Here’s what happened on Saturday:

  1. The Kerala government on Saturday announced that schools will reopen in the state from November 1, reported The New Indian Express. The classes will resume for students of standards 1 to 7 and for those in Classes 10 and 12. For the others, classes will begin on November 15.
  2. India registered 35,662 new Covid-19 cases over a span of 24 hours, pushing the country’s overall tally of infections since the outbreak of the pandemic in January last year to 3,34,17,390. The new cases were 3.65% higher than Friday’s count of 34,403 infections. The total number of deaths due to the coronavirus increased to 4,44,529, with 281 fatalities recorded in the past 24 hours.
  3. India’s daily Covid-19 vaccination figures registered a drop on Saturday, a day after the country set a record of administering 2.5 crore doses. As many as 85 lakh vaccine doses have been given till 11.20 pm on Saturday, data on the government’s CoWin portal showed.
  4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the efforts of healthcare workers as India administered over 2.5 crore Covid-19 shots, reported The Times of India. “We saw how the nation kept looking at the CoWin dashboard yesterday,” he said. “More than 15 lakh vaccinations every hour, every 26,000 vaccinations every minute took place yesterday, and more than 425 people were administered vaccines every second yesterday.”
  5. The Union civil aviation ministry on Saturday allowed airlines in the country to operate 85% of their flights that were in service before outbreak of the pandemic. So far, the carriers were allowed to operate 72.5% of their fleet, The Times of India reported.
  6. Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, has asked residents to take a Covid-19 test when they return to the city from their hometowns after the Ganesh festival, as a measure to prevent the spread of Covid-19, an official told PTI.
  7. The Odisha government announced that state public universities and government and non-government degree colleges should begin physical classes from September 20 for the 2020-’21 first year undergraduate students pursuing both three and four year courses with appropriate Covid-19 norms, reported ANI.
  8. The Union government held a high-level meeting to review and discuss the coronavirus management and response strategy. During the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba “expressed concern over certain pockets in the country reporting high test positivity”, a statement said.
  9. Thousands of Covid-19 patients in the United Kingdom will be given a new antibody treatment called Ronapreve, reported PTI. This treatment was given to former United States President Donald Trump. UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that the treatment will begin “as early as next week”.
  10. Globally, the coronavirus has infected over 22.78 crore people and caused more than 46.81 lakh deaths since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.