Appoint officer of disseminating info on virus: CIC
The CIC has advised the Union health ministry to appoint a nodal officer for dissemination of Covid-19 related information in public domain on suo motu basis in larger public interest as mandated in the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Chief Information Commissioner Bimal Julka issued an advisory to the ministry on a plea by activist Venkatesh Nayak to put out the information within 15 days.
Nayak had demanded details of district-wise number of hospitals and healthcare facilities called by any other name, designated as Covid-19 treatment centres as on date; postal addresses and telephone numbers of the hospitals and healthcare facilities and other related issues but the health ministry could not provide the details.
After the hearing at the CIC, Julka noted it is well recognised that the impact of Covid-19 pandemic will be far reaching and that all the stakeholders need to be cognizant of the importance of proper data and record management.
'Such records could also be useful for research and educational institutions involved in tracing the disease, mapping and analysing the pathogens genome to develop vaccines that requires records and data accuracy,' he said.
He said a sound record management is more important than ever before with governments initiating unprecedented steps to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
He observed that very pertinent information regarding the Covid-19 pandemic situation was sought by Nayak which could not be made available by any of the respondents.
Maharashtra pvt hospitals charging hefty amount: BJP
Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council Praveen Darekar has claimed that private hospitals are charging hefty amounts from Covid-19 patients and demanded the state government to intervene in the matter.
The state government has included Covid-19 treatment under the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana, but private hospitals are still charging huge sums from patients, the BJP leader told reporters in Mumbai on Sunday.
Charges of some hospitals for Covid-19 treatment range from thousands to lakhs of rupees and they have no fear of the government, he said.
'The state government should intervene in this and reimburse the excess money charged from patients. We will undertake an agitation for this, if needed,' Darekar said.
He also claimed that several Covid-19 patients lost their lives in Mumbai as they could not get timely treatment.
The novel coronavirus toll rose to 7,200 with 271 more deaths and the number of infections climbed to 2,56,611 in India on Monday after a record single-day spike of 9,983 cases, the health ministry said in its revised data.
The country has been registering over 9,000 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) for the fifth day in a row.
There are 1,24,981 active cases while 1,24,429 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the ministry said in its updated data at 8 am.
'Thus, 48.49 per cent patients have recovered so far,' it said.
According to the ICMR, a total of 47,74,434 samples have been tested till 9 am on June 8, with 1,08,048 samples been tested in the last 24 hours.
The health ministry has revised the figures of death and cases for Delhi and Telangana.
Of the 271 more deaths, 91 were in Maharashtra, 51 in Delhi, 30 in Gujarat, 18 each in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, 14 in Telangana, 13 each in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, nine in Rajasthan, four in Haryana, two each in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, and one each in Odisha and Punjab.
India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the Covid-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
Out of the total 7,200 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,060 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,249 deaths, Delhi with 812, Madhya Pradesh with 412, West Bengal with 396, Uttar Pradesh with 275, Tamil Nadu with 269, Rajasthan with 240 and Telangana with 137 deaths.
The death toll reached 75 in Andhra Pradesh, 61 in Karnataka and 51 in Punjab.
Jammu and Kashmir has reported 41 fatalities due to the coronavirus disease, while 30 deaths have been reported from Bihar, 28 from Haryana, 15 from Kerala, 13 from Uttarakhand, nine from Odisha and seven from Jharkhand.
Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five Covid-19 fatalities each and Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each so far.
Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one Covid-19 fatality each, according to ministry data.
More than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities, the ministry's website stated.
The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 85,975, followed by Tamil Nadu at 31,667, Delhi at 28,936, Gujarat at 20,070, Rajasthan at 10,599, Uttar Pradesh at 10,536 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,401, it said.
The number of Covid-19 cases has gone up to 8,187 in West Bengal, 5,452 in Karnataka, 5,088 in Bihar and 4,708 in Andhra Pradesh. It has risen to 4,448 in Haryana, 4,087 in Jammu and Kashmir, 3,650 in Telangana and 2,856 in Odisha.
Punjab has reported 2,608 novel coronavirus cases so far while Assam has 2,565 cases. A total of 1,914 people have been infected by the virus in Kerala and 1,355 in Uttarakhand.
Jharkhand has registered 1,099 cases, while 1,073 cases have been reported from Chhattisgarh, 800 from Tripura, 413 from Himachal Pradesh, 314 from Chandigarh and 300 from Goa.
Manipur has 172 and Nagaland has 118 cases till now.
Ladakh has 103 Covid-19 cases, Puducherry has 99 cases, Arunachal Pradesh has 51 cases, Meghalaya 36 cases, Mizoram has 34 cases while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 infections so far.
Dadar and Nagar Haveli has 20 cases while Sikkim has reported seven cases till now.
The ministry's website said that 7,837 cases are being reassigned to states and 'our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR'.
Statewise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.
Fresh death in CRFP
The country's largest paramilitary force, CRFP, has recorded another Covid-19 death, taking the total number of fatalities in the force due to the novel coronavirus to four, officials said on Monday.
A Central Reserve Police Force jawan posted in Kashmir succumbed to Covid-19.
Officials said the jawan, a constable working as a nursing assistant in the 90th battalion in Anantnag, died at the Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar on Sunday night.
He was detected with coronavirus infection on June 5 and was admitted to the hospital with a condition of acute respiratory problem.
The jawan hailed from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh and had joined the CRPF in 1996, the officials said.
This is the fourth death due to Covid-19 in CRPF, which has about 3.25 lakh personnel, and 12th among the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), or the paramilitary forces.
A hairdresser in personal protective suit attends to a customer at a hair salon in New Delhi, India, Friday, June 5, 2020. AP
Two prisoners escape virus care centre
Two prisoners who recently tested positive for coronavirus escaped from a Covid care centre in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district, a prison official said on Monday.
The duo bent grilles of a window to make space to sneak out and used bed sheets as ropes to climb down from their room at the facility late Sunday night, he said.
A prison employee has been suspended and a case has been registered at Begumpura police station, he said.
'Teams have been sent out and search for the prisoners is on,' a jail official told PTI.
A couple of days back, 29 undertrial prisoners of Harsul jail in Aurangabad tested positive for coronavirus. They were later sent to a Covid care centre for treatment.
Two of them, Sayyed Saif and Akramkhan, both residents of Aurangabad, escaped from the facility around 10.45 pm on Sunday, the official said.
53 people test positive for in Tripura; tally rises to 803
At least 53 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Tripura, taking the total number of cases in the state to 803, officials said on Monday.
The 53 people who tested positive for Covid-19 have recently returned from Chennai, and 49 of them were from Sipahijala district and four others are from Gomati district, they said.
Chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb in a tweet late on Sunday said, 'Fifty-three people (Sepahijala Dist: 49 & Gomati Dist:4) found Covid-19 positive in Tripura out of 1,153 samples tested. All of them have returned from Chennai by train. Confirmed case: 803. Active case: 607. Discharge: 192. Migrated: 3.Unnatural Death:1.'
