Covid-19 Bulletin: Recovered cases surpass 7 lakh mark, 43 big hospitals hold video consultation with AIIMS & more….

New Delhi Recovered people from Coronavirus today crossed the seven lakh mark. The Health Ministry data said that a total of 700,087 people affected with COVID-19 have recovered in the country so far and with this the recovery rate reached to 62.61 per cent.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said, a total of 22,664 people have recovered in the past 24 hours. Presently, the total number of active cases in the country is 3,90,459.

At 2.46%, India’s fatality rate one of the lowest in the World

The Case Fatality Rate in the country continues to register a steady downfall. It has dropped to 2.46% today. India has one of the lowest Case Fatality Rates in the world. More than 7 lakh persons have been cured of COVID-19 and discharged till now. This has further expanded the difference between those who are active COVID patients and the recovered persons (7,00,086) by 3,09,627. 22,664 COVID patients have recovered from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. The recovery rate as of now is at 62.62%. Medical attention is being provided to all the 3,90,459 active cases, in hospitals and home isolation.

43 big hospitals hold video consultation with AIIMS on Covid-19

In order to strengthen the Government of India’s efforts to reduce COVID-19 mortality, AIIMS New Delhi has started a video-consultation program with ICU doctors across the country called e-ICU on 8th July, 2020. The program aims at holding case-management discussions among doctors who are at the frontline in treating COVID-19 patients in hospitals and COVID facilities around the country.

Physicians who manage COVID-19 patients including those in the ICUs can raise queries, present their experience and share knowledge with other physicians and experts from AIIMS, New Delhi on this video platform. The primary objective of these discussions is to reduce mortality from COVID-19 by learning from shared experience and strengthening best practices among hospitals with 1000 beds including isolation beds, oxygen supported and ICU beds. Four sessions have been held till date covering 43 institutions. Some of the important issues that have been stressed upon are the need for rational use of ‘Investigational Therapies’ like Remdesevir, convalescent plasma and Tocilizumab. The treating teams have discussed the current indications and possible harm due to their indiscriminate use and the need to limit social-media pressure based prescriptions.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurates COVID-19 Plasma donation campaign

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare yesterday flagged off a Plasma Donation Campaign at AIIMS Delhi. The event was co-organized by Delhi Police where 26 police personnel who had recovered from COVID volunteered to donate their blood plasma.Expressing his gratitude to the Delhi Police for this initiative he said, “It is very sad that a dozen Delhi police personnel died due to Corona. In spite of these casualties, they are doing a great job deploying personnel to contain the spread, while the number of containment zones has jumped from 200 to 600.”Dr Harsh Vardhan saluted the contribution of these volunteers by conferring certificates to 26 Police constables. Of these, Shri Om Prakash was donating his plasma for the third time. The Minister stated that every single donor counts in our journey towards victory over COVID-19 and we need more and more of these plasma warriors to help fight the pandemic till a definitive treatment or vaccine is developed. He commented, “As of now convalescent plasma therapy has been approved for compassionate use with various plasma banks being set up to ensure round the clock availability”.

PM Modi interacts with IBM CEO Arvind Krishna

Prime Minister Shri NarendraModi interacted with IBM CEO Shri Arvind Krishna via video conferencing today.Talking about the impact of COVID on business culture, Prime Minister said that ‘work from home’ is being adopted in a big way and the government is constantly working towards providing infrastructure, connectivity and regulatory environment to ensure that this technological shift is smooth. He also discussed the technologies associated and challenges involved in the recent decision of IBM to make 75% of its employees to work from home.Prime Minister highlighted that this is a great time to invest in India. He talked about the efforts of the government in the last six years to promote wellness and ensure that the best quality healthcare is within the reach of the people. He explored the possibilities of creating India specific AI based tools in the healthcare sector and development of better models for disease prediction and analysis. He underlined that the country is moving towards development of an integrated, tech and data driven healthcare system which is affordable and hassle-free for the people.

Dr Harsh Vardhan launches PNB’s CSR campaign to distribute masks & sanitizer

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare launched Punjab National Bank’s (PNB) campaign to distribute face masks and sanitizers to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Expressing his gratitude to PNB for taking this responsibility when the whole world is suffering from COVID19, he commented, “I am happy that PNB is supporting the efforts of the Government in fight against this Pandemic. Steps like donation in PM Cares fund and organising CSR activities for distribution of masks and sanitizers have been taken by the Bank. Use of masks and good hand hygiene promote COVID appropriate behaviour and this is the best ‘social vaccine’ we currently have against the disease. The Bank is distributing such material in 662 districts throughout the country and I congratulate PNB for their efforts.”

UPSC gears up to conduct Personality Tests (Interviews) for Civil Services Exam 2

The Union Public Service Commission was in the midst of conducting the Personality Tests (PTs)/Interviews for 2,304 candidates for the Civil Services Examination, 2019 (CSE-2019) when the Government of India decided to impose a lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. The Commission also reviewed the position and decided to defer the remaining PT Boards for 623 candidates of the CSE-2019 from 23.03.2020 onwards.With gradual lifting of the lockdown, the Commission has decided to hold the PTs for the remaining candidates from 20th to 30th of July, 2020 and all the candidates have been suitably informed in advance. In order to address the safety and health concerns of the candidates, expert advisers and staff of the Commission, suitable arrangements have been put in place.

Consumer Protection Act, 2019 comes into force from today

New Act will empower consumers and help them in protecting their rights through its various notified Rules and provisions like Consumer Protection Councils, Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions, Mediation, Product Liability and punishment for manufacture or sale of products containing adulterant / spurious goods. Act includes establishment of the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers. The CCPA will be empowered to conduct investigations into violations of consumer rights and institute complaints / prosecution, order recall of unsafe goods and services, order discontinuance of unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, impose penalties on manufacturers/endorsers/publishers of misleading advertisements. The rules for prevention of unfair trade practice by e-commerce platforms will also be covered under this Act.

2,652 trips of Parcel express trains in the wake of COVID-19

South Eastern Railway (SER) as a part of commitment to the nation during this national crisis, has already run 2652 trips of Time Tabled Parcel Express Trains carrying essential commodities viz., food items, groceries, medicines, medical equipment and other items of daily need to different parts of the country from 2nd April to 15th July, 2020. SER during the above period, has carried 46,141 tonnes of parcel traffic containing 17,81,264 number of packages to different places in the country.These Time Tabled Parcel Express Trains are running between Shalimar-Ranchi, Shalimar-Mumbai CSMT, Howrah-Secunderabad, Howrah-KSR Bengaluru, Shalimar-Porbander and Tatanagar-Itwari.