Blow to Modi govt as Interpol gives clean chit to Dr Zakir Naik, cancels red corner notice

Mangaluru/Udupi, Jul 25: Karnataka’s twin coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi recorded 400 new covid-19 cases and nine fatalities in past 24 hours. While DK’s death toll mounted to 115, Udupi’s toll mounted to 15.

Dakshina Kannada

Dakshina Kannada alone recorded 218 new covid cases and eight deaths. The total number of positive cases mounted to 4,612. Out of these, 2,370 cases are currently active. As many as 2,127 persons have recovered and been discharged.

Of the 218 who tested positive on Saturday, 46 are primary contacts, 87 have ILI symptoms, 15 have SARI symptoms, and contacts of 70 are being traced.

Among the eight deaths that occurred on Saturday, the first is of a 44-year-old man from Mangaluru. He was admitted to private hospital on July 23, and breathed his last on same day. He was suffering from sepsis with septic shock and viral infection. 

The second is 78-year-old man from Bhatkal. He was admitted to a private hospital on July 18, and passed away July 23. He suffered from refractory hypoxemia, refractory ARDS and secondary bacterial infection. 

The third is an 88-year-old man from Mangaluru. He was admitted to a private hospital on July 10, and passed away on July 23. He suffered from hypoxemia, refractory ARDS and renal failure. 

The fourth is a 68-year-old man from Bantwal. He was admitted to a private hospital on June 7, and passed away on July 23. He suffered from septic shock. 

The fifth is a 68-year-old man from Mangaluru. He was admitted to a private hospital on July 17, and passed away on July 23. He was suffering from ARDS and Acute coronary event. 

The sixth is a 75-year-old man from Mangaluru. She was admitted to private hospital on July 14 and passed away on July 24. He was suffering from refractory hypoxemia, refractory ARDS and respiratory distress. 

The seventh is a 76-year-old female from Mangaluru. She was admitted to private hospital on July 21 and passed away on July 24. She was suffering from refractory hypoxemia, refractory ARDS, viral pneumonia, T2 DM and hypertension. 

The eighth is a 53-year-old female. She was admitted to private hospital on July 24 and passed away on July 24. She was suffering from sepsis with multi-organ dysfunction, cardiogenic shock, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, peripheral vascular disease and diabetic foot on right side LRTI.

Udupi

Udupi recorded 182 new covid cases in past 24 hours and the total reached 3,218. As many as 2,008 patients have been discharged so far including 79 on Saturday, and 1,199 cases are currently active. 

Among the new cases, 96 are in Udupi, 37 in Kundapur, and 49 in Karkala. They include 109 men and 68 women, and two boys and three girls. As many as 539 are under home isolation.

As many as 15 covid related deaths have occurred in the district so far including the one on Saturday. 

45-year-old man from Kollur was admitted to KMC Hospital, Manipal, as he was suffering from lung cancer. He was tested positive for coronavirus and then shifted to covid-19 hospital, where he breathed his last.

Beijing, Feb 24: The lockdown of Guo Jing's neighbourhood in Wuhan -- the city at the heart of China's new coronavirus epidemic -- came suddenly and without warning.

Unable to go out, the 29-year-old is now sealed inside her compound where she has to depend on online group-buying services to get food.

"Living for at least another month isn't an issue," Guo told news agency, explaining that she had her own stash of pickled vegetables and salted eggs.

But what scares her most is the lack of control -- first, the entire city was sealed off, and then residents were limited to exiting their compound once every three days.

Now even that has been taken away.

Guo is among some 11 million residents in Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province that has been under effective quarantine since January 23 as Chinese authorities race to contain the epidemic.

Since then, its people have faced a number of tightening controls over daily life as the death toll from the virus swelled to over 2,500 in China alone.

But the new rules this month barring residents from leaving their neighbourhoods are the most restrictive yet -- and for some, threaten their livelihoods.

"I still don't know where to buy things once we've finished eating what we have at home," said Pan Hongsheng, who lives with his wife and two children.

Some neighbourhoods have organised group-buying services, where supermarkets deliver orders in bulk.

But in Pan's community, "no one cares".

"The three-year-old doesn't even have any milk powder left," Pan told news agency, adding that he has been unable to send medicine to his in-laws -- both in their eighties -- as they live in a different area.

"I feel like a refugee."

The "closed management of neighbourhoods is bound to bring some inconvenience to the lives of the people", Qian Yuankun, vice secretary of Hubei's Communist Party committee, said at a press briefing last week.

Authorities on Monday allowed healthy non-residents of the city to leave if they never had contact with patients, but restrictions remained on those who live in Wuhan.

Demand for group-buying food delivery services has rocketed with the new restrictions, with supermarkets and neighbourhood committees scrambling to fill orders.

Most group-buying services operate through Chinese messaging app WeChat, which has ad-hoc chat groups for meat, vegetables, milk -- even "hot dry noodles", a famous Wuhan dish.

More sophisticated shops and compounds have their own mini-app inside WeChat, where residents can choose packages priced by weight before orders are sent in bulk to grocery stores.

In Guo's neighbourhood, for instance, a 6.5-kilogramme (14.3-pound) set of five vegetables, including potatoes and baby cabbage, costs 50 yuan ($7.11).

"You have no way to choose what you like to eat," Guo said. "You cannot have personal preferences anymore."

The group-buying model is also more difficult for smaller communities to adopt, as supermarkets have minimum order requirements for delivery.

"To be honest, there's nothing we can do," said Yang Nan, manager of Lao Cun Zhang supermarket, which requires a minimum of 30 orders.

"We only have four cars," she said, explaining that the store did not have the staff to handle smaller orders.

Another supermarket told AFP it capped its daily delivery load to 1,000 orders per day.

"Hiring staff is difficult," said Wang Xiuwen, who works at the store's logistics division, adding that they are wary about hiring too many outsiders for fear of infection.

Closing off communities has split the city into silos, with different neighbourhoods rolling out controls of varying intensity.

In some compounds, residents have easier access to food -- albeit a smaller selection than normal -- and one woman said her family pays delivery drivers to run grocery errands.

Her compound has not been sealed off either, the 24-year-old told AFP under condition of anonymity, though they are limited to one person leaving at a time.

Some districts have implemented their own rules, such as prohibiting supermarkets from selling to individuals, forcing neighbourhoods to buy in bulk or not at all.

"In the neighbourhood where I live, the reality is really terrible," said David Dai, who is based on the outskirts of Wuhan.

Though his apartment complex has organised group-buying, Dai said residents were unhappy with price and quality.

"A lot of tomatoes, a lot of onions -- they were already rotten," he told , estimating over a third of the food had to be thrown away.

His family must "totally depend" on themselves, added the 49-year-old, who has resorted to saving and drying turnip skins to add nutrients to future meals.

The uncertainty of not knowing when the controls will be lifted is also frustrating, said Ma Chen, a man in his 30s who lives alone.

"I have no way of knowing how much (food) I should buy."

Mangaluru, Mar 23: People in Thukkottu and Ullal area of Mangaluru are in panic after a local woman who recently returned from a foreign country fell ill.

On receiving information the health officials from Ullal PHC visited the house of the woman, who is suffering from fever and cold. They provided her medicines and asked her to remain quarantined at home.

It is said that the woman's mother, who had come to a grocery shop near Thokkottu, informed the shopkeeper that her daughter, who had returned from abroad, was suffering from fever.

The alert shopkeeper, understanding the gravity of the situation, informed ZP Standing Committee on Health and Education President Dhanalakshmi Gatti, who in turn brought the issue to the notice of health officials.

The health officials rushed to her house and diagnosed her. However, the authorities have requested the local people not to be panicked as it is not yet confirmed whether the woman is suffering from COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus.