COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic unless we address climate change, the WHO has said.
Highlight
- Across India, 279 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours
- Maharashtra remains the worst affected state
- Delhi saw the smallest daily increase in Covid cases in four months on Saturday
New Delhi:
India’s daily number of COVID-19 cases today stood at 18,732, the lowest since July 1, when 18,653 cases were recorded. As many as 279 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall count since the outbreak in January to 1,47,622. The total positive cases in the country stood at 1,01,87,850, with 2,78,690 active cases. Delhi recorded 655 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest in more than four months, bringing much-needed relief to the capital which had seen a sharp increase in cases in November.
Here are the top 10 updates on the coronavirus:
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Maharashtra, with 19,16,236 cases and 49,189 deaths overall, remained the most affected state. In the last 24 hours, it reported 2,854 new cases and 60 deaths. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were the other five worst states in the context of the pandemic.
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India’s national COVID-19 task force met on Saturday on the new mutant strain tracked in the UK and discussed surveillance strategies. More than 50 samples from people who have returned from the UK are currently being sequenced in six labs across the country to find out if they have the mutant strain. District surveillance officers are identifying passengers who have arrived from the UK in the past month, authorities said.
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Delhi recorded 655 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest in more than four months, bringing much-needed relief to the capital that had seen a sharp increase in cases in November. The national capital recorded 23 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total death count to 10,437. The total number of infections has risen to 6,22,094 of which 6,911 are active cases.
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Delhi police will start vaccinating their staff against COVID-19 soon and details will be sent to them via SMS, police said in an order to all district heads of the force today. “The COVID-19 vaccination of Delhi police staff will start soon. The date, time and place of vaccination of each police member will be informed on their mobile phone number by SMS,” the officer said Police chief Muktesh Chander, who is also the nodal officer for the COVID-19 action plan, said in the order.
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The Biraja temple, one of the main “shakti peeth” in Odisha, will reopen to devotees from December 29, while Puri residents were allowed to enter Lord Jagannath temple from Saturday, authorities said. . The Biraja Temple will reopen following a decline in the number of new COVID-19 cases in Jajpur, said Chakravarti Singh Rathore district collector. Mr. Rathore said that devotees will be allowed to enter the temple between 6 am and 5 pm every day.
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The coronavirus crisis will not be the last pandemic and attempts to improve human health are “doomed” without addressing climate change and animal welfare, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. In a video message marking the first International Epidemic Preparedness Day on Sunday, he condemned the “dangerously short-sighted” cycle of throwing cash at outbreaks but doing nothing to prepare for the next.
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About 14 million Americans saw their unemployment benefits expire on Saturday after US President Donald Trump refused to enact a $ 2.3 trillion pandemic relief bill and spending package, protesting that he wasn’t doing enough to help ordinary people. Therefore, a partial government shutdown will begin on Tuesday unless Congress can agree to an interim government funding bill before then.
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The mutant coronavirus, first detected in England, had been documented on Saturday in several European countries, as well as Canada, Japan, Australia and Lebanon, despite efforts to slow its spread through massive global disruptions in the travel and movement. Fears about the fast-spreading variant arise amid a wave of hope sweeping through some countries as vaccination programs begin to roll out. Scientists do not believe that the British variant is more deadly or resistant to current coronavirus vaccines.
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Premier League club Wolves have banned their players from buying amid fears that they may contract the coronavirus with rising infections in England. Player and staff testing in England’s top flight will double to twice a week in areas of the country under level four restrictions. The latest round of testing in the Premier League revealed seven positive cases out of 1,569 tests on Monday.
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Edith Kwoizalla, a 101-year-old woman in a nursing home, became the first person in Germany to be inoculated against the coronavirus on Saturday, a day before the official vaccination campaign was scheduled to start in both Germany and in the EU.
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