New Delhi: Coronavirus India Live Updates: The country's COVID-19 mortality rate dropped below 2 per cent for the first time in weeks, the Health Ministry said this evening. The announcement came after a virtual conference between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of 10 of the worst affected states.
India has logged 53,601 cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours with 871 deaths, the Union Health Ministry said in the morning. The total number of cases in the country has now shot up to 22,68,675 with 45,257 deaths. A total of 15,83,489 COVID-19 patients have recovered from the infection, taking the recovery rate to 69.79 per cent, the ministry said today.
This is the seventh consecutive day that India, which has the third highest COVID-19 caseload in the world, has reported more cases in a day than the United States and Brazil, which have logged more patients than India since the beginning of the pandemic.
The COVID-19 cases in the country have jumped from 10 lakh to 22 lakh in 24 days, an analysis of the health ministry data done by news agency PTI showed on Monday. India's COVID-19 recoveries have reached a "historic peak", made possible by the policy of "testing aggressively, tracking comprehensively and treating efficiently", the Health Ministry had said in a statement.
Here are the updates on coronavirus (COVID-19) cases:
Aug 12, 2020 07:01 (IST)
Coronavirus News: Bihar Plans To Raise Covid Tests To 1 Lakh Per Day: Nitish Kumar Tells PM
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Tuesday told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the state plans to raise testing rate for COVID-19 to over one lakh per day.
Mr Kumar, who was joined by his counterparts in nine other states at the video conference meeting on coronavirus situation, said the state was at present testing more than 75,000 samples daily though the number of RT-PCR examinations, which he called "the most important", remained as low as about 6100 per day.
"The RT-PCR facility will soon be introduced at five more medical college hospitals which would help in raising the daily average by about 2300. Moreover, we have plans to purchase 10 RT-PCR and RNA extraction machines which would raise our capacity by another 5,000", he said.
Aug 12, 2020 06:10 (IST)
No Known Data On Quality, Efficacy And Safety Of Russian Vaccine: Germany
Germany on Tuesday raised doubts over the quality and safety of Russia's coronavirus vaccine, stressing that drug approval is granted in the European Union only after full clinical trials.
"Patient safety is of the highest priority," a health ministry spokeswoman told German newspaper network RND. "There is no known data on the quality, efficacy and safety of the Russian vaccine."
Aug 12, 2020 05:21 (IST)
Punjabis' "No Worries" Attitude Delaying COVID Testing: Amarinder Singh
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said Tuesday the Punjabi attitude of ''koyi gal nahin'' was causing people to delay their COVID-19 testing until it became inevitable, warning them it could prove detrimental in some cases.
Mr Singh blamed the attitude for the higher-than-Haryana mortality rate in Punjab.
He said he had conveyed this to Prime Minister Narendra Modi too earlier Tuesday.
Aug 12, 2020 05:20 (IST)
News: Over 10 Lakh Indians Have Returned From Abroad Under Vande Bharat Mission
Over 10 lakh Indians have returned from abroad after the government launched the "Vande Bharat" evacuation mission on May 7 in view of the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday.
MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava tweeted, "Vande Bharat Mission crosses the 1 million mark!".
"We continue our efforts with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to bring our nationals home," he tweeted.
