Coronavirus live updates: Ban on flights from 6 cities to Kolkata extended till August 15

While an official confirmation from the district administration was awaited, chief priest Acharya Satyendra Das said: “A seer named Pradeep Das, who also undertook ceremonial worship of the deity, has tested positive and has been put under isolation. No one else in my temple has tested positive.”

India is currently conducting around five lakh Covid-19 tests every day and the plan is to double the number in next one-two months, Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday. During the launch of a compendium on 'Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Technologies for Covid-19 Mitigation', Vardhan said the country's recovery rate of over 64 per cent is the best in the world while the fatality rate is nearly 2.2 per cent.

The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Trump retweeted a false video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites. “It is a real challenge in terms of trying to get the message to the public about what they can really do to protect themselves and what the facts are behind the problem,” said Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

Two Covid-19 patients have given birth to two healthy babies at a state-run hospital in Arunachal Pradesh, a senior doctor of the medical establishment said on Thursday. Both the babies, a boy and a girl, have tested negative for Covid-19, he said. The women gave birth to the babies at the Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (TRIHMS) on Wednesday, the hospital's director, Dr Moji Jini, said.