Coronavirus live updates: Govt exploring various options on financing Covid-19 vaccine development

Brazil registered 10,220 additional cases of Covid-19 over the last 24 hours and 309 deaths, the nation's health ministry said on Tuesday. The South American country has now registered 5,113,628 total confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 150,998 total deaths.

India’s average daily Covid-19 positivity rate has demonstrated a sharp decline week-onweek over the last four weeks with it falling to 5.1% on Monday — the lowest in the last four months.

In view of the Covid-19 situation, the National Human Rights Commission has issued advisories to various ministries and states stressing on human rights aspects, including protection of rights to mental health of people, officials said on Tuesday. The NHRC, in a statement, said in view of the unprecedented situation across the country and being "deeply concerned" about the rights of the vulnerable and marginalised sections of the society affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdowns, it had constituted a 'Committee of Experts on Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Human Rights and Future Response'.

China rushed Tuesday to test an entire city of nine million people within days after a minor coronavirus outbreak in the sprawling country, a far cry from the struggle in Europe to tackle surging infections with tough new steps including partial lockdowns.

The US government has entered an agreement with Danaher Corp-owned Cytiva to expand the manufacturing of products that are essential for producing Covid-19 vaccines, the US Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday reported 7,787,548 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 46,614 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 338 to 214,446.

West Bengal's Covid-19 tally crossed the 3-lakh mark on Tuesday as the state reported the highest single-day spike of 3,631 new cases, as per a bulletin issued by the Health Department. The state also reported 62 more deaths, following which the toll rose to 5,744, it said. West Bengal has so far reported 3,02,020 Covid-19 cases.

Countries straining to contain a second wave of Covid-19 are turning to faster, cheaper but less accurate tests to avoid the delays and shortages that have plagued efforts to diagnose and trace those infected quickly.

Advanced market commitments or providing financial help to firms for conducting research and development and clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccine are options that are under active consideration, the Centre said on Tuesday while reiterating that sufficient financial resources are available to procure 400-500 million doses of vaccine as and when it becomes available.

Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has tested positive for COVID-19, Portugal's Football Federation said in a statement on its website on Tuesday.