Coronavirus: UP's Ghaziabad once again a 'red' zone

Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district has emerged as the new Covid-19 hotspot as 95 new cases of the virus were reported in a single day, half of them migrant workers returning from other states. District Magistrate, Barabanki, Aadarsh Kumar, said on Wednesday that of the 245 samples sent for testing on May 15-16, 95 have been found positive. Among those who tested positive, 49 are migrants who had recently returned from other states, the DM said, adding that all have been admitted to hospital as per the protocol. The remaining 46 are those who had come in contact with 6 infected persons and had been kept in isolation, the DM said. With this, the total number of active cases in the district has gone up to 122, the DM added. Earlier on Tuesday, 50 migrants had tested positive in Basti district.

Singapore on Thursday reported 448 new coronavirus cases, most of them foreign workers living in dormitories, taking the total number of positive cases in the city-state to 29,812. Thirteen of the new Covid-19 cases are either Singaporeans or permanent residents, said the Health Ministry. The vast majority of the new cases are foreign workers living in dormitories, the Ministry said in its preliminary daily update. "Of these, seven cases were picked up from our active surveillance and screening of nursing home residents and pre-school staff, and four are part of a family cluster linked to a dormitory. Epidemiological investigations are ongoing for the other two cases," the Channel News Asia reported quoting the ministry. On Wednesday, the Ministry said COVID-19 cases among work permit holders living outside dormitories have been added to the daily count of community cases. These cases were previously listed under a separate category.

Almost 1.50 lakh tickets were booked within two hours of opening the bookings for the 100 pairs of passenger trains that the railways will operationalise on June 1, officials said Thursday. On Wednesday, railways issued a list of 100 pairs of trains that it will operate from June 1. The list included popular trains such as Durontos, Sampark Krantis, Jan Shatabdis and Poorva Express. This is the second slew of special passenger services that marked the Railways graded restoration of its trains which were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. "At 12:00 Hours, 73 trains were available in the system for booking. 1,49,025 tickets were booked having 2,90,510 passengers," said a railway spokesperson. These trains will have both AC and non-AC classes and fully reserved coaches.