Coronavirus live updates: Live: Lockdown helping minimise virus spread, but more tests needed, govt says

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday blamed the Centre for supplying “faulty” and an inadequate number of Covid-19 testing kits and politicising the fight against the virus. “We have still performed 7,037 tests because we did not depend solely on central agencies. We placed our own orders to get kits,” she said. Read full story

Maharashtra and Gujarat accounted for more than 52% of the total 1,273 fresh cases recorded across the country on Wednesday. Of the 39 new deaths, 79% came from the two western states — 18 from Maharashtra and 13 from Gujarat. With 92 fresh cases and 2,248 in all, Delhi is now the third worst affected state in the country. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi alone account for over 48% of the total 21,355 cases so far. India’s death toll stands at 683. Read full story

Government sources said they will wait to hear from ICMR on whether or not the kits were faulty before they take any decision to pursue the matter with Beijing. The government is treading cautiously on the issue as it remains in the process of acquiring vital medical equipment from China in its fight against Covid-19. The Chinese embassy in New Delhi said it will keep "close communication" with Indian agencies and provide them necessary assistance on the issue. Read full story

The order, passed late on Tuesday and addressed to district magistrates (DM)s, chief medical officers of health (CMOH)s and superintendents of Covid-19 dedicated hospitals, read: “Since mobile phones can be a potential source of spreading Covid-19 infection, no one will be allowed to carry, possess or use mobile phones inside Covid hospitals in the state. Read full story

Fourteen more coronavirus infections have been confirmed on the Italian cruise ship Costa Atlantica docked for repairs in Japan, a local official said on Thursday, bringing the total to at least 48. The Costa Cruises-operated ship was taken into a shipyard in Nagasaki city in western Japan in late February after the COVID-19 pandemic had scuttled plans for scheduled repairs in China.

Indian officials to participate in the video conference. Pakistan had earlier skipped the conference on trade saying such initiatives should only be led by Saarc Secretariat.

“We commend your leadership and the proactive measures you and your government have taken to flatten the curve of the Covid-19 infection rate in India,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in a letter to Modi. He said he was glad to note that the Indian government was “fully utilising its exceptional digital capabilities in its Covid-19 response” and had launched the Aarogya Setu app for coronavirus tracking, contact tracing and to connect people to health services. Read full story

"In India, remittances are projected to fall by about 23 per cent in 2020, to $64 billion – a striking contrast with the growth of 5.5 percent and receipts of $83 billion seen in 2019,” the World Bank said in a report on impact of COVID-19 on migration and remittances released on Wednesday. Globally remittances are projected to decline sharply by about 20 per cent this year due to the economic crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown. Read full story

After days of dilly-dallying, the Karnataka government said it would ease lockdown 2.0 from Thursday, allowing a range of services — from private clinics and veterinary centres to home repairs involving carpenters, plumbers, electricians and mechanics.The government order issued on Wednesday said the relaxations will not apply to Covid-19 hotspots and containment zones in the state. Educational institutions remain shut and non-essential travel barred everywhere.Sub-registrar offices will be opened in 11districts. While mass gatherings are banned, funerals will be allowed with a limit of 20 people attending.

Struggling to restore normalcy in the US where Covid-19 has claimed the lives of more than 47,000 people and infected over 8,52,000, President Donald Trump has said that the the country was "attacked"."We were attacked. This was an attack. This wasn't just the flu by the way. Nobody has ever seen anything like this, 1917 was the last time," Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on Wednesday.He was responding to a question about the growing US national debt as a result of the multi-trillion dollars stimulus packages that his administration has come up with to help people and businesses in distress as a direct fallout of the pandemic.

Global remittances are projected to decline by about 20 percent this year due to the Covid-19-induced economic crisis, the World Bank Group (WBG) said.The projected fall, which would be the "sharpest decline" in recent history, is largely due to a fall in the wages and employment of migrant workers, who tend to be more vulnerable to loss of employment and wages during an economic crisis in a host country, the WBG said in a statement on Wednesday, reported Xinhua news agency.Remittances to low and middle-income countries are projected to fall by 19.7 per cent to US $445 billion, representing a loss of a crucial financing lifeline for many vulnerable households, according to the statement.

The United States on Wednesday recorded 1,738 deaths from coronavirus in the last 24 hours, a lower toll than the day before, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. The new deaths bring the total number of Covid-19 fatalities in the US to 46,583 since the outbreak began there, by far the highest figures recorded by any country caught in the global pandemic.

The nationwide lockdown in India which started about a month ago has impacted nearly 40 million internal migrants, the World Bank has said. “The lockdown in India has impacted the livelihoods of a large proportion of the country's nearly 40 million internal migrants. Around 50,000–60,000 moved from urban centers to rural areas of origin in the span of a few days,” the bank said in a report released on Wednesday. According to the report -- 'COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens' -- the magnitude of internal migration is about two-and-a-half times that of international migration. “Lockdowns, loss of employment, and social distancing prompted a chaotic and painful process of mass return for internal migrants in India and many countries in Latin America,” it said.

At least 150 members of Tablighi Jamaat, including foreign participants of Nizamuddin markaz were tracked down by Uttar Pradesh police in a gruelling 48-hour surveillance mission that concluded late Tuesday taking the quarantine-and-arrest count of Jamaatis to 3,204, including 341 preachers from abroad. This followed intelligence inputs of more than 500 Tablighi attendees hiding in the state.

Telangana on Wednesday became the fifth state in the country to extend the home quarantine period from the existing 14 days to 28 days in its bid to prevent the rapid surge of coronavirus cases in the state. Odisha, Kerala, Assam and Jharkhand have already made 28-day home quarantine mandatory. Till now, a two-week home quarantine was being enforced in the state as the incubation period for suspected coronavirus cases is perceived to be 14 days. As it turned out, in some cases, patients remained asymptomatic beyond the 14-day quaranti -ne and tested positive thereafter.

The World Health Organization chief has said that he hopes the United States will reconsider its freeze in funding for his agency and vowed to keep working on “saving lives” despite calls from some US lawmakers for his resignation. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he hopes the US believes the agency is “an important investment, not just to help others, but for the US to stay safe” amid the pandemic. President Donald Trump last week announced a temporary halt to US funding for the UN agency, alleging a WHO cover-up and missteps handling the outbreak. The US is the Geneva-based agency's biggest donor, providing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of support each year. In Washington, officials said on Wednesday the halt involved new funding for the WHO, and was expected to continue for 60 to 90 days.

President Donald Trump said he told Georgia Governor Brian Kemp that he “disagreed strongly” with his decision to begin allowing some nonessential businesses to soon reopen. Speaking at a daily White House briefing on Wednesday evening, Trump said he told Kemp he had misgivings over the governor's plan, but would not stand in his way. “The people of Georgia ... have been strong, resolute, but at the same time he must do what he thinks is right,” Trump said of Kemp, a Republican. “I want him to do what he thinks is right. But I disagree with him on what he's doing. ... But I think (opening) spas and beauty salons and tattoo parlors and barbershops in phase one ... it's just too soon." In addition to pushback from Trump, Kemp's plan to begin cracking open the Georgia economy faces two major hurdles — the state is struggling to increase testing for new coronavirus infections and boost tracking of those in contact with infected people.