Health

New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) Six persons who returned to India from the United Kingdom have tested positive for the new UK variant genome of SARS-CoV2, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

It said the mutated UK strain was detected in samples in NIMHANS, Bengaluru, in CCMB, Hyderabad and one in NIV, Pune.

New Delhi/Dehradun, Dec 28 (PTI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, who tested positive for COVID-19 recently, was admitted to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Monday with an infection in his lungs.

He was taken to Delhi in a helicopter in the morning on the advice of doctors after a slight infection was found in his lungs, an official said here. Rawat has undergone some important tests at the AIIMS, he added.

Rawat's physician NS Bisht is also with him, the official said.

New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) Union Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey has said that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is under home isolation.

In a tweet, Choubey informed on Monday that he underwent a test after showing initial symptoms of coronavirus infection.

He urged everyone who came in contact with him recently to get tested for the disease.

LONDON (AP) — British hospitals are canceling non-urgent procedures and scrambling to find space for COVID-19 patients as coronavirus cases continue to surge despite tough new restrictions imposed to curb a fast-spreading new variant of the virus.

Another 41,385 confirmed cases were recorded across the U.K. on Monday. It was the first time the daily number of cases reported in the country surpassed 40,000, although many more tests are being performed than earlier in the pandemic.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials believe the coronavirus mutation that set off alarms in parts of Britain is no more apt to cause serious illness or be resistant to vaccines than the strain afflicting people in the United States but it still must be taken “very seriously,” the government’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday.

27 Dec 2020; MEMO: The Bank of Israel has estimated the weekly cost of the third Israeli national COVID-19 lockdown as $776 million per week. The third lockdown is due to start on Sunday, Israeli media reported on Friday.

27 Dec 2020; MEMO: Israel will enter what officials hope will be its last coronavirus lockdown on Sunday as they ramp up vaccinations to a pace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said may allow an emergence from the pandemic by March, reported Reuters.

27 Dec 2020; MEMO: Iran has extended a night-time traffic curfew to 330 lower-risk cities in an effort to sustain a recent fall in the number of new coronavirus infections and deaths, state television reported on Saturday, as reported by Reuters.

Alireza Raisi, spokesman for the national coronavirus task force, said on state TV that a curfew running from 9 pm to 4 am, already in place in 108 so-called "orange" or medium-risk cities, will be extended to lower-risk "yellow" cities.

Dubai, Dec 27 (AP-PTI) The Persian Gulf state of Oman has launched its COVID-19 inoculation campaign, with the sultanate's health minister receiving the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

State-run media reported that the first batch of 15,600 doses was flown in industrial freezers to Muscat International Airport last week to vaccinate a priority group of older adults, health care workers and those with underlying health conditions starting on Sunday.

Tokyo, Dec 28 (AP-PTI) Japan's government will temporarily ban entry of all nonresident foreign nationals as a precaution against a new and potentially more contagious coronavirus variant that has spread across Britain.

The entry ban will start Monday and last through Jan. 31 for the time being, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Saturday.