WHO alerted to air particle spread of Covid-19; India jumps to 3rd spot in infections

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Scientists from 32 countries have outlined evidence showing that smaller particles that hang in the air can also infect people. (Photo courtesy: coronavirustoday)

(TibetanReview.net, Jul06’20) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has long postulated that the novel coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor. However, in an open letter to the WHO, 239 scientists from 32 countries have outlined evidence showing that smaller particles that hang in the air can also infect people and therefore are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations. The researchers plan to publish their letter in a scientific journal.

The researchers’ call came as the number of people infected by the China-unleashed Covid-19 pandemic not only continues to increase rapidly to reach nearly 11.5 million but also recurs in countries where they were thought to have been brought under control, including in China itself.

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India is now the country with the third highest number of infections after the United States and Brazil after its latest tally surged past that of Russia.

This happened after India and several of its states reported their highest ever daily number of new cases.

Data from India’s Ministry of Health show that the country had a record 24,248 new cases and 425 new deaths over the past 24 hours as of Jul 6 at 8AM, taking their totals to 697,413 cases and 19,693 deaths. Assam, UP, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Rajasthan were among the states that recorded their highest single-day jump in cases, note timesofindia.com Jul 6.

A total of 424,433, or 60.85 per cent, had recovered, so that the number of active cases was 253,287.

Besides being now the country with the third highest number of Covid-19 cases, India has the eighth highest number of deaths from the global pandemic.

The 14 worst-hit states with more than 10,000 cases were led by Maharashtra with a total of 206,619 cases after 6,555 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu with 111,151 (↑4,150) cases, Delhi with 99,444 (↑2,244) cases, Gujarat with 36,037 (↑725) cases, Uttar Pradesh 27,707 (↑1,153), Telangana 23,902 (↑1,590), Karnataka 23,474 (↑1,925), West Bengal 22,126 (↑895), Rajasthan 20,164 (↑632), Andhra Pradesh 18,697 (↑998), Haryana 17,005 (↑457) cases, Madhya Pradesh 14,930 (↑326), Bihar 11,876 (↑176), and Assam 11,388 (↑720).

Below them were 12 states/Union Territories with more than 1,000 cases, namely Odisha 9,070 (↑469), Jammu & Kashmir 8,429 (↑183), Punjab 6,283 (↑174), Kerala 5,429 (↑225), Chattisgarh 3,207 (↑46), Uttarakhand 3,124 (↑31), Jharkhand 2,781 (↑42), Goa 1,761 (↑77), Tripura 1,568 (↑22), Manipur 1,366 (↑41), Himachal Pradesh 1,063 (↑17), and Ladakh 1,005 (↑0).

Besides, there were eight other states/ Union Territories with less than 1,000 cases, namely Puducherry 802 (↑0), Nagaland 590 (↑27), Chandigarh 466 (↑6), Arunachal Pradesh 269 (↑10), Mizoram 186 (↑22), Andaman and Nicobar Islands 125 (↑6), Sikkim 123 (↑20), and Meghalaya 62 (↑0) cases.

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 8,822 (↑151), followed by Delhi 3,067 (↑63), Gujarat 1,943 (↑18), Tamil Nadu 1,510 (↑60), Uttar Pradesh 785 (↑12), West Bengal 757 (↑21), Madhya Pradesh 608 (↑10), Rajasthan 456 (↑9), Karnataka 372 (↑37),  Telangana 295 (↑7), Haryana 265 (↑5), Andhra Pradesh 232 (↑14), Punjab 164 (↑2), Jammu & Kashmir 132 (↑5), Bihar 95 (↑6), Uttarakhand 42 (↑0), Odisha 36 (↑2), Kerala 25 (↑0), Jharkhand 19 (↑2), Chattisgarh 14 (↑0), Assam 14 (↑0), Puducherry 12 (↑0), Himachal Pradesh 11 (↑0), Chandigarh 6 (↑0), Goa 7 (↑1), Arunachal Pradesh 1 (↑0), Ladakh 1 (↑0), Meghalaya 1 (↑0), and Tripura 1 (↑0).

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

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

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In Delhi, the national capital and the state with the third highest number of cases, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said Jun 6 that despite the city’s Covid-19 cases having almost reached the 100,000 mark, people must not panic as the recovery rate now stood at 72 per cent.

He said that the high recovery rate “signifies that even though people are testing positive, they are recovering as well.”

“Close to 20,000-24,000 samples are being tested in the national capital on a daily basis,” he added.

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In Himachal Pradesh, Kangra Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Prajapati has said that under the new guidelines, any Himachal resident who wanted to come back would have to register online. The bar code sent to them after the registration process would be scanned on the district borders and only then they would be allowed entry.

The tribuneindia.com Jul 6 cited a section of retunees as saying when online registration was being done, the scanning of bar codes, which leads to long lines, was a trivial exercise.

For tourists, the district administration has made it mandatory that they should have a Covid-negative test report not older than 72 hours and they should have at least a five-day booking in a hotel.

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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had surged past the 11.45 million mark to reach 11,458,291 while a total of 534,460 had died as of Jul 6 at 2:03:59 PM, according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

There were 177,535 new cases and 3,396 new deaths during the past 24 hours across 188 countries and regions.

The countries with the most number of reported Covid-19 cases thus far were the US (2,888,729), Brazil (1,603,055), India (697,413), Russia (686,777), Peru (302,718), UK (286,932), Mexico (256,848) … China (84,871).

The countries with the most number of Covid-19 deaths were the US (129,947), Brazil (64,867), the UK (44,305), Italy (34,861), Mexico (30,639), France (29,896), Spain (28,385), India (19,693) … China (4,641).

(Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)

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