pandemic

A school in Dehradun has been declared a micro-containment zone over just seven Covid cases. Dr R Rajesh Kumar, the District Magistrate of Dehradun, stated, "This decision was taken after a report from the Chief Minister's Office." He has also directed the police to ensure barricades and security arrangements over these cases. On 5th May, the state of Uttarakhand only reported 23 Covid cases.

The NTAGI would review the Covid vaccine data for children in the age group of 5 to 12 years. This comes just days after the Drug Controller General of India (DCG) okayed Corbevax for children falling in the age bracket of 5 to 12 years, and Covaxin for children aged 6 to 12 years, for emergency use. The NTAGI recently also approved Covovax for children aged 12 to 17 years.

India reported 3,303 fresh cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total active case load in the country to 16,980, on April 28. Furthermore, 39 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 5,23,693. The daily positivity rate stands at 0.66%, and weekly positivity rate at 0.61%. Notably, India has administered over 188.40 cumulative doses of COVID-19, so far.

ICMR Additional DG, Dr Samiran Panda, has opined that there is no need to shut schools over a spike in Covid-19 cases. He also stated that children are not the drivers of the Covid-19 spread. He further stressed that school closures negatively affect children. Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist and physician, also noted that Covid-19 tends to be mild or asymptomatic in most children.

While several countries have just recently lifted Covid-related mandates, the European Union is not planning to drop the use of digital Covid-19certificates yet. The certificate is granted to the vaccinated, the Covid-19 recovered, and to those who recently tested negative. There have been widespread protests in Europe against the use of Covid-19 passes, with several MEPs also citing its inability to stop Covid-19 spread, and flagging human… read-more