Coronavirus live updates: Maharashtra reports 960 Covid deaths, highest so far

Inoculation of people in theage group 45 and above in Gujarat was halted for three days from Friday following a revision in the Covid-19 vaccination schedule after the Centre's decision to increase the gap between two doses of Covishield, the state government said. However, during these three days, vaccination will continue for people in the age group of 18 to 44 years who have already registered themselves and received SMSes, said a state government release.

The origin of the novel coronavirus is still unclear and the theory that it was caused by a laboratory leak needs to be taken seriously until there is a rigorous data-led investigation that proves it wrong, a group of leading scientists said.

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, the Indian partner of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said it has commenced Sputnik V’s India rollout with the first dose being administered in Hyderabad on Friday as part of a limited pilot.

The origin of the novel coronavirus is still unclear and the theory that it was caused by a laboratory leak needs to be taken seriously until there is a rigorous data-led investigation that proves it wrong, a group of leading scientists said.Covid-19, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed 3.34 million people, cost the world trillions of dollars in lost income and upended normal life for billions of people."More investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic," said the 18 scientists, including Ravindra Gupta, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, and Jesse Bloom, who studies the evolution of viruses at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine generates antibody responses three-and-a-half times larger in older people when a second dose is delayed to 12 weeks after the first, a British study said.