direct flights from their home countries, the Gulf News reported.

A doctor in Boston with a shellfish allergy developed a severe allergic reaction after receiving Moderna's coronavirus vaccine, the New York Times reported on Friday. Dr Hossein Sadrzadeh, a geriatric oncology fellow at Boston Medical Center, said he had a severe reaction almost immediately after being vaccinated, feeling dizzy and with a racing heart.

Pope Francis in his Christmas message on Friday called for "vaccines for all, especially the most vulnerable and most in need in all regions of the planet" for the coronavirus, which he said had exacerbated existing global crises. The pontiff also touched on the plight of children caught up by war, singling out victims in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq in his Christmas message. Vaccines were "glimmers of hope in this period of darkness and uncertainty", Francis said in the annual "Urbi et Orbi" speech "to the city and the world".

WHO has launched a mobile app to provide latest COVID-19 guidance and updates. Titled WHO COVID-19 Updates, it provides "trusted" information about the virus from health experts. It, however, doesn't offer features, including contact tracing, that is quite common among the apps released by several governments across the globe. WHO initially brought its coronavirus-focussed mobile app in April that it pulled from app stores shortly after release as it wasn't meant for public availability. As reported by Android Police, the new app works quite similar to the original. It is designed more like a general-purpose app to limit the spread of COVID-19 by providing safety advice and up-to-date information.