Covid-19 Wrap-up: India becomes third nation to cross 3 lakh Covid-19 deaths

Crowded wards with scarcely a doctor or an attendant in sight, patients holding on to each other to go to washrooms so filthy they gagged and, most agonising, people around them dying. For Covid-19 patients who are back home now, harrowing images from their hospital stay are the hurdles on their road to recovery.

The agenda for taking on the rural spread of Covid-19 has now been set at the highest level with the prime minister confirming that the pandemic is "spreading fast in the villages". With at least 13 states reporting that the total number of new cases in rural areas exceeded those in urban areas, the states with the largest rural populations (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) face some of the toughest challenges.

When the second wave slammed the country last month, leaving many cities without enough doctors, nurses, hospital beds or lifesaving oxygen to cope, Sajeev V B got the help he needed. Local health workers quarantined Sajeev, a 52-year-old mechanic, at home and connected him with a doctor over the phone. When he grew sicker, they mustered an ambulance that took him to a public hospital with an available bed. Oxygen was plentiful. He left 12 days later and was not billed for his treatment. Sajeev’s experience had much to do with where he lives: A suburb of Kochi.

New Covid-19 cases in India touched their lowest level in about 38 days with 2.22 lakh new infections as 4,454 more people succumbed to the disease in the past 24 hours, according to Ministry of Health data. India on Sunday reached yet another grim milestone as it became the third country after the US and Brazil to log more than three lakh Covid-19 deaths, recorded over the last 14 months. The final one lakh deaths came in less than a month.

A steady decline in daily new Covid-19 cases has been observed in the last 17 days across the nation, the Union Health Ministry said. It also said that there was no indication as of now that children would be severely affected in the third wave of Covid-19.

Using force to get people tested for Covid-19, the highhandedness of Bengaluru's Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike officials has drawn flak from citizens.

Weeks after parliamentarian L S Tejasvi Surya questioned their appointment during his "exposé" of the hospital bed allocation scam, the 16 Muslim staff are yet to get back their jobs at the BBMP’s Covid-19 war room.

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev withdrew his statements on allopathic medicine being a "stupid science" that had triggered an outcry among the medical fraternity.

A mid-air wedding in the presence of guests and relatives took place inside a SpiceJet chartered flight on May 23 wherein Covid-19 social distancing norms were violated, sources said.

On-site registration and appointment have now been enabled for the 18-44 age group on the Co-WIN platform for Covid-19 vaccinations. India has so far administered more than one crore vaccine doses in that age group.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that US pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna had declined to sell Covid-19 vaccines to the city government as they wanted to directly deal with the Centre.

The Supreme Court said it was a policy decision of the Union Government as to what kind of measures should be taken to help people facing financial hardships due to Covid-19.

Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before China reported the first cases of Covid-19, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a US intelligence report.

Singapore authorities provisionally approved a breath test that can detect the highly contagious Covid-19 infection within a minute, which was developed by three graduates of the prestigious National University of Singapore and an India-born professor.

Sniffer dogs trained using smelly socks worn by people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could soon be used at airports or mass gathering venues to pick up the "corona odour" of Covid-19-infected people, British scientists said.