Coronavirus News Highlights: Jharkhand reports 139 new positive cases, 2 deaths in past 24 hours

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| Jharkhand reports 139 new positive cases, 190 recoveries, and 2 deaths in the last 24 hours. Active cases at 1,364 and total positive cases at 3,38,446

| Himachal Pradesh reports 258 new cases, 234 recoveries, and 5 deaths in in past 24 hours; active cases at 2,287

| Chandigarh administration imposes night curfew between 11 pm and 5 am. Earlier, it used to be from 10:30 pm to 5 am.

| Maharashtra reports 10,066 new cases, 11,032 recoveries and 163 deaths in past 24 hours.

Total cases 59,97,587
Total recoveries 57,53,290
Death toll 1,19,303
Active cases 1,21,859

Tamil Nadu reports 6,596 new cases, 10,432 recoveries, and 166 deaths in past 24 hours.

Active cases: 52,884
Total recoveries: 23,58,785
Death toll: 31,746

Morgan Stanley will require employees, visitors and clients to be vaccinated to enter its buildings in the New York metropolitan area, a source told AFP Wednesday.Starting July 12, staff of the investment bank and others wishing to enter buildings in New York City and in nearby Westchester County will be required to attest to being fully vaccinated, said a person familiar with the policy.The policy will operate on an honorary system and people will not be required to prove vaccination status, the person said.The move comes as large companies grapple with new challenges as the economy reopens and employees return to the office after working from home during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. (AFP)

The Delta variant, identified for the first time in India, could account for 90 percent of new Covid cases in the EU in the coming months, the bloc's disease control agency said Wednesday.

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Six people in Jharkhand's Palamu district was administered Covishield vaccine as their second dose against coronavirus on Wednesday, though they had received a shot of Covaxin as the first, an official said.This happened because of a mistake, but the change in the vaccine will not have any significant negative effect on them, Chief Medical Officer of the district, Dr Anil Kumar Singh, said."Those six people went to a community health centre at Hariharganj to receive their second dose of Covaxin. However, they were given Covishield due to lapse on the part of the employees there," Singh said.They will be under observation for 24 hours.The six will have to take the second dose of Covishield, the official saidAfter the mix-up was noticed, there was a commotion at the centre and police personnel have been deputed at the spot.Chhatarpur Sub-Divisional Police Officer Ajay Kumar said that police and civil officials reached the spot and brought the situation under control.

Andhra Pradesh reports 4,684 COVID-19 cases, 36 fatalities and 7,324 recoveries. Infection tally rises to 18,62,036, death toll 12,452. The state now has 51,204 active cases of the disease.

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has donated two high-tech ventilators and some other medical equipment to a civic-run hospital in Mumbai, the BMC said on Wednesday. According to a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) release, besides the ventilators, the Bollywood icon has donated some other medical equipment, including monitors, C-arm image intensifier and infuser pump - collectively worth Rs 1.75 crore - to Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital at Sion. The civic body said the ventilators have been installed in the surgery department of the hospital and until now around 30 patients have undergone treatment using the equipment. The ventilators donated by the megastar are high-tech and are being used to treat patients whose oxygen level drops or those who face difficulty in breathing, the civic body said.

Scientists have found signs of inflammation and neurodegeneration in the brains of individuals who died of COVID-19, similar to what is observed in people who die of conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's disease.The findings by researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine, US, and Saarland University in Germany may help explain why many COVID-19 patients report neurological problems.These complaints increase with more severe cases of COVID-19, and can persist as an aspect of "long COVID," a long-lasting disorder that sometimes arises following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.About one-third of individuals hospitalised for COVID-19 report symptoms of fuzzy thinking, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating and depression, said Tony Wyss-Coray, a professor at Stanford.The researchers could not find any signs of SARS-CoV-2 in brain tissue they obtained from eight individuals who died of the disease. Brain samples from 14 people who died of other causes were used as controls for the study."The brains of patients who died from severe COVID-19 showed profound molecular markers of inflammation, even though those patients didn't have any reported clinical signs of neurological impairment," said Wyss-Coray.The blood-brain barrier consists in part of blood-vessel cells that are tightly stitched together and blob-like abutments created by brain cells’ projections squishing up against the vessels.

All students in degree colleges in Karnataka will be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first or second week of July, after which the institutions would reopen for classes, Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan said here on Wednesday. "A committee headed by Dr Devi Prasad Shetty has submitted a report covering all aspects, including the third wave. It has recommended opening degree colleges first.Students will be vaccinated in July, after which the classes will begin," Narayan, who heads the COVID-19 Task Force, told reporters on the sidelines of a function. In a bid to get students return to colleges, the government has coined the slogan ''Marali College Ge'' (Back to colleges), he said. The DCM said the government is awaiting the central government guidelines on reopening colleges. He said vaccination for all those aged over 18 in the state is already underway on a priority basis. To a question on the Delta Plus variant, classified as a Variant of Concern (VOC), Narayan said no mutant of the virus can cause harm to those people who have been vaccinated. He said vaccines are the only way forward and everyone should get inoculated.