NEW DELHI: No significant or drastic mutation in strains of SARS-CoV-2 has been found in India till now, Union minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday during an interaction with his social media followers.

He also said the Indian Council of Medical Research has been conducting large-scale sequencing of nationally representative strains collected over a few months and detailed results on mutations of the virus will be available in early October.

Here are the top developments:

INDIA

• India’s Covid-19 case tally crossed 54-lakh mark with a spike of 92,605 new cases and 1,133 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Union ministry of health. The total case tally stands at 54,00,620 including 10,10,824 active cases, 43,03,044 cured/discharged/migrated and 86,752 deaths, the ministry said.

• India’s testing numbers from across the country showed a sharp decline over the past two days. On Friday, a little over 8.8 lakh samples were tested for the coronavirus across India, a drop of more than 2.5 lakh (nearly 23%) over the past two days, according to official data quoted by covid19india.org, a website tracking the pandemic in the country.

• With 94,612 people recuperating from Covid-19 in a span of 24 hours, the total number of recoveries in the country has surged to 43,03,043, taking the national recovery rate to 79.68%, the health ministry said. As many as 60% of the new recoveries were reported from five states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, UP and Tamil Nadu — which also accounted for 52% of the new cases, the ministry highlighted.
• Disposal of biomedical waste including PPE kits worn by healthcare professionals and public became a challenge during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Union health ministry told the Rajya Sabha on Sunday. On being asked whether Covid-19 cases increased among individuals employed in garbage collection and disposal, minister of state for health Ashwini Kumar Choubey said the data is not maintained by the Centre.

• Six sitting MLAs and three sitting MPs have succumbed to the virus till date. Among the MLAs were state ministers as well. More than 85,000 people in India have died of Covid-19, so far. The biggest name in Covid casualty in India has been former President Pranab Mukherjee.

• A study conducted by top genetic experts has revealed that Indians should be thankful to their genes for tiding over the Covid pandemic with a relatively lesser mortality rate as compared to the US and European nations. A team comprising distinguished genetic experts from six institutions, led by Prof Gyaneshwer Chaubey of the Banaras Hindu University, analysed complete DNA data of the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 gene of X chromosome from various continental populations and found that it is the Indian genes that have protected the population and helped battle the deadly virus.

• The Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network system, which provides real-time information on vaccine stocks and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country, is being enhanced to address the needs for distribution and tracking of Covid-19 vaccine, whenever it becomes available, the Rajya Sabha was informed.

STATES

• Rajasthan: Amid the spiralling Covid-19 cases, Section 144 of CrPC was imposed in 11 districts of Rajasthan to contain the spread of virus. Police may take action if five or more people gather at a place.

• Andhra Pradesh: The coronavirus tally touched 6.25 lakh in Andhra Pradesh as 7,738 more cases were reported even as 10,608 more patients got cured. In the last 24 hours, the state recorded 57 fresh fatalities, taking the gross toll count to 5,359.
• Puducherry: The Puducherry government will impose a penalty of 1,000 each on people violating the isolation norms and 500 on people violating quarantine norms as a part of its efforts to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infection in the Union territory.

• Karnataka: The Karnataka government said a committee comprising medical experts will be formed to study the long-term effects of Covid-19 among those who have recovered from the illness and tested negative for the virus.
• Maharashtra: An investigation by TOI has revealed that the Nagpur Municipal Corporation recorded a man who is alive as a Covid death case. The age of the man and his deceased mother has been mentioned as one year in the records of the civic body and the Indian Council of Medical Research.

• UP: The death toll from Covid-19 crossed the 5,000-mark in Uttar Pradesh with 94 more fatalities while 5,809 fresh cases pushed the infection tally to 3,54,275. The new deaths brought the fatality count to 5,047 in the state, while the number of active Covid-19 cases stands at 65,954.
• Kerala: The first death of a doctor due to Covid-19 has been reported in the state from Thiruvananthapuram. Dr MS Abdeen of KBM Clinic at Attakulangara in Thiruvananthapuram died of Covid-19 on Sunday morning.

• J&K: Fourteen more fatalities related to coronavirus infection in a day took the death toll in Jammu and Kashmir past the 1,000-mark, while 1,457 fresh cases pushed the COVID-19 tally to 63,990. Of the fresh deaths, nine were reported from Jammu and five from the Valley.
• Tripura: At least 525 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Tripura, pushing the tally in the state to 22,032. The death toll rose to 239 with four more people succumbing to the infection. Tripura currently has 6,983 active coronavirus cases.
• Uttarakhand: The RT-PCR test of all the ministers and MLAs would be done on September 21 and 22 before the assembly session begins on September 23. Out of the 70 elected lawmakers of Uttarakhand, nine, including two ministers, have either tested positive or just recovered – making it one in every seven MLA who has been infected.

• Delhi: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday asked people of Delhi to be cautious of both dengue and coronavirus and spread awareness about measures to prevent the vector-borne disease.
• Jharkhand: Rims medical superintendent Dr Vivek Kashyap, who is undergoing treatment at home for Covid-19 and suffered a massive heart attack, gets a new lease of life after a team of cardiologists from his medical college conducted an emergency angioplasty on Saturday. Rims officials said it is for the first time in the state that the endovascular surgery was conducted on a Covid positive patient.

• Gujarat: A 61-year-old Covid-19 patient allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the third floor of a private hospital where he was being treated in Keshod town in Gujarat’s Junagadh district, police said.
• Goa: Around a third of all Catholic churches in Goa have reopened — strictly for their parishioners — after following strict protocol and obtaining special permission to do so from the archbishop’s house.

• Odisha: Odisha registered its highest single-day spike of 4,330 Covid-19 cases, which pushed the state’s infection count to 1,79,880, a health department official said. The death toll rose to 701 with 10 more people succumbing to the infection.
• MP: Around 7.5% blood donors of MGM blood bank were found to have Covid-19 antibodies. The medical college blood bank began testing antibodies of donors on Aug 22 and tested over 1266 persons in first 20 days.

• Mizoram: At least 30 people, including 17 Assam Rifles personnel in Mizoram, have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the state’s tally to 1,578. Mizoram now has 588 active COVID-19 cases of which 153 are security personnel.

WORLD

• The novel coronavirus has killed at least 957,948 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December. At least 30,849,800 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 20,871,300 are now considered to have recovered.
• Pakistan’s number coronavirus cases reached 305,671 on Sunday after 640 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said. One patient died during the period, taking the number of Covid-19 fatalities to 6,416. A total of 292,303 people have recovered from the infection.

• The United States is the worst-hit country with 199,268 deaths from 6,766,631 cases. At least 2,577,446 people have been declared recovered.
• Australia confirmed 19 new Covid-19 cases, which is the lowest count in about three months. As of Sunday afternoon, there had been altogether 26,898 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Australia. Of the new cases, Victoria, the hardest-hit state by the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, confirmed 14, which is the lowest number of new cases since June 19.

• Singapore reported 18 new Covid-19 cases, including four imported infections, taking the national tally to 57,576, the health ministry said. Of the new cases, one infection was from the community who is a foreigner holding a work pass.
• Nepal recorded 1,325 new Covid-19 cases, taking the country’s caseload to 64,122, the health ministry said. The death toll reached 411 with 10 more fatalities. According to the ministry, so far 9,14,290 PCR tests have been conducted in the country.

• The UK government announced new rules, which make it a legal requirement for people with coronavirus to quarantine, with fines of up to 10,000 pounds imposed on repeat breaches of the stipulated 14-day self-isolation period to control the spread of the virus.
• Health authorities in Russia have registered 6,148 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, up from 6,065 the day before, bringing the country’s cumulative toll to surpass 1.1 million. Of the newly detected cases, 860 were confirmed in Moscow, 214 in St. Petersburg and 188 in Moscow Region.
• Nearly a million Madrid residents were bracing Sunday for a partial lockdown as Spanish authorities seek to put a brake on a second wave of Covid-19. The restrictions, which kick off Monday for two weeks, affect 850,000 people living mainly in densely-populated, low-income neighbourhoods in the south — or 13 percent of the population in and around the capital.