11.15 pm: The number of mucormycosis or “black fungus” cases in Karnataka rises to 481, The Indian Express reports. The government advises doctors not to give steroids to Covid-19 patients in the first week of infection.

11.12 pm: Maharashtra registers 24,752 new cases and 453 deaths on Tuesday, PTI reports. The state’s tally of cases rises to 56,50,907, while toll is 91,341.

11.10 pm: Mumbai records 34 deaths on Tuesday, the lowest since April 13, The Indian Express reports. The city records 1,362 new Covid-19 cases.

11.07 pm: Punjab reports 4,124 new coronavirus cases and 186 deaths on Wednesday. The state’s active cases stand at 50,549, while toll is 13,827.

6.59 pm: Gujarat changes night curfew timings in 36 cities. It will now be enforced between 9 pm and 6 am, instead of 8 pm to 6 am, says Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, according to ANI.

6.58 pm: Kerala reports 28,798 new Covid-19 cases and 151 deaths in one day. The number of active cases are 2,48,526 and the toll is 7,882.

6.57 pm: Telangana records 3,762 new Covid-19 cases, 3,816 recoveries, and 20 deaths in 24 hours, reports ANI.

6.55 pm: Goa records 1,487 new Covid-19 cases, 1,363 recoveries, and 39 deaths in 24 hours, reports ANI. There are 15,971 active cases, 1,32,607 recoveries and the toll is 2,499.

6.53 pm: Chhattisgarh Health Minister TS Singh Deo says the Centre has created a new portal and are collecting data directly from vaccination centres and not from the state government. “There is delay from some vaccination centres in providing data which the Centre is calling vaccine wastage,” he adds, according to ANI.

4.41 pm: The Delhi chief minister adds that all his counterparts have risen above their party lines and are working with the Centre amid the crisis.

4.30 pm: Kejriwal urges the Centre to give the required vaccine doses to the states. “Then, it is our job to inoculate the people and we will do it,” he adds.

4.21 pm: Kejriwal asks why the Centre cannot procure vaccines. “Our country is at war against Covid-19,” he adds. “This is the time when the states and Centre should unite as ‘team India’ to fight the crisis. Tomorrow, if Pakistan declares war on India, will we leave the states to fend for themselves? Will we ask Uttar Pradesh to buy its own tanks or Delhi to arrange its own arms?”

4.17 pm: The Delhi chief minister says six months ago, other countries began extensively vaccinating their citizens, but India exported its doses. “I am sad that even today, we are not working seriously,” he adds.

4.14 pm: Kejriwal says it is the Centre’s responsibility to provide vaccine doses to the states.

4.13 pm: Kejriwal adds that all vaccination centres in Delhi for the 18 to 44 age group have been closed for four days due to a paucity of doses.

4.12 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal says no state has been able to procure even one extra vaccine dose from manufacturers.

3.42 pm: Delhi reports 1,491 coronavirus cases, pushing the infection tally in the national Capital to 14,21,477. With 130 deaths, the toll climbs to 23,695. So far, 13,78,634 patients have recovered from the infection.

2.41 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurates a drive-in Covid-19 vaccination centre in the Dwarka area. He adds that such centres will open in the city soon.

2.37 pm: Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh says that each district of the state will get a Pressure Swing Adsorption oxygen plants within 10-15 days, reports ANI. “The spread of Covid-19 cases is a little high so home isolation has been conducted, medication and distribution of oximeters is going on,” he adds.

2.33 pm: Jharkhand chief minister’s office also clarifies that the vaccine wastage in the state is only 4.65% as against Union health ministry’s data showing 37.3%. “Vaccination data could not be fully updated to the central CoWin Server/Platform due to technical difficulties & the updation is in process,” it adds.

2.29 pm: The Chhattisgarh administration says that the Union health ministry’s data on vaccine wastage was incorrect, reports ANI. “We have written to them already and we are working with them to resolve the data issues,” it says.

Earlier, the Union health ministry said that Chhattisgarh wasted 30.2% of its vaccines. It urged Chhattisgarh and other state and Union Territories to keep the wastage under 1%. The vaccines wastage for Jharkhand is 37.3%, Tamil Nadu 15.5%, Jammu & Kashmir 10.8% and Madhya Pradesh 10.7%, according to the ministry.

2.23 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal says that currently there were around 620 cases of mucormycosis, or “black fungus” – a post-Covid complication – in the national Capital. He says that there was a shortage of injections of amphotericin-B, the drug used to treat the disease.

Kejriwal says that the manufacturers of the Sputnik V, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, have agreed to supply doses of the vaccine directly to the Delhi government. The quantity is yet to be decided, he adds.

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Covid-19: Delhi has 620 cases of ‘black fungus’, facing shortage of drugs, says Kejriwal

12.44 pm: The Puducherry government says that it will give Rs 3,000 to each ration card holders to help them in problems faced during the lockdown in the Union Territory, reports ANI. “Rs 105 crores will be distributed for 3,50,000 ration cardholders,” the government says.

12.39 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the coronavirus pandemic is the worst crisis humanity has faced in decades, reports the Hindustan Times. During an address at a Buddha Purnima event, the prime minister also acknowledged the role of frontline and healthcare workers for their contribution.

“I once again salute our first responders, frontline healthcare workers, doctors, nurses and volunteers who selflessly risked their lives every day to serve others in need,” he says. “To those who have suffered and lost their near and dear ones, I would like to extend condolences. I grieve with them.”

12.36 pm: Newly-elected Bodoland Peoples’ Party legislator Majendra Narzary dies of coronavirus complications at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital, reports the Hindustan Times. The 68-year-old MLA tested negative for the infection a few days back but was on ventilator support.

12.34 pm: The Dalai Lama says that people must come together to overcome global threats, including the coronavirus pandemic that “has brought such pain and hardship across the world”, reports PTI.

12.23 pm: The Union health ministry says in its revised protocol for Covid-19 that majority of transmission is believed to occur “predominantly through the airborne route and droplet released when the infected person coughs, sneezes or talks”, reports the Hindustan Times. In last year’s protocol, the ministry had said that the infection spreads through close contact, “mainly through respiratory droplets that are released when the infected person coughs, sneezes and talks.”

11.38 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says vaccine is “absolutely important” to save lives and defeat the pandemic, reports PTI. His comments come at a time when several states in the country continue to face shortages of coronavirus shots.

11.35 am: Punjab has dropped Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s picture from the digital coronavirus vaccination certificate given to those in the age group of 18 to 44, reports The Indian Express.

10.27 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says India needs to have a better understanding of the pandemic to strengthen measures, reports ANI. “We have the vaccine which is important to save lives and defeat the pandemic,” he adds. “India is proud of our scientists who have worked on the Covid-19 vaccines.”

10.25 am: The Jharkhand government has extended the lockdown-like restrictions with stricter provisions till June 3 to rein in the coronavirus pandemic, reports PTI.

E-passes will be mandatory for movement in the state. However, government officials, media persons, factory workers and officials of big public and private enterprises will be exempted from this.

10.21 am: A World Health Organization official has said that countries should use coronavirus vaccines to prevent deaths and target high-risk groups, reports The Indian Express.

“We won’t, as a world, be able to vaccinate ourselves out of this pandemic in a hurry,” says special envoy David Nabarro. “Everybody who is at risk should be able to be vaccinated. That is key. But the use of vaccines as the primary way to stop the pandemic will mean that certain countries will hyper-vaccinate their populations because they see this as the best containment strategy. But that’s not the way to use vaccines.”

10.20 am: Mumbai’s civic body claims that it has received bids for the supply of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sputnik as it floated global tender for one crore coronavirus vaccine doses, reports NDTV.

However, Pfizer has refuted this. A spokesperson of the company says, “Neither Pfizer nor any of its affiliates globally, including in India, have authorised anyone to import/market/distribute Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. We continue to have discussions with the government of India towards making our vaccine available for use nationally.”

10.15 am: Indonesia’s Deputy Chief of Mission in India, Ferdy Piay, has died of the coronavirus disease at a hospital in Jakarta, reports India Today.

9.44 am: India reports 2,08,921 new cases, taking the overall tally to 2,71,57,795 since the pandemic first broke out in December 2019. The toll rises by 4,157 to 3,11,388. The active caseload declines by over 91,000 to 24,95,591

Source: Health ministry

9.41 am: The number of vaccine doses administered in the country is now past the 20-crore mark.

9.39 am: Here are the top updates from Tuesday:

  • India reported 1,96,427 new coronavirus cases, taking the infection tally to 2,69,48,874 since the pandemic first broke out in January 2020. This was the first occasion since April 15 that the single-day rise in cases has come under two lakh. The toll climbed by 3,511 to 3,07,231.
  • Pharmaceutical company Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine was found to be effective in adolescents aged 12-17.
  • Vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech said it expected emergency use listing of its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin from the World Health Organization by July-September.
  • The Supreme Court stayed an order of the Allahabad High Court that said fear of death due to the coronavirus disease could be a reason to grant anticipatory bail.