The country recorded 3,30,836 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, a 23.6% increase compared to a week ago. The total number of infections has reached 3.89 crore, and the active cases have crossed the 21.1 lakh mark.

You can track coronavirus cases, deaths and testing rates at the national and State levels here. A list of State Helpline numbers is available as well.

Here are the updates:

New Zealand

New Zealand adds new COVID restrictions as Omicron spreads

New Zealanders are set to face new COVID-19 restrictions after nine cases of the Omicron variant were detected in a single family that flew to Auckland for a wedding earlier this month, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Sunday.

The so-called “red setting” of the country’s pandemic response includes heightened measures such as required mask wearing and limits on gatherings, and the restrictions will go into effect on Monday. -AP

Kerala

Kerala govt asks private hospitals to set aside 50% beds for COVID patients

Amid surging coronavirus cases in Kerala, the health department on Saturday instructed private hospitals in the state to set aside 50 per cent of beds for COVID-19 patients.

The department asked private hospitals to hand over details of daily admissions in the ICUs, use of ventilators and beds to the District Medical Officers.

“The private hospitals need to submit their daily admissions in hospitals including the number of occupants in the ICUs and use of ventilators to the DMOs concerned. Those hospitals which refuse to handover the data will face strict action,” Health Minister Veena George said in a release. -PTI

Andhra Pradesh

COVID-19 casts shadow on three major events in Feb

The rapid rise in COVID-19 cases has cast a shadow on three major events that are scheduled to take place in February.

To begin with, there is the much-awaited T20 cricket match between India and the West Indies, to be played at Dr. Y.S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Stadium on February 18.

Karnataka

Stop random testing, focus on symptomatic persons: TAC

With the pandemic raging like wildfire across the country and the Indian Council of Medical research (ICMR) advising States on purposive testing for COVID-19, Karnataka’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has recommended that the State should go slow on testing. The committee has also advised the State to stop random testing and focus only on symptomatic persons.

Although the TAC has advised that the daily number of tests should be around 1.5 lakh in the State (75,000 in Bengaluru and 75,000 in rest of Karnataka), over two lakh tests are being conducted daily from January 18 onwards. Sources in the TAC said increasing the daily tests at this stage when the transmission is very high is nothing but suicidal.

Andhra Pradesh

Police resume COVID campaign in remote villages

After a gap of six months, the police on Friday resumed the COVID-19 awareness campaign in Bangarupalem mandal, covering about 42 villages, mostly located in remote and forest-fringe areas.

Tamil Nadu

COVID-19 vaccination linked with fewer deaths

Fresh data of deaths between October 2021 and January 16, 2022, indicate that just over 80% occurred in individuals who were not vaccinated at all or had only a single dose. Of this, the percentage of completely unvaccinated individuals is 68.1 among a total of 1,411 deaths in that period.

The greatest impact of no vaccination has been in the over 50 years age group with co-morbidities, as it was in data from August to October 2021. Nearly 811 deaths of the total belong to this age group. The next group most affected is the under 50 years age cohort, again with co-morbidities — with a count of 80 deaths. These two categories account for over 63% of the total deaths. Whereas, people of both age groups (over 50 – 40 and under 50 – 30) who did not have any co-morbidities have suffered deaths too, but significantly lower.

Tamil Nadu

Markets witness usual crowd ahead of lockdown

Vegetable markets across the district on Saturday witnessed usual crowd ahead of the total lockdown on Sunday.

The State government has announced lockdown from 10 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday, as a measure to contain the spread of COVID-19.

There was usual crowd at the Nethaji vegetable market and uzhavar sandhai on Saturday. Traders said that business was normal. Prices of vegetables have fallen by 40% to 50% when compared to the prices that prevailed during the first week of January. Traders said that only on January 7, the crowd was high as people purchased in bulk fearing extension of lockdown.