Coronavirus live updates: 'India to take call on int'l flights when other nations ease curbs'

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 301 to 183,979, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by 22 to 8,668, the tally showed.

A week ago, Mexico had around 90,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and over 9,000 COVID-19 fatalities. The weekly increase in the number of cases has remained stable (at around 23,000), but the death toll is climbing faster now: a weekly increase of 2,500 deaths reported last Sunday, while in the course of this week the death toll rose by around 4,000.

The latest deaths bring the total in the United States to 109,791, and there have been more than 1.9 million cases, according to a real-time tally maintained by the Baltimore-based university at 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Sunday). Some 500,000 people have recovered from the disease. The United States has suffered by far the largest number of both COVID-19 deaths and infections. President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States was "largely through" the pandemic and renewed his call on governors to ease lockdown measures in their states.

Delhi is likely to see at least one lakh Covid-19 cases by end of June as per a projection made by the five-member committee formed by the Delhi government. Based on the projection, the committee has asked the government to arrange an additional 15,000 beds to cater to the needs of the patients in the national capital. Another official said, "Delhi's doubling rate is 15 days. Based on our projections, the number of cases would increase. About 25 per cent of patients will require hospitalisation."

Brazil removed from public view months of data on its COVID-19 epidemic on Saturday, as President Jair Bolsonaro defended delays and changes to official record-keeping of the world's second-largest coronavirus outbreak. Brazil's Health Ministry removed the data from a website that had documented the epidemic over time and by state and municipality. The ministry also stopped giving a total count of confirmed cases, which have shot past 672,000 or a total death toll, which passed Italy this week, nearing 36,000 by Saturday.

The Delhi government has got an FIR filed against Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) for allegedly violating its order to use the RT-PCR app, launched by the Union ministry of health, for recording details of the samples being collected for the Covid-19 RT-PCR test. This is an app for all collection centres to provide real-time data in order to minimise duplication and error. It is linked to the main database of the Union health ministry. The app has replaced the earlier practice of collecting the data manually.

The scientists used chicken coronavirus - called infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) - infection model in the study to investigate the antiviral effect of certain herbal plants.The ICAR’s note said, “In a preliminary study, a natural product (namely VTC-antiC1) gave encouraging results against IBV coronavirus. At a non-cytotoxic concentration, VTC-AntiC1 was able to completely protect chicken embryos upon lethal IBV challenge infection.” It further said, “This suggests that VTC-antiC1 has the potential to treat coronavirus and may be repurposed to treat Covid-19 patients.”

South Korea has reported 57 additional cases of the coronavirus, marking a second day in a row that its daily jump is above 50 as authorities struggle to suppress a spike in fresh infections in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area. South Korea's caseload peaked in late February and early March but a later significant easing amid aggressive tracing, testing and treatment prompted authorities to loosen strict social distancing rules. The country has since seen an increase in new infections.

A higher number of Covid-19 tests per million population by a state may not necessarily co-relate to more confirmed cases detected or high fatality rates. The top 10 states with highest confirmed cases —Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP, MP, West Bengal, Karnataka and Bihar — together account for 84% of the total cases and 95% of the fatalities. A TOI study shows Delhi, TN, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Maharashtra, in that order, have carried out maximum tests per million population. However, the order of the top five states changes to Delhi, Maharashtra, TN, Gujarat and Rajasthan when it comes to maximum confirmed cases per million.