Health

Thane, Jul 2(PTI) A woman MLA has tested positive for coronavirus in Thane district of Maharashtra, becoming the fourth legislator from the area to contract the disease, a senior civic official said on Thursday.

The MLA tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, he said.

Her husband tested positive for the infection on Thursday and both of them have been home quarantined, the official said.

She has become the fourth legislator to test positive for COVID-19 in Thane district. Earlier, two MLAs and an MLC had contracted the disease.

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. coronavirus cases rise by nearly 55,000 over the past 24 hours Thursday, a new one-day record surge, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The national count of confirmed cases has surpassed 2.7 million to reach 2,735,554, with 128,684 deaths, according to the university's latest tally.

The southeastern U.S. state of Florida on Thursday also smashed the previous single-day record, reporting 10,109 new cases, according to the state's Department of Heath.

02 July 2020; MEMO: A five-day lockdown throughout the occupied West Bank is to return tomorrow following an increase in coronavirus infections there, reported Wafa news agency.

Government spokesman, Ibrahim Milhem, announced yesterday in a news briefing that starting tomorrow, all West Bank governorates will be in lockdown and all businesses will be closed except for pharmacies and supermarkets, which will open 12 hours a day.

New Delhi, Jul 2 (PTI) Delhi's first plasma bank to help treat novel coronavirus started functioning on Thursday, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying that COVID-19 patients can donate their plasma 14 days after recovery.

Addressing an online media briefing, the chief minister issued numbers - 1031 and 8800007722 where people can contact for donation of plasma to save the lives of COVID-19 patients.

The government has set up the plasma bank at the state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences.

Kolkata, Jul 2 (PTI) A brigadier of the Indian Army died from COVID 19-related complications here on Thursday, the highest-ranking defence officer to have fallen to the pandemic, official sources said.

Brigadier Vikas Samyal, posted at the Eastern Command headquarters here, was admitted to the military hospital at Barrackpore after he tested positive for Covid-19, they said.

He was later shifted to the Command Hospital as his condition deteriorated.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 02 (APP): The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that countries that do not use every option available to them to tackle coronavirus face a “long, hard road ahead” to beat the disease.

Speaking at the regular virtual press briefing in Geneva, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic was still raging and countries – and individuals – needed to keep up their efforts in order to stay safe.

WASHINGTON, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious-diseases expert, warned Tuesday that COVID-19 cases in the United States could go up to 100,000 per day if the current trend "does not turn around."

In a Senate committee hearing, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the country is "going in the wrong direction" as the number of COVID-19 cases increases across the nation.

01 July 2020; MEMO: The Egyptian government has encouraged women to delay their pregnancies due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Egypt’s Ministry of Health issued the statement yesterday calling on women to avoid getting pregnant as it may weaken their immune system. Adding that new discoveries have been made which link the coronavirus to blood clots which could affect the placenta and the nutrition of the foetus.

Washington, Jul 1 (AP/PTI) In Republican circles -- with the notable exception of the man who leads the party -- the debate about masks is over: It's time to put one on.

As a surge of infections hammers the South and West, GOP officials are pushing back against the notion that masks are about politics, as President Donald Trump suggests, and telling Americans they can help save lives.

New Delhi, Jun 30 (PTI) Madhya Pradesh has recorded the highest infant mortality rate of 48 for every 1,000 live births while Kerala has registered the lowest -- just seven, according to the latest data of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.

The data showed the infant mortality rate in India has improved, albeit slightly, from 33 in 2017 to 32 in 2018.