Coronavirus News Highlights: Delhi reports 39 new COVID-19 cases, 80 recoveries and one death in the last 24 hours

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Ninety-eight percent of all serving defence personnel including those deployed at the borders have received both doses of COVID-19 vaccines, while the rest have received one dose, the government said on Monday.

'All serving defence personnel, including those stationed at the borders and personnel from the Border Roads Organisation, are being vaccinated against COVID-19 since January 16,' Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt said.

He was replying to a question in Rajya Sabha.

Mumbai on Monday reported 299 fresh coronavirus positive cases, the lowest single-day addition after April 2020, and eight fatalities, the city civic body said. With the new additions, Mumbai's overall tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 7,34,418 and the death toll to 15,784. The count of recoveries in Mumbai jumped to 7,10,849 on Monday after 501 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

More than one crore people in Maharashtra have been administered both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, an official said on Monday. He said the exact number of fully vaccinated people in the state was 1,00,64,308. An official statement also said that till 4 pm on Monday, 3,75,974 people were administered vaccine doses.

Kerala reported 11,586 new COVID-19 cases and 135 deaths on Monday, taking the tally to 32,83,116 and the toll to 16,170, while the Test Positivity Rate showed a sharp decline to 10.59 per cent. The TPR was 12.3 per cent on Sunday. The figure was 11 per cent on July 21, shot upto 12.38 per cent on July 22, went up further to 13.63 the next day, before falling to 11.91 per cent on July 24. Health Minister Veena George said 14,912 people recuperated from the disease, taking the total cured in the state to 31,29,628. Malappuram recorded the highest number of 1,779 cases, followed by Thrissur with 1,498 and Kozhikode 1,264. "Out of those found infected today, 45 reached the state from outside while 10,943 contracted the disease from their contacts. The sources of infection of 534 are yet to be traced. Sixty four health workers are also among the infected," the Minister said in a release. She said 1,09,382 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, taking the total number examined so far to 2,63,57,662. The test positivity rate stood at 10.59 per cent. Currently, there are 1,36,814 people under treatment in the state. There are 4,33,215 people under observation, out of whom 26,113 are in isolation wards of various hospitals.

Active cases at 10,524

Total cases: 93,656

Death toll: 1,487

Iran has recorded 12,180 Covid infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said Monday, the highest number the country has detected in a day so far in the pandemic.More than 1.5 people have now tested positive and 18,347 have officially died of Covid-19 in Iraq, where the health infrastructure is dilapidated and much of the 40 million population remains sceptical of vaccines. (AFP)

Brussels said Monday it had extended rules aimed at avoiding "ghost flights" by carriers trying to keep airport slots as they struggle to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic."As the aviation industry begins to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the European Commission remains determined to maintain the relaxation of ordinary slot allocation rules for airlines," a statement said."The relief will therefore be extended to the next winter planning season, which runs from October 31, 2021 to March 27, 2022."The regulation lowers the requirement for airlines to fly at least 80 percent of the time to hold on to highly-prized take-off and landing slots at airports to 50 percent.The rules were relaxed last year with the aim of cutting down on the number of empty or near-empty "ghost flights" as airlines carried on flying despite steep drops in passenger numbers.Initially Brussels gave the carriers a complete waiver for maintaining slots but then hiked the required quota of flights back up to 50 percent ahead of this year's summer season.

The Delhi government granted Covid-relief of Rs 5,000 each to 47,996 construction workers on Monday.The office of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, in a statement, the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board has been directed to disburse the relief amount to workers whose applications were approved between May 28 and July 18."This ex gratia payment is for construction workers whose applications were approved between 28.05.2021 to 18.07.2021. This relief comes as an additional benefit for construction workers who were hit hardest because of the Covid crisis in Delhi," it said.The Delhi government had disbursed the same relief amount to 2,16,602 construction workers in April this year.Sisodia, also the Labour Minister, urged all construction workers to get registered with the workers board to avail the benefits of welfare schemes of the government."Earlier workers had to stand in long queues for hours to submit their application but now, the entire process has been shifted online which helps the workers to quickly apply on the government website and not miss their daily wage," he said.