Covid-19 news from across the nation

The Union health ministry on Monday said India’s present caseload of active cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) was the lowest in 149 days, since July 18. The ministry further said daily new recoveries were outnumbering new cases in the last 17 days.

Hyderabad: The Union Health Ministry's national telemedicine initiative eSanjeevani has crossed 1 million teleconsultations on Monday. The eSanjeevani is being used by patients in over 550 districts of India, the health ministry said in a statement. Over 10 per cent of the users of eSanjeevani are aged 60 and above. Close to around one-fourth of the total patients have used eSanjeevani more than once.

Vaccinating 100-200 people in each session per day, monitoring them for 30 minutes after administering the shots for any adverse event and allowing only one beneficiary at a time are among the guidelines issued by the Centre for the COVID-19 inoculation drive. According to the guidelines issued to states recently, the COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system--a digitalised platform--will be used to track enlisted beneficiaries for the vaccination and anti-coronavirus vaccines on a real-time basis.

At the vaccination site, only pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated in accordance with the prioritisation, and there will be no provision for on-the-spot registrations. The states have been asked, as far as possible, to allocate the vaccine from one manufacturer to a district to avoid mixing of different COVID-19 vaccines in the field.

As per the 'COVID-19 Vaccine Operational Guidelines', all measures should be taken to avoid exposing the vaccine carrier, vaccine vials or ice packs to direct sunlight, the document stated.

COVID-19 news from across the nation

Delhi

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday said it expects the AAP government to increase the number of COVID-19 tests in those districts of the national capital where the infection numbers are high. A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad orally suggested to the Delhi government to find out in which districts of the city the infection numbers were increasing and said: "We expect you to increase tests in those areas".

Nine months after it recorded its first Covid death, the city’s toll touched 10,000 as 33 more people were reported dead Sunday.

The first person to have died of the disease in Delhi was a 69-year-old woman from Janakpuri, who contracted the disease from her son, who had returned from an international trip and had fallen ill. From over 8,000 cases in one day to 2,000 in a day, the rate of increase in Covid cases has slowed down considerably over the past month but the city’s death rate continues to be a point of worry.

Tamil Nadu

Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras has been hit by the coronavirus outbreak with over 100 people, a majority of the students, testing positive for the contagion, a top health official said on Monday. A total of 104 students and others have contracted the disease and all were doing well in a hospital, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said, allaying fears of further spread Of the 444 samples lifted till date, 104 have tested positive for COVID-19, he said, adding from December 1 to 12, samples from the institute turning positive steadily increased from a few to 33 specimens today.

Bihar

Patna: Former Bihar Chief Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha chief Jitan Ram Manjhi tested positive for Covid-19, he announced on Monday. In a tweet, translated from Hindi, Manjhi said “Today my corona test report has come up positive. People who have come in contact with me in the last week are requested to get their corona test done.”

Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday announced that COVID-19 vaccine will be made available free of cost to people in the state. "No one will be charged for the vaccine. This is the stand of the government," CM told reporters in Kannur.