I think I should stay away from this debate: Modi on judicial crisis

New Delhi, Jul 10: With the highest single-day spike of 26,506 COVID-19 cases and 475 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the total number of COVID-19 cases in India reached 7,93,802 on Friday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of the total number of cases, 2,76,685 are active, 4,95,513 have been cured/discharged/migrated and 21,604 have died so far due to the infection.

With as many as 2,30,599 COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra continues to remain the worst-affected state, followed by Tamil Nadu (1,26,581) and Delhi (1,07,051).

Meanwhile, 2,83,659 samples were tested for coronavirus on Thursday, taking the total number of samples tested up to July 9 to 1,10,24,491, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

New Delhi, May 1: The Centre has finalsed the criteria for delimitation of various zones after May 3. It has identified at least 130 districts as red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones.

According to a letter written by Health Secretary Preeti Sudan to the Chief Secretaries of all States and UTs, all the states have to delineate the containment areas and buffer zones in the identified red and orange zone districts and notify the same.

The letter said, the national capital has at least 11 red zones, Uttar Pradesh 19 red zones, 36 orange zones and 20 green zones while, the state of Haryana has 2 red zones, 18 orange zones and 2 green zones.

The Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh has been identified as a red zone district while, Ghaziabad has been designated as an orange zone. The national capital has no orange and green zone; there are only red zones according to the letter.

In Maharashtra, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nashik come in the red zone.

In West Bengal, Kolkata, Howrah, 24 Parganas -- both North and South have been identified as red zones while Hooghly, Nadia, Murshidabad etc have been marked as orange zones.

In the southern part of India, Kerala has 2 red zones and 10 orange zones, while Tamil Nadu has 12 red zones and 24 orange zones.

The Health Secretary said that the list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states for further follow-up action in consonance with the directions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 based on field feedback and additional analysis at state level, states may designate additional red or orange zones as appropriate.

However, states may not relax the zonal classification of districts classified as red or orange as communicated by the Ministry. This classification is multi-factorial and takes into consideration incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback to classify the districts.

A district will be considered under green zone, if there are no confirmed cases so far or there is no reported case since the last 21 days in the district.

Geneva, Mar 12: For the global economy, virus repercussions were profound, with increasing concerns of wealth- and job-wrecking recessions. U.S. stocks wiped out more than all the gains from a huge rally a day earlier as Wall Street continued to reel.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,464 points, bringing it 20% below its record set last month and putting it in what Wall Street calls a “bear market.” The broader S&P 500 is just 1 percentage point away from falling into bear territory and bringing to an end one of the greatest runs in Wall Street’s history.

WHO officials said they thought long and hard about labeling the crisis a pandemic — defined as sustained outbreaks in multiple regions of the world.

The risk of employing the term, Ryan said, is “if people use it as an excuse to give up.” But the benefit is “potentially of galvanizing the world to fight.”

Underscoring the mounting challenge: soaring numbers in the U.S. and Europe’s status as the new epicenter of the pandemic. While Italy exceeds 12,000 cases and the United States has topped 1,300, China reported a record low of just 15 new cases Thursday and three-fourths of its infected patients have recovered.

China’s totals of 80,793 cases and 3,169 deaths are a shrinking portion of the world’s more than 126,000 infections and 4,600 deaths.

“If you want to be blunt, Europe is the new China,” said Robert Redfield, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With 12,462 cases and 827 deaths, Italy said all shops and businesses except pharmacies and grocery stores would be closed beginning Thursday and designated billions in financial relief to cushion economic shocks in its latest efforts to adjust to the fast-evolving crisis that silenced the usually bustling heart of the Catholic faith, St. Peter’s Square.