Corona roundup
Kerala local body polls in December
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh is witnessing rising number of coronavirus cases after reopening of government schools, as the number of teachers and students affected by the contagion is growing slowly. According to the Department of Education, 829 teachers have been Corona positive while 575 students have been diagnosed with the virus.
In Maharashtra, RT-PCR tests were conducted at National Archery camp in Pune, and archer Himani Malik was tested positive while 22 other archers came negative. Malik was currently asymptomatic and had been admitted to a hospital as a precautionary measure.
Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of Madras High Court Amreshwar Pratap Sahi was tested positive for Covid-19 and was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai.
In Kerala, the State Election Commission in the meantime announced the schedule of local body polls to be conducted in three phases by strictly adhering to Covid-19 protocols. Polling for 1199 local bodies will be held on 8th, 10th and 14th of December. Counting will be held on December 16.
Announcing the poll schedule, State Election Commissioner V. Bhaskaran said arrangements will be made for Covid patients and those in quarantine to cast votes. They must apply at least three days in advance. Use of masks, gloves and maintaining social distancing will be strictly complied with. State Health Minister K.K.Shylaja said that the working of State Covid outbreak Control Cell had been strengthened in view of the increase of Covid-19 cases in the state. Kerala reported 6820 new cases and 26 deaths yesterday.
In Karnataka though, which joins the list of states including Delhi to ban firecrackers due to covid-19 pandemic, the gram panchayat elections, which were to be held in December this year, is likely to be postponed to February 2021. A high-level expert committee led by Dr M K Sudarshan on Thursday submitted a detailed report on how dangerous it might be to conduct GP elections at this time when the number of Covid-19 cases is increasing in rural areas.
Meanwhile the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare claimed that less than 50,000 new cases had been reported in the country in the last 24 hours whereas the daily new recoveries had exceeded 54,000. India is reporting new recoveries more than the daily new cases successively for the last five weeks now, it stated.
While 79% of the new cases were from 10 States and Union Territories, it noted that Maharashtra was reporting a very high number of new cases with more than 10,000 cases followed by Kerala with more than 9,000 cases.
In all 670 case fatalities have been reported in the past 24 hours. Of these, ten States/UTs account for nearly 86%. More than 38% of new fatalities reported are from Maharashtra (256 deaths). Delhi follows with 66 new deaths.
– globalbihari bureau
