OVER 15% POSITIVITY IN 24 STATES, CASES TRENDING STEEPLY UP IN 30 DISTRICTS

Twenty-four states have reported a test positivity rate of more than 15 per cent for Covid-19 over the last week, the government said on Friday.

At least 30 districts had showed “a steep upward trend” in cases over the last two weeks. The data were a “matter of great concern”, the Health Ministry said.

Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Health Arti Ahuja said seven states had reported a very high test positivity rate of 30 per cent or more over the past week: Goa (48.5 per cent), Haryana (36.1 per cent), Puducherry (34.9 per cent), West Bengal (33.1 per cent), and Karnataka, Delhi, and Rajasthan (29.9 per cent each).

“There are 12 states with more than 1 lakh active cases, and seven states with 50,000 to 1 lakh active cases. Case positivity is an important indicator that shows how the cases are spread across [the country]. There are only three states with less than 5 per cent positivity, and nine states have positivity between 5 and 15 per cent. Twenty-four states have more than 15 per cent positivity. The high positivity is the cause of concern for us and the country,” Ahuja said.

Twelve states and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir were showing a “continued increasing trend in daily new cases”, Ahuja said. These states were Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Assam, and Himachal Pradesh, she said.

Among the 30 districts showing a “steep upward trend week-on-week” in daily new cases, as many as 10 were in Kerala – Kozhikode, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Malappuram, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Palakkad, Kollam, and Kannur.

Seven districts were in Andhra Pradesh – Chittoor, East Godavari, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Kurnool, Guntur, and Anantapur – and three in Karnataka – Bengaluru Urban, Mysuru, and Tumakuru.

There were two districts each in Haryana (Gurugram, Faridabad), West Bengal (North 24-Paraganas, Kolkata), and Maharashtra (Satara, Solapur). Chennai, Patna, and Khurda (Odisha) are also among the 30 districts.

However, barely two days after saying that a third wave of infection was “inevitable” given the high levels at which the virus was circulating, the government’s top scientific adviser on Friday said that if strong measures were implemented, the third wave may not, in fact, hit India.

KEY COVID NUMBERS

Current Active Cases Countrywide: 37,21,769

New Cases in last 24 hours: 4,01,202

Recovered in last 24 hours: 3,19,675

Increase in Active cases in last 24 hours: 77,333

No. of deaths in last 24 hours (Total Covid Deaths so far): 4,194 (2,38,265)

Daily Tests: 18,26,490

Daily Positivity Rate (Proportion of Positives among total Tested): 22.7%

Most Affected States:

(S. No. / State / No. of Active Cases / New Cases in last 24 Hrs / Deaths in Last 24 Hrs)

1          Maharashtra     6,54,788           /           54,022  /           898

2          Karnataka                     5,36,641           /           48,781  /           592

3          Kerala              ,02,646 /           38,460  /           54

4          Uttar Pradesh   2,54,118           /           27,763  /           372

5          Rajasthan                     1,99,147           /           18,231  /           164

6          Andhra Pradesh            1,86,695           /           17,188  /           73

7          Gujarat             1,46,385           /           12,064  /           119

8          Tamil Nadu       1,35,355           /           26,465  /           197

9          Chhattisgarh     1,31,041           /           13,628  /           208

10        West Bengal     1,24,098           /           19,216  /           112

11        Haryana                       1,15,963           /           13,867  /           162

12        Bihar                1,15,066           /           13,466  /           62

13        Madhya Pradesh           95,423  /           11,708  /           84

14        Delhi                91,035  /           19,832  /           341

15        Odisha             78,549  /           12,238  /           19

16        Telangana                    73,851  /           5,892    /           46

17        Punjab              69,724  /           8,297    /           165

18        Uttarakhand      67,691  /           9,642    /           137

19        Jharkhand        61,177  /           5,973    /           136

20        JnK                  44,307  /           5,443    /           50

21        Assam `                        34,146  /           5,626    /           47

22        Goa                  31,716  /           4,195    /           56

23        Himachal Pradesh         29,513  /           4,177    /           56

24        Puducherry       13,078  /           1,746    /           19

25        Chandigarh       8,505    /           890       /           8

26        Manipur                        3,506    /           600       /           2

27        Meghalaya        2,466    /           297       /           6

RAHUL GANDHI WRITES TO MODI AGAIN, LISTS FOUR ‘URGENT’ SUGGESTIONS ON COVID-19

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday with four urgent issues to address: scientifically tracking the virus and its mutations using genome sequencing; assessing all vaccines against new mutations; rapidly vaccinating the population; and transparently keeping the world informed of the findings. He said the government’s failures in containing the pandemic have made “another devastating national lockdown almost inevitable”.

“Your government’s lack of a clear and coherent Covid and vaccination strategy… has placed India in a highly dangerous position,” Gandhi said.

“The pandemic has demonstrated that our size, genetic diversity and complexity make India fertile ground for the virus to rapidly mutate, transforming itself into a more contagious and more dangerous form. The double and triple mutant strains that we are currently grappling with are only the beginning, I fear,” Gandhi said, adding that the “uncontrollable spread” of the virus would be devastating not only for India, but the rest of the world.

INDIA EXTENDS ‘DEEP APPRECIATION’ TO NATIONS PROVIDING HELP

India, which provided COVID-19 vaccines and medical equipment to more than 150 countries last year, extends “deep appreciation” in that same spirit of friendship and solidarity to those providing priority requirements to help the country battle the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Friday.

Addressing the UN Security Council high-level meeting on ‘Maintenance of international peace and security: upholding multilateralism and the United Nations-centred international system’, Shringla said the COVID-19 pandemic has “sharpened our awareness” of the depth of global interdependence, and on the fact that “the world is only as resilient as the least resilient country”.

“The events of the past year have clearly demonstrated how imperative it is for all countries to coordinate responses to the various challenges that the pandemic has brought to the fore,” he said.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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FORMER MALDIVES PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED CRITICAL AFTER BOMB BLAST

Speaker of the Maldives parliament and former president Mohamed Nasheed was in a “critical condition”, a Male-based hospital said on Friday, a day after he sustained multiple injuries in a targeted explosion that the Maldives police described as “an act of terror”

The former president was injured as he was about to get into his car outside his home on Thursday night, when an IED attached to a two-wheeler parked nearby exploded. 

While no one has claimed responsibility for the apparent assassination attempt, police said all available evidence indicated that the incident was “a deliberate act of terror” targeting Mr. Nasheed. A probe has commenced, and at least “four persons of interest” have been identified so far, local media reported, following a press conference by the police chief. A team from the Australian Federal Police is expected to arrive in the Maldives on Saturday to assist with the investigation.

Mr. Nasheed, 53, is a prominent advocate of democracy and the Maldives’s first democratically elected president and a global climate change hero.  Known for his bold criticism of religious extremism, Mr. Nasheed has on multiple occasions warned of Islamist radical forces within the country.

WHO PANEL OKS EMERGENCY USE OF CHINA’S SINOPHARM VACCINE

The WHO gave emergency use authorization Friday to a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by China’s Sinopharm, potentially paving the way for millions of the doses to reach needy countries through a UN-backed program rolling out coronavirus vaccines.

The decision by a WHO technical advisory group, a first for a Chinese vaccine, opens the possibility that Sinopharm’s offering could be included in the UN-backed COVAX program in coming weeks or months and distributed through UN children’s agency UNICEF and WHOs Americas regional office. Aside from efficacy numbers the Chinese manufacturer has released very little public data about its two vaccines one developed by its Beijing Institute of Biological Products and the other by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Product.

The Sinopharm vaccine will join ones made by Pfizer BioNTech, Johnson Johnson, Moderna, AstraZeneca and a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India in receiving the coveted authorization from the UN health agency.

This expands the list of vaccines that COVAX can buy and gives countries confidence to expedite their own regulatory approval and to import and administer a vaccine Tedros said at a Geneva news conference.

THE REST

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NOW KARNATAKA GOES UNDER TOTAL LOCKDOWN

With Karnataka clocking over 45,000 Covid cases daily in the past week, the BJP government has moved to impose a total lockdown in the state — the “last resort” prescribed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tackle the surge in his address to the nation two weeks ago.

On Friday evening, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa announced a full lockdown in the state from May 10 to May 24 to break the chain of Covid transmission in the state.

“There will be no movement of people allowed in this period. There will be a window of four hours between 6 am and 10 am for people to buy essential items. There will be no industrial activity but in-situ construction is allowed,” Yediyurappa said.

The announcement of the lockdown came on a day when the state reported a record 592 deaths, including 346 in the city of Bengaluru.

The state’s Health Ministry, a team of advisors constituted by the Health department and even ministers from Karnataka at the state and Centre had been pushing for a lockdown. Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, who is mobilising supplies of Remdesivir, had suggested that a lockdown is necessary to reduce the pressure on supplies.

The seven-day average of cases, which was in the range of 4000 in the first week of April in Karnataka, has reached 45,036 in the last seven days. The daily positivity rate is now in excess of 30 per cent compared to the first week of April when it was in the range of seven per cent. In the first wave last year, the positivity rate had peaked at around 15 per cent.

According to the revised guidelines, only flights and trains scheduled will continue to operate during this period. “Flight and train tickets shall serve as the passes for movement of persons by personal vehicles/taxis/cab aggregators/autorickshaws to board flight and trains.”

WE LOST UNEXPECTEDLY: SONIA ON CONG DEBACLE IN STATES

In her first meeting with party MPs after severe electoral setbacks in five states recently Congress president Sonia Gandhi described the losses as unexpected and said the working committee would meet soon for honest introspection.

Dedicating a short, last paragraph of her address to Congress MPs to the election debacles today, Gandhi congratulated rival TMC chief Mamata Banerjee for winning West Bengal, MK Stalin for leading the DMK-Congress alliance to victory in Tamil Nadu and even the Left for their win in Kerala.

“Friends, in closing, may I on your behalf congratulate Mamata-ji and Thiru M.K. Stalin and the Left for their handsome victories. Most unfortunately, our own performance in all the states was very disappointing and if I may say, unexpectedly so,” she said.

The Congress chief added that the CWC is meeting shortly to review the results “but it goes without saying that we as a party collective must draw the appropriate lessons from this setback in a spirit of humility and honesty.”

DON’T WANT TO BE COERCIVE BUT WE MEAN BUSINESS: TOP COURT TELLS CENTRE

Stating that it didn’t want to be “coercive” but that it “means business”, the Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to ensure that 700 Metric Tonnes of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) is supplied to Delhi daily to meet the needs of Covid-19 patients.

A Bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said this after advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for Delhi government, said the national capital had received 86 MT of oxygen till 9 am on Friday and that 16 MT was in transit.

On May 5, the SC had stayed the contempt notice issued by the Delhi High Court to officers of the Centre on the issue of oxygen supply for the national capital. However, it asked the Centre to ensure that 700 MT demanded be supplied to it.

On Thursday, the Centre informed the court that it had supplied 730 MT to NCT the day before. However, it also added that to continue to meet the figure, stocks of other states will have to be diverted. There was also a shortage of containers to transport the LMO, the Centre had pleaded.

The Centre has relied on a report of an expert committee comprising V K Paul, head of the national Covid-19 taskforce, and AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, among others, to contend that Delhi’s daily demand of 700 MT is unrealistic and the problem of shortage has to do with “systemic failure”.

The Centre also urged the court to order an audit of the oxygen requirements of various states. Though the court agreed to consider this, the final order on the matter is not out yet.

COVID HITS RURAL INDIA: CASES AND DEATHS QUADRUPLE

A disconcerting feature of the second wave of Covid-19 is the surge in cases in rural India. Compared with the first peak in September last year, the number of cases in India’s hinterland or backward regions has quadrupled, and so has the number of the dead.

The districts covered by the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) — 243 of the 272 for which data are available — had more than 39.16 lakh people infected with the disease as on May 5. This is more than four times the 9.5 lakh infections at the peak of the first wave on September 16, 2020.

The burden of active cases in these districts is also much higher in the second wave, which is yet to peak. The active caseload right now is more than 4.2 times the peak active caseload in the first wave. More than 7.15 lakh people in these districts are currently infected with the disease, putting under extreme stress the sub-optimal healthcare infrastructure in rural districts.

This is probably reflected in the larger number of deaths in these districts. By May 5, the 243 districts together had reported 36,523 deaths, almost four times the number of dead at the peak of the first wave last year.

Almost 54 per cent of the 272 districts under BRGF belong to just five states: Bihar – 38, Uttar Pradesh – 35, Madhya Pradesh – 30, Jharkhand – 23 and Odisha – 20. These states also provide much of the labour force or migrant workers that powers the urban centres in the country.

COWIN PORTAL GETS NEW SECURITY CODE FEATURE AFTER USER COMPLAINTS

A new feature has been added to the CoWin portal after some users complained of their vaccination certificate being generated despite them not getting a jab. Now, anyone who has registered on the CoWin portal and selected a slot for vaccination will get a four-digit security code that they will have to produce at the vaccination centre to verify themselves.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, it was noticed that in some instances those who had booked their appointment for Covid-19 vaccination through the CoWin portal did not go to get their jabs on the scheduled date but still received a notification through SMS that a dose has been administered to them.

The ministry said that upon examination, it was found that this happened “largely on account of the vaccinator wrongly marking the citizen as vaccinated”.

The portal will roll out a feature, today onward, wherein a four-digit security code will be provided to the beneficiary. “After verification, if the beneficiary has been found as eligible, before administering the vaccine dose, the verifier/vaccinator will ask the beneficiary for the 4 digit code and then enter the same in the CoWIN portal to correctly record the vaccination status,” the government statement said.

This, it said, will ensure for those booking an online appointment, data entries are recorded correctly, and it will reduce opportunities of “impersonation or wrongful use of flexibilities provided in CoWin for facilitating vaccination coverage”.

WHATSAPP SCRAPS MAY 15 DEADLINE FOR ACCEPTING PRIVACY POLICY TERMS

WhatsApp has scrapped its May 15 deadline for users to accept its controversial privacy policy update and said not accepting the terms will not lead to deletion of accounts.

WhatsApp had faced severe backlash over user concerns that data was being shared with parent company Facebook.

"No accounts will be deleted on May 15 because of this update and no one in India will lose functionality of WhatsApp either. We will follow up with reminders to people over the next several weeks," a  spokesperson said in an emailed response to a query on Friday.

The spokesperson added that while a "majority of users who have received the new terms of service have accepted them", some people have not had the chance to do so yet.

However, the company did not clarify the reason behind the decision and did not divulge the number of users who have accepted the terms so far.

INDIA SQUAD FOR WTC FINAL, ENGLAND TESTS

The All-India Senior Selection Committee on Friday named a 20-man Indian squad for the inaugural ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand and the five-match Test series against England.

India’s squad: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (Captain), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Md. Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul (subject to fitness clearance), Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper; subject to fitness clearance).

Standby players: Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Arzan Nagwaswalla

KL Rahul, who had a recent appendicitis surgery, and Wriddhiman Saha, who tested positive for Covid-19, have both been named in the 20-man squad, both subject to clearing their fitness tests.

Team India’s first stop will be in Southampton where they play New Zealand to decide the first champion of the Test format. This match will be played from June 18-22.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; and the end of the world is evidently approaching. - Assyrian clay tablet 2800 B.C.