Corona Updates You Must Track: Health Ministry Issues Guidelines For Festive Season, Bengaluru Records 5,000-Plus Cases

India cases and toll: With 72,049 cases of coronavirus and 986 deaths in the last 24 hours, between 8 am Tuesday and 8 am Wednesday, India’s tally has reached 67,57,131, according to the data shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The tally includes 9,07,883 active cases, 57,44,693 recoveries and 1,04,555 deaths. A total of 11,99,857 tests for COVID-19 were carried out across the country on Tuesday.

Guidelines to contain COVID-19 spread during festival season: The Health Ministry on Tuesday issued a set of guidelines outlining preventive measures to check the spread of COVID-19 during the festive season. People above the age of 65, those with co-morbidities, pregnant women and children below the age of 10 have been advised to stay at home.

“In case of rallies and immersion processions, the number of people should not exceed the prescribed limit and proper physical distancing and wearing of masks must be ensured,” the guidelines said. At religious places, visitors will not be allowed to touch idols, statues or religious books.

Karnataka numbers continue to surge: Karnataka has been witnessing an unrelenting surge in daily cases of coronavirus since the last several weeks. The state reported 9,993 fresh infections and 91 deaths in the last 24 hours. Karnataka’s COVID-19 case tally has reached 6,57,705. Karnataka has 1,15,170 active COVID-19 cases, second only to Maharashtra which has 2,47,468 currently infected patients. The southern state has posted 5,33,074 recoveries and 9,461 fatalities.

Its capital, Bengaluru, recorded its biggest single-day surge with 5,012 cases of coronavirus. Bengaluru’s municipal corporation has now asked factory workers and highly vulnerable people in apartment complexes to take the COVID-19 test, reports The Times of India.

COVID-19 tracker for 7 October. Source: Twitter/@COVIDNewsByMIB

Delhi past the peak of second COVID-19 wave, says CM: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said that national capital is past the peak of the second wave of coronavirus infections and 10,000 hospital beds are now unoccupied. In the last 24 hours, Delhi reported 2,676 fresh infections and 39 deaths. Delhi's COVID-19 tally stands at 2,95,236 with 22,720 active cases, 2,66,935 recoveries and 5,581 deaths.

Global corona update: The global coronavirus tally continues to climb every second. According to Worldometer, a website that tracks the worldwide case count real-time, there are 78,47,388 active cases of COVID-19 while 2,71,63,422 people have recovered from the illness and 10,54,947 succumbed to it. With this, the global COVID-19 caseload has reached 3,60,65,757— 67,800 infected people are in serious or critical condition.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief on Tuesday said that a vaccine to fight COVID-19 could be ready by the end of this year. “We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine,” a Reuters report quoted WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as saying at the meeting of the global health body’s executive board.