Coronavirus India LIVE updates: The ICMR has outlined the need for research on the effects of the coronavirus in lungs and other organs of the human body
Coronavirus India LIVE updates:
A call for study of lung tissues of patients who die of Covid-19 by conducting postmortem biopsies has found no takers in Karnataka, primarily due to complications involved in dealing with contagion deaths.
To understand the disease’s progression in the lungs, which is the primary organ damaged by coronavirus, a provision for conducting lung biopsies in patients who die due to Covid has been made by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Karnataka and the Indian Council for Medical Research but no proposals have been made so far, said officials.
Cases in the unassigned category make up 2 per cent of India’s total cases
On the other hand, cases in the unassigned category make up 2 per cent of the country’s 1,45,380 cases of coronavirus infection as of Tuesday, and could potentially skew the case curves of several states.
The category “Cases being reassigned to states†was introduced in mid-May. Numbers under that head grew from 230 on May 16 to 1,403 on May 21, to 2,970 cases on May 26. The category has no information on recovery or deaths within this group, unlike the other state categories. Government officials said that the category captures the cases where discrepancies exist between the person’s home state and current states.
Meanwhile, with 328 new cases and 18 deaths in the last seven days, Covid-19 hotspots under the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) are rising. In the 67 days from March 2 to May 8, 1,133 cases were reported in Telangana. Of these, 626 were in GHMC areas. However, in the next 18 days (May 8-25), 597 cases were reported from GHMC areas while a total of 787 cases were reported in the state — including 158 cases of migrant workers who returned to the state testing positive.
En route home, migrant labourers seen at the Ghaziabad border on May 27, 2020. (Express Photo: Prem Nath Pandey)
Centre asks states, UTs to negotiate with private labs, bring down test price
Also, even as private diagnostic laboratories cite the Rs 4,500 price cap as one of the pain points for their coronavirus testing numbers stagnating at less than 20 per cent of daily tests done in the country, the Centre wants the price to be reduced further. This is in the light of availability of indigenous testing kits and other supplies, unlike in March, when all these had to be imported amid tough global competition.
Guards, vegetable vendors in ICMR list of frontline workers who need testing
Police personnel at check points, building security guards, airport staff, bus drivers and staff, vegetable vendors and pharmacists have been identified by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as “frontline workers†who need to be tested for Covid-19 if they show flu-like symptoms. This is in addition to healthcare workers, paramedics and returning migrants.
Seventy-four of 82 ICU beds earmarked for Covid-19 patients in the city’s seven private hospitals are occupied at the moment. At six government hospitals, on the other hand, only 111 of 348 ICU beds for novel coronavirus patients are occupied.
As the case tally in the capital continues to rise — 412 fresh cases were reported on Tuesday, taking the total to 14,465 — several accounts have emerged of severely ill people being unable to get admitted to ICUs in private hospitals.
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