Coronavirus live updates: England to enter new lockdown; UK virus cases pass 1 million

Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla will on Monday review the coronavirus situation in Delhi, which has seen a sudden spike in cases, officials said. Top officials of the Union health ministry and the Delhi government will attend the meeting

A new clause in the Section 4 of the Rajasthan Epidemic Diseases Act, 2020 has been inserted, which proposes to prohibit the movement of people at public places without properly covering mouth and nose with a face mask or cover. The statement of the bill said, “Health experts all over the world are of the opinion that the use of a mask can help control the spread of COVID-19 considerably and save lives of millions.”

India's Covid-19 case fatality rate (CFR) fell below 1.5 per cent on Saturday, the Union health ministry said, crediting the Centre-led strategy of 'test, trace, track and treat' for keeping coronavirus-related deaths low and within manageable numbers. Deaths per million population in the country stand at a very low level of 88, it said. The ministry said 23 states and union territories in the country have a CFR lower than the national average, while 65 per cent of the total deaths so far were recorded in five states.

Tamil Nadu agriculture minister R Doraikkannu, admitted for Covid-19, is extremely critical, a hospital treating him said. The 72-year-old minister has "suffered a significant deterioration in vital functions. He is extremely critical despite being on maximallife support," the hospital said in a bulletin. Doraikkannu was admitted to the hospital on October 13.

Covid-19 patients who were administered a novel antibody had fewer symptoms and were less likely to require hospitalisation or emergency medical care than those who did not receive the therapy, according to a new study. The ongoing Phase II clinical trial, whose interim results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine, tested three different doses of LY-CoV555, a monoclonal antibody derived from the blood of a recovered Covid-19 patient. The analysis indicated a reduced viral load in outpatients with mild to moderate cases of Covid-19 at the 2,800-milligram dosage level, along with reduced rates of hospitalisation and emergency medical care among patients at all dosage levels.

Nine of them tested positive for the disease through the rapid-antigen test and 15 others through the RT-PCR test on Friday. Nine of them are in institutional quarantine and 15 in self-isolation, he added. The Uttarakhand government had allowed resumption of the trading activities associated with adventure sports in the state from September 26, but tourists did not always follow the social-distancing norms, Rafting Association president Dinesh Bhatt said.

The study, published in the journal Cells, found that the approved protease inhibitor aprotinin displayed activity against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in concentrations that are achieved in patients. According to the researchers, aprotinin aerosols are approved in Russia for the treatment of influenza and could be readily tested for the treatment of Covid-19. Aprotinin inhibits the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into host cells and may compensate for the loss of host cell protease inhibitors that are downregulated upon SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The total number of cases rises to 2,90,116, including 2,73,838 recoveries, 14,905 active cases & 1,320 deaths