Amid alarming global rises in Covid-19 infections, Russia to make vaccine under trial available to public next month

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Medical staff conducts tests from inside the newly designed APSRTC Sanjeevini bus at Government ENT hospital in Visakhapatnam. (Photo courtesy: A Sarath Kumar / BCCL)

(TibetanReview.net, Jul20’20) – In yet another steep rise in Covid-19 cases to a new daily record, India for the first time reported more than 40,000 new infections on Jul 19 as the World Health Organization said the global daily total had for the first time topped a quarter million to reach 259,848 cases. It said the United States, Brazil, South Africa and India, which had each reached more than one million cases on Jul 17, reported the biggest increases.

India’s Covid-19 tally has crossed the 1.1 million mark just three days after it crossed the 1 million mark.

Meanwhile Russia has said it will make a coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by it available to general public next month even before it cleared the third and last phase of clinical trials.

“The government’s decree implies this. It will be imperative that additional clinical research of an approved vaccine be conducted simultaneously,” livemint.com Jul 19, citing a Sputnik News report, quoted Russia’s health minister Murashko as telling reporters during a working trip to the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

The vaccine will start phase 3 trials in thousands of people on Aug 3 in Russia as well as in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of the government-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), was quoted as saying.

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Meanwhile the tally of India’s Ministry of Health shows that there were 40,425 new Cvoid-19 cases and 681 new deaths in the country over the past 24 hours as of Jul 20 at 8AM, taking their totals to 1,118,043 cases and 27,497 deaths.

Ten states reported their highest single-day jump in infections, noted timesofindia.com Jul 20.

This is also the fifth consecutive day Covid-19 cases in India have increased by more than 30,000. It was also the fifth time this week that the daily count of cases in India hit a new all-time high.

A total of 700,087, or 62.61 per cent, had recovered, so that the number of active cases was 390,459.

The daily number of new cases, at 40,425, was substantially more than the daily number of those who recovered at 22,664.

India currently has the third highest total number of Covid-19 cases and the eighth highest total number of deaths from the pandemic.

The nine worst-hit states with more than 40,000 cases were led by Maharashtra with a total of 310,455 cases after 9,518 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu with 170,693 (↑4,979) cases, Delhi with 122,793 (↑1,211) cases, Karnataka 63,772 (↑4,120), Andhra Pradesh 49,650 (↑5,041), Uttar Pradesh 49,247 (↑2,211), Gujarat with 48,355 (↑965) cases, Telangana 45,076 (↑1,296), and West Bengal 42,487 (↑2,278).

There were nine other states with more than 10,000 cases: Rajasthan 29,434 (↑934), Bihar 26,569 (↑1,433), Haryana 26,164 (↑617), Assam 23,999 (↑1,081); Madhya Pradesh 22,600 (↑837); Odisha 17,437 (↑736); Jammu & Kashmir 13,899 (↑701), Kerala 12,480 (↑821), and Punjab 10,100 (↑308).

Besides, there were nine other states/ Union Territories with more than 1,000 cases: Jharkhand 5,535 (↑193), Chattisgarh 5,407 (↑174), Uttarakhand 4,515 (↑239), Goa 3,657 (↑173), Tripura 2,878 (↑224), Puducherry 1,999 (↑105), Manipur 1,911 (↑20), Himachal Pradesh 1,483 (↑26), and Ladakh 1,178 (↑19).

Finally, there were seven other states/ Union Territories with less than 1,000 cases: Nagaland 988 (↑10), Arunachal Pradesh 740 (↑90), Chandigarh 717 (↑17), Meghalaya 450 (↑32) cases, Mizoram 284 (↑0), Sikkim 283 (↑8), and Andaman and Nicobar Islands 203 (↑5).

Lakshadweep and Dadra Nagar Haveli remain the only States /Union Territories without any Covid-19 case.

Maharashtra also had the most number of deaths at 11,854 (↑2584), followed by Delhi 3,628 (↑31), Tamil Nadu 2,481 (↑78), Gujarat 2,142 (↑20), Karnataka 1,331 (↑91), Uttar Pradesh 1,146 (↑38), West Bengal 1,112 (↑36), Madhya Pradesh 721 (↑15), Andhra Pradesh 642 (↑56), Rajasthan 559 (↑6), Telangana 415 (↑6), Haryana 349 (↑5), Punjab 254 (↑8), Jammu & Kashmir 244 (↑8), Bihar 217 (↑9), Odisha 91 (↑5), Assam 57 (↑4), Uttarakhand 52 (↑0), Jharkhand 49 (↑3), Kerala 42 (↑2), Puducherry 28 (↑0), Chattisgarh 24 (↑0), Goa 22 (↑1), Chandigarh 12 (↑0), Himachal Pradesh 11 (↑0), Tripura 5 (↑0), Arunachal Pradesh 3 (↑0), Meghalaya 2 (↑0), and Ladakh 2 (↑1).

Five States/ Union Territory with Covid-19 cases have reported no deaths so far.

(Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)

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Delhi provided some cheerful news amid the gloom in the pandemic situation in India, recording 1,211 new cases, the lowest single-day count in a month, noted timesofindia.com Jul 20.

“The situation is better than what it was last month. But please don’t be complacent. This virus is very unpredictable. Stay safe and follow all precautions. We should always be prepared for the worst,” Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier tweeted on Jul 19 morning.

He has said the national capital had turned a crucial corner in its fight against Covid-19. He credited a five-point “Delhi Model” – increased testing, home isolation of mild cases, availability of hospital beds, transparency of data, and plasma therapy – for nearly halving the number of daily new cases in a month.

New cases had fallen from an average of 2,184 per day a month ago to 1,475 in the past seven days, making the city the only region in India with a major outbreak to record a sustained reduction in epidemic growth, the report noted.

Delhi remains one of extemely few states where the number of those who have recovered is more than the number of new infections in the past 24 hours.

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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had surged past the 14.11 million mark to reach 14,508,892 while a total of 606,206 had died as of Jul 20 at 01:04:33 PM, according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

There were thus 207,768 new cases and 3,891 new deaths during the past 23 hours or so across 188 countries and regions.

The countries with the most number of reported Covid-19 cases thus far were the US (3,773,260), Brazil (2,098,389), India (1,118,206), Russia (770,311), South Africa (364,328), Peru (353,590), Mexico (344,224),  Chile (330,930), UK (296,358),  … China (85,314).

The countries with the most number of Covid-19 deaths were the US (140,534), Brazil (79,488), the UK (45,385), Mexico (39,184), Italy (35,045), France (30,155), Spain (28,420), India (27,497) … China (4,644).

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