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Agencies

India logged 84,332 fresh coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest number of infections in 70 days, government data showed on Saturday.
The South Asian country however reported a high number of virus-related deaths, with 4,002 fatalities in the same period, according to a Health Ministry bulletin.
The rise in deaths has been attributed to a revision of casualty figures from states like western Maharashtra, which alone added 2,213 “backlog deaths,” broadcaster NDTV reported.
On Thursday, India reported its highest single-day casualty figure of 6,148 when the eastern state of Bihar raised its death-tally by 3,951 after it completed an audit for all possible Covid-19 deaths. India’s overall Covid-19 death-toll stands at 367,081.
Coronavirus: India deaths hit daily record after data revision; Mahathir wants new body to fight pandemic
Infections in India have jumped from 10 million at the beginning of the February second wave to 29.4 million. Overall, infection rates are second only to the United States.
With the second wave now seen to be waning, several regional governments including national capital New Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai have cautiously begun easing lockdown measures.
So far, only some 3.5 per cent of the more than 1.3 million inhabitants in India have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.




Japanese schools pull out as Olympics spectators
Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have begun accepting cancellations from schools no longer wishing to participate in a programme that offers pupils the chance to watch events at nearby venues.
Some local governments close to Tokyo have already opted out of the programme because of concerns over coronavirus infections, and with the organisers yet to decide on a cap on spectators, many education boards remain uncertain if students will be able to watch athletes competing in the games.
In Nakai, Kanagawa Prefecture, 320 elementary and junior high school students were expected to watch soccer and baseball matches in Yokohama, but the town’s board of education decided to pull out this month based on the views of school principals. “We had planned to travel by train, but the risk of infection is high,” said Tetsuya Takahashi, chief of the town’s education division.
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The spectator programme provides tickets of the Olympics, which were supposed to be staged in 2020 but were postponed for one year due to the coronavirus pandemic, to schools and local governments at a discounted price of 2,020 yen (US$18). According to the organising committee, there were around 1.28 million purchase requests as of January last year.
At the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, children who were invited to watch matches sang the national anthems of the participating countries. But the Olympic organisers have deemed cancellations for the programme inevitable in light of the postponement and the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Yokohama Board of Education is reconfirming whether 323 schools that had planned to watch the games will go ahead with their plans. “Too many things are up in the air, such as media reports that negative PCR test results are required. Still, we would like to let [the pupils] go if they can,” said an official of the education board.
Tokyo Olympics: Japan’s Suga says it’s regrettable he is taking flak for hosting Games in pandemic
Live screenings and other public gathering events have come under intense scrutiny over concerns of the virus’ spread, causing many to be scrapped.
Regarding whether the spectator programme will still go ahead, Olympic minister Tamayo Marukawa said in response to parliamentary questioning Monday that a decision would be made “in consultation with the education ministry and the [Olympic] organising committee when the cap on spectators is decided in June”.
With about 40 days to go before the Olympic opening ceremony, Tokyo has been under a state of emergency since late April in an effort to bring down the number of infections. As of summer 2019, the capital had planned to have around 900,000 students from public and private schools attend the games.


Indian start-up rolls out affordable Covid-19 test
Indian start-up Mylab Discovery Solutions hopes that its inexpensive Covid-19 home test kit – the country’s first – will help the massive South Asian nation better track the pandemic’s spread among its 1.3-billion people.
CoviSelf was launched earlier this month and is the first home testing kit to be approved in India, which is slowly emerging from a brutal second wave that overwhelmed its hospitals and crematoriums, with almost 30 million infected so far and over 350,000 dead.
But many experts suspect that the real numbers are much higher, blaming insufficient testing and inaccurate recording of the cause of patient deaths.
The start-up, which also makes PCR tests to detect HIV infections, says that widespread access to CoviSelf – sold for 250 rupees (US$3.40) – would reduce pressure on overburdened laboratories and improve infection tracking.


The kit uses a nasal swab and a QR code to connect to a mobile app which reveals results in 15 minutes, and sends the details to the Indian Council for Medical Research, the scientific agency leading the government’s response.
“It has been designed so people can do it at home. So the contents of the kit are simple, the way to dispose of it is simple, the way to perform it is simple,” said Shrikant Pawar, Head of Serology & Microbiome at Mylab.
At the firm’s factory in the hillside resort town of Lonavla in western India, masked and gloved workers ran detailed quality checks on the kit’s components before shipping them out to pharmacies across the country.
“Our current production capacity is 10 million tests in a week”, said Pawar, with the kit also sold on Flipkart, a Walmart-backed online behemoth. “If the market demand goes high, we will be able to cater to more tests a week and yes, we are also planning to go overseas, so it will be available in international markets as well.”
But with the kit only accessible to smartphone users, its impact may be limited, especially as the pandemic makes deeper forays into rural India, where mobile networks are weak and internet penetration remains low.
Reporting by DPA, Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse, Kyodo


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FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A man receives a Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine called COVAXIN, at a vaccination centre, in New Delhi, India, February 13, 2021. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo/File Photo

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India reported just 84,332 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, but deaths remain high
Meanwhile, Olympics organisers are seeing cancellations from schools no longer wishing to take part in a scheme that offers students the chance to watch events



India reported just 84,332 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, but deaths remain high, while Japanese schools are pulling out as Olympic spectators.


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