Coronavirus live updates: Highest single-day rise of 3,845 coronavirus cases in Haryana

A highly contagious variant of Covid-19 first identified in Britain does not cause more severe disease in hospitalised patients, according to a new study published in the medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases on Monday. The strain, known as B.1.1.7, was identified in Britain late last year and has become the most common strain in the United States, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Almost 35 lakh pilgrims — as per official estimates — turned up for the Somvati Amavasya shahi snan on Monday, the first shahi snan since the Maha Kumbh officially began on April 1. As seers of various akhadas came for the shahi snan followed by pilgrims, Covid norms went for a toss as there was virtually no social distancing or masks being used by many people. Kumbh Mela IG Sanjay Gunjyal told TOI, “Implementing Covid-19 guidelines is practically not possible during the procession of akhadas and shahi snan at Har-ki-Pauri and it could have caused a stampede-like situation if we started issuing challans. However, we kept on asking pilgrims to follow the social distancing guidelines at the other ghats.”

Amid the recent surge in Covid-19 cases and related deaths, bodies of coronavirus patients are piling up at various hospitals in Chhattisgarh, including BR Ambedkar Hospital in Raipur. Considering the situation, the state government has decided to set up electric crematorium in six urban areas of state to speed up the funeral process.

City hospitals say there are getting cases where a patient has typical symptoms of the disease but tests negative for the viral infection, sometimes twice or thrice even through RT-PCR, considered the gold standard for Covid testing. “We have received many such patients in the past few days. They had fever, cough, shortness of breath and the CT scan of the lungs showed lighter-coloured or gray patches. It is referred to as patchy ground glass opacity in medical terms. The condition is one of the defining characteristics of Covid-19,” Dr Aashish Chaudhry, managing director of Aakash Healthcare, said.

Delhi is fast turning into the epicentre of the Covid-19 crisis in the country with the city reporting over 10,000 cases for the second consecutive day. The city recorded 11,496 new cases in 24 hours on Monday, the highest till date and 7% higher than Sunday’s 10,774 cases. The positivity rate rose to 12.44% from 9.43% a day ago. Mumbai, which was among the country’s worst affected cities, reported 9,986 and 6,893 new cases over the last two days, respectively, significantly lower than Delhi’s tally. The capital recorded 72 fatalities on Monday compared to Mumbai’s 43.

India was back in the second spot in the world in total Covid cases when it overtook Brazil’s tally on Sunday. After logging nearly 1.7 lakh on the day, India’s caseload rose to 1,35,25,153, going past Brazil’s total of 1,34,82,543, as per worldometers.info. Brazil recorded less than 38,000 cases on Sunday. India had first gone past Brazil’s Covid tally to claim the second spot on Sept 6.