Not a single case reported in Mumbai’s Dharavi for the first time since outbreak.
India has in the past 24 hours logged 3.4 per cent fewer coronavirus cases, at 22,273, since the preceding day, government data shows. Up to 251 deaths related to the virus have been recorded in this period, taking the overall count since the outbreak in January to 1,47,343. The country’s total number of coronavirus cases has touched 1,01,69,118. The number of those still receiving medical attention in this connection fell 252 to 2,81,667.
- 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, 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.
