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The number of coronavirus positive patients in Maharashtra rose to 16,60,766 with the addition of 6,738 cases on October 28, a state health department official said.
The fatality count in the state reached 43,554 after 91 persons died due to the infection, he said.
With 2,049 fresh cases, the COVID-19 tally of Uttar Pradesh rose to 4,76,034 on October 28 while the death toll due to the disease reached 6,958 as 18 more people succumbed to the virus.
With experts predicting a major surge in COVID-19 cases in the coming months in Delhi, the city's first coronavirus patient on Wednesday cautioned people to stay indoors as much as possible during the festive season while emphasising that the situation is "not back to normal".
Rohit Datta, who was diagnosed with the infection on March 1, made an appeal to the masses to "not lower our guard" by getting into a casual festive mode.
The Union Health Ministry''s telemedicine initiative eSanjeevani OPD has completed six lakh consultations since its launch in April this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, with the last one lakh consultations being done in just 15 days.
The health ministry said on October 28 that considering the usefulness and ease of its use for extending the reach of health services, states are actively considering using eSanjeevani OPD for inmates of old-age homes and prisons.
The World Health Organisation said countries globally reported more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases last week — the shortest time ever for such an exponential increase since the pandemic began.
In a weekly analysis of COVID-19, WHO said for the second consecutive week, the European region accounted for the biggest proportion of new cases, with more than 1.3 million reported cases or about 46% of the worldwide total. The U.N. health agency said deaths were also on the rise in Europe, with about a 35% spike since the previous week.
India's COVID-19 death toll soars past 1.2 lakh with 508 fatalities; 43,893 fresh cases reported in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health.
A COVID-19 vaccine could be rolled out in Britain for some people before Christmas but an early 2021 launch is more likely, the woman responsible for procuring possible jabs in Britain said on October 28. (Reuters)
Hong Kong has banned Air India flights from Mumbai till November 10 after a few passengers on its flight earlier this week tested positive for COVID-19 post arrival, a senior government official said on October 28.
This is the fourth time that Air India flights from India have been banned by the Hong Kong government for bringing passengers who tested positive for the infection after arrival.
Previous bans were on the airline''s Delhi-Hong Kong flights during September 20-October 3 and August 18-August 31 and October 17-October 30.
Private schools in Uttar Pradesh''s Gautam Buddh Nagar are struggling to get students of classes 9 to 12 back in classrooms as parents continue to feel unsafe to send their wards for physical classes due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Private schools recorded a mere 14 percent attendance of students on October 28, while government and aided schools clocked 39 per cent in Noida and Greater Noida, according to government officials.
The British Safety Council, one of the world's most trusted leaders in health, safety, and environmental management, has developed a detailed COVID-19 framework applicable to all sectors.The framework aims to enable organisations to develop robust protocols and arrangements, designed to effectively manage the risk of COVID-19 as far as is reasonably possible within their workplace.
Dr Reddy's Laboratorieson October 28 said it isstill investigating the cyber attacks on the company's information technology (IT) systems and officiallycalled it aransomware attack for the first time. In a ransomware attack, the hackers breach the systems, install malware thatencrypts a victim's files, then demanda ransom from the victim to restore access to the data.
The companysaid the investigation has not ascertained if any data breaches in the incident pertain to personally identifiable information stored in the company's systems. The company added that it had isolated the impacted IT services. Continue reading..
The woman in charge of procuring possible COVID-19 treatments for Britain said a fully effective vaccine might never be developed, and that any early versions that do get approved might not work at all for some people. There is no clinically proven vaccine against the coronavirus, though nearly 200 candidates are in development worldwide, and late-stage trial results are expected for the first of them by the end of 2020.
"However, we do not know that we will ever have a vaccine at all. It is important to guard against complacency and over-optimism", Kate Bingham, the chair of the UK Vaccines Taskforce, wrote in an article published overnight in The Lancet medical journal. (Reuters)
