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COVID-19 updates
By Lata Baisoya
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who again got admitted – this time to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi on Monday night, was tested negative for Coronavirus. “Now, he is comfortable and is continuing his work from the hospital, and admitted for post-COVID-19 care,” a health bulletin of the hospital stated on Tuesday.
Shah, 55, was brought to AIIMS around 2.00 a.m. on Tuesday after he complained of body-ache and fatigue.
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It may be mentioned that on August 2, Shah was tested positive for COVID-19 and had to be admitted at private Medanta Hospital in Gurugram. e was discharged from there after his report came negative on August 14.
In the meantime, the country tested a record nearly 9 lakh persons in one day on Tuesday. With this, the cumulative tests reached 3,09,41,264. “Even with such a high level of testing, the positivity has remained low i.e. 8.81% compared to the weekly national average i.e. 8.84%.India has also recorded the highest single day recoveries of 57,584 in the last 24 hours,” the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry stated.
In Pune, the results of a serological survey there indicated that over 50 per cent of the population could already have been infected by novel Coronavirus. This was significantly higher than the results of similar serological surveys carried out in some other cities, like Delhi and Mumbai. But scientists have warned against interpreting these results as an indication of half of Pune population being immune to the Coronavirus. They say all antibodies are not protective. It is only the neutralising antibodies that can make a person immune to the disease. Pune, with a total reported cases of 1.32 lakh, has become the new Covid hotspot in Maharashtra overtaking Mumbai.
On the issue of post-COVID symptoms, Dr. V.K.Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog said new dimensions of post-COVID sub-acute morbidities were coming to the fore, like respiratory symptoms, immunological reactions in children, fibrosis in lung etc.
He said the scientific and medical community was keeping an eye on it. It’s an unfolding story, the medical fraternity was responding and it was expected that they would put out data and information in a systematic way. We will use the treatment modalities available with us as and when required to deal with these cases. He further added that, it was happening to an extent, but not at a dangerously alarming level. Stating this, he urged that one should remain all the more careful because this virus might cause damage after recovery phase too.
In Rajasthan, Phalodi MLA Pabbaram Vishnoi, who attended the Vidhan Sabha session on Friday, was tested COVID-19 positive The MLA appealed to all those who came in contact with him to get themselves tested. Vishnoi had gone to attend the Assembly session on Friday and he met many legislators in the Assembly. Rajasthan reported 694 new Covid cases and 10 deaths on Monday.
Meanwhile in Goa, the worsening Covid situation forced the State Election Commission to postpone the polls to 11 Municipal Councils. Despite the rising number of COVID-19 cases, flight movements at the Goa airport increased almost 12 times last month as compared to April this year, according to the Airports Authority of India. Goa has till date registered 11,994 Covid cases out of which 3,825 are active cases.
In the meantime, offering updates on the vaccine Dr. Paul stated, while one vaccine was in the stage of phase-3 trials, the other two were also progressing well and are in the phase 1-2 of clinical trials. He stated, “We have reviewed all these vaccine candidates. These are progressing well and their developments are taking place in a reassuring manner”, said Dr. Paul. “The outline of vaccine administration and supply chain is ready. As and when required, detailed and micro-level planning for vaccine administration based on a scientific approach according to the characteristics of the vaccine will be adopted,”,he added.
Stating that discussions were going on with the vaccine manufacturers, Dr. Paul further stated, the Government held discussions with vaccine manufacturers to know about the facilitations they are expecting from the Government. In reply to a media query, he also stated, “We requested the vaccine manufacturers to indicate what possible prices could be. Pricing is very complex as some of these vaccines are at an early stage. We have some insights into what the price range could be, but this is an information that will be refined as we move along”. He further added, individual vaccine manufacturers have been requested to provide more clear-cut data on their individual production capacities and how their capacities would pan out with time, encouraging them very actively to ramp up capacity with facilitations. “This is a dialogue in motion”. India has huge potential and capacity in vaccine manufacturing.
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