Here are the top updates from Thursday:

  1. The Tokyo Olympics will take place without spectators as a resurgent coronavirus pandemic forced Japan to declare an emergency for the capital city that will remain effective throughout the event, Reuters reported.
  2. India on recorded 45,892 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the country’s overall count since the pandemic broke out in January 2020 to 3,07,09,557. This is a 5% increase from the daily infection count recorded on Wednesday. The country’s toll rose to 4,05,028 with 817 more deaths recorded in a span of 24 hours.
  3. Pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline said they have received an approval from Indian authorities for Phase 3 trials of their protein-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate, reported PTI.
  4. Newly appointed Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced that the Cabinet has approved an emergency response package of Rs 23,123 for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, Congress leader P Chidambaram said that the task for the new health minister will be to ensure “adequate and uninterrupted supply of vaccines to all states”.
  5. Ministry of External Affairs said that it has taken up the matter of resumption of flights with foreign ambassadors. Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that with the improvement in the coronavirus situation, countries would ease restrictions. Meanwhile, Oman indefinitely suspended passenger flights from India and 23 other countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, as part of the its efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, reported PTI.
  6. The Arunachal Pradesh government has made it mandatory for those entering the state to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, PTI reported.
  7. Pharmaceutical firm Mankind Pharma said it has received licence from the Defence Research and Development Organisation to manufacture and market oral 2-deoxy-D-glucose, or 2-DG, used for the treatment of the coronavirus, reported PTI.
  8. Covid-19 cases are rising rapidly in the United States due to spread of the Delta variant, reported AFP. The seven-day-average of new cases in US was 13,859 as of July 6, up 21% compared to two weeks earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  9. The British government’s plan to drop most Covid-19 related restrictions from July 19 is a “dangerous and unethical experiment”, over 4,000 scientists, doctors, nurses and other professionals said in a letter published in medical journal The Lancet.
  10. Globally, the coronavirus disease has infected over 18.50 crore people and killed more than 40 lakh since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, said the four million figure was an underestimate of the actual toll.