Coronavirus live updates: Centre tells SC make-shift hospitals will have to be built in near future

British business minister Alok Sharma has been tested for Covid-19 after feeling unwell in parliament on Wednesday, just a day after the government required hundreds of legislators to resume voting in person. More than 50,000 people in Britain have died of the disease, the worst death toll in Europe, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent several days in intensive care in early April after contracting it. During April and May, legislators could vote remotely, but on Tuesday the government ended the arrangement, angering parliamentarians across all parties. Hundreds of lawmakers spent over an hour in enormous queues through the imposing corridors and halls of the Palace of Westminster on Tuesday, casting their first ever socially-distanced votes.

Even as new cases of Covid-19 are increasing rapidly, on the brighter side, the number of recovered people crossed the one lakh-mark on Wednesday to touch 1,00,303 or 48.31% of those infected by the Sars-Cov-2 virus. The number of Covid-19 cases in India rose to 2,07,615 with yet another biggest single-day spike as 8,909 fresh cases and 217 deaths were recorded by the health ministry on Wednesday. The death toll has gone up to 5,815. There were 1,01,497 active Covid-19 cases in the country, the ministry said. “We are expecting cases to increase as restrictions are gradually being lifted. While containment exercise will continue, it is a relief that recovery rate is improving fast and deaths are limited. Our focus is to keep death rate as low as possible. Increasing number of recoveries shows that our strategy of early detection and clinical management is right,” a health ministry official said. According to ministry data, Maharashtra has reported 72,300 cases so far, followed by Tamil Nadu with 24,586 cases and Delhi with 22,132. Of the 5,815 deaths across the country, Maharashtra accounted for the highest number at 2,465, followed by Gujarat and Delhi.

Forty-four per cent of Karnataka’s 4,063 coronavirus cases occurred in a span of just eight days, between May 27 and June 3. These infections, 1,780, coincided with the return of thousands of people who had been living or working in other states, and lead to several grim milestones in the form of highest single-day spikes. The indications started to emerge in the second week of May. In fact, Karnataka crossed the 1,000-mark only on May 15 and in the next few weeks, it recorded over 3,000 cases.

The health ministry on Wednesday issued guidelines for safe ENT practice amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The guidelines are aimed at minimising the spread of Covid-19 infection among ENT doctors, nursing staff, support staff, patients and their attendants. According to the ministry guidelines, all patients entering the ENT OPD shall be thermally screened. Covid-19 positive patients are to be operated only for emergency indications in designated operation theatres. Patients having symptoms suggestive of Covid-19 pertaining to both ENT symptoms or respiratory symptoms, should be seen in a separate Covid-19 screening clinic and not in the ENT OPD, it said. The ministry also recommended teleconsultation as an option. The ministry said that patients should be shifted to ENT ward only after they test Covid negative

People who have returned from other states do not need to leave because of helplessness. So, arrangements for employment are being made for them. All the concerned departments are working on it: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar

Sources said defence minister Rajnath Singh and some other top military and civilian officers did not attend their offices on Wednesday after the report of Kumar testing positive sent shock waves down the corridors of South Block.

"All asymptomatic passengers who enter/deboard in NCT of Delhi shall home quarantine themselves for 7 days (in place of 14 days of self monitoring of health...)," said the order, which came on a day Delhi recorded 1,513 fresh coronavirus cases, highest single-day spike.