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

The United States recorded 1,461 new deaths on Wednesday, the highest one-day increase since 1,484 on May 27, according to a Reuters tally. US coronavirus deaths are rising at their fastest rate in two months and have increased by 10,000 in the past 11 days. Nationally, Covid-19 deaths have risen for three weeks in a row while the number of new cases week-over-week recently fell for the first time since June.

The occupancy of beds reserved for Covid-19 patients in Delhi’s hospitals reduced to 18% on Wednesday with only 2,958 out of 16,038 beds being occupied. Even the ventilator beds, which were in high demand till last month, remained mostly vacant. According to data shared by the hospitals on Delhi Corona app on Wednesday, out of 1,207 Covid beds with ventilator support, only 396 (33%) were occupied and the remaining 811 (67%) were lying vacant.

At the height of the Covid crisis in Italy, an engineering startup saved many lives by 3D-printing respirator valves. The situation never got so dire in this coastal belt of Karnataka but still, the students and faculty of engineering colleges here have fought Covid with their ingenuity over the past four months. From simple face shields to ventilator splitters and contactless thermometers, they have been making and distributing much-needed equipment at a low cost.

The Centre has done away with the night curfew that restricted non-essential movement during specified post-daylight hours under Unlock 1 and Unlock 2 and allowed gymnasiums and yoga institutes to open in non-containment areas from August 5 as part of Unlock 3 guidelines applicable through August. However, the lockdown restrictions will continue to apply in all containment zones across the country till August 31.

Latest toll comes as US surges past grim milestone of 150,000 total fatalities since February.

With 52,898 new cases on Wednesday, India’s caseload stood at 15,83,483 and nearly 10 lakh of these were recorded in the 29 days of this month alone. July has turned out to be the worst month for the country, accounting for 63% of the cases since the pandemic broke. With 771 deaths on Wednesday — the second-highest in a day after 781 deaths on Tuesday — India’s cumulative toll was at 34,950. More than half of these deaths were recorded in July alone. Read full story