Centre issues SOP for availability of essential goods during lockdown

Offences and Penalties under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 that would be applicable under the current lockdown… https://t.co/BMG3fQrsUa — Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs (@PIBHomeAffairs) 1585065463000

infections near 500,000 as health systems buckle

PM Modi pitches for new crisis management protocol at G-20 video conference

694 confirmed COVID-19 cases in India

coronavirus

DGCA extends ban on international passenger flights till Apr 14

Saudi king urges 'effective' G20 response to virus crisis

Centre permits doorstep delivery of medicines

Govt unveils Rs 1.7 lakh cr stimulus

Iran reports 157 new virus deaths, imposes intercity ban

Hundreds of people stranded at AP-Telangana checkpoints

Jobless daily wage labourers walk back home to villages

Kashmir reports first coronavirus death

Chinese mainland reports zero increase in cases

Coronavirus could become seasonal: top US scientist

Online delivery cos look to resume operations with 'curfew passes'

Indian-American hoteliers offer free accommodation to stranded Indian students

Lockdowns preventing contagion from reaching conflict zones

Two vaccines enter human trials; total 35 firms in race

NEW DELHI: The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 16 in the country and 80 fresh cases were reported, taking the tally to 694, the Union health ministry said on Thursday, but asserted that the rate of increase in the positive cases was "relatively stable" in India. The unprecedented impact of the outbreak has overwhelmed authorities around the globe with India and the world continuing efforts to contain the pandemic.Here are the latest developments from India and the world:The Union home ministry on Thursday issued Standard Operating Procedure on availability of essential goods during the lockdown period and asked state governments to ensure smooth functioning of people and services.In the two-page SOP, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said essential commodities are available to people through small local retail shops, large organised retail stores and e-commerce companies.The number of coronavirus infections closed in on a half-million worldwide Thursday, with both Italy and the U.S. on track to surpass China, and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week in a stark demonstration of the damage to the world's biggest economy.Health care systems in Europe and New York buckled under the strain, with Spain's death toll climbing to more than 4,000.At least 2.8 billion people, or more than one-third of the Earth's population, are under severe travel restrictions.As the world reels under the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the powerful G-20 grouping to put human beings rather than economic targets at the centre of the vision for global prosperity and cooperation.In his address at a video conference of the G-20 leaders, Modi also pitched for developing a new crisis management protocol and procedures to deal with global health crisis besides significantly boosting capability of organisations like the WHO, government sources said.Eighty-eight fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in the country on Thursday, the highest in a single day and the death toll rose to 16, according to the Union health ministry. With this, the total number of coronavirus cases surged to 694 in India.The Union health ministry officials also said India was at the second stage as there is still no "hard evidence" to say that there has been community transmission of the fast-spreadingAll international commercial passenger flights will remain suspended till April 14, aviation regulator DGCA announced on Thursday.The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on March 19 had announced that no international commercial passenger flight operations will take place in India from 1.30 am on March 23 to 5.30 am on March 29.Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Thursday urged G20 leaders to take "effective and coordinated" action to combat the global crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, and called on them to assist developing nations.While wealthy nations including the US have unveiled mammoth stimulus packages, there has so far been no collective action plan from the G20, and it has been criticised for its slow response.India is a member nation of the G20 group. Speaking on the summit on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the Group of 20 (G20) has an important role to play in the fight against coronavirus.The Central government on Thursday allowed doorstep delivery of medicines to people during the 21-day nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus.These medicines that will be provided at the doorsteps fall under the Schedule H category which means such drugs cannot be purchased without the prescription of a qualified doctor.The government has announced a Rs 1.7 lakh crore stimulus that included free foodgrain and cooking gas to poor for three months, and cash doles to women and poor senior citizens as it looked to ease the economic impact of the nationwide lockdown.While over 80 crore poor ration card holders will each get 5 kg of wheat or rice and one kg of preferred pulses free of cost every month for the next three months, 20.4 crore women having Jan Dhan bank accounts would get one-time cash help of Rs 1,500 spread over three months.Iran announced 157 new deaths from coronavirus, raising the official number of fatalities to 2,234, as it slapped a ban on intercity travel to try to curb the spread.Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour also said that 2,389 new cases have been confirmed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of declared infections in one of the world's wost-hit countries to 29,406.Following lockdown student hostels and paying guests facilities started closing on Wednesday which meant over 600 people, including a few women and children, set off from Hyderabad in cabs after obtaining special travel permits from the local police. After a smooth ride up to Garikapadu, the borderline between the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the vehicles were stopped at around 3.30 pm, leaving the passengers stranded with no food or water. After frantic SOS calls AP authorities finally agreed to let them in, on the condition that they be shifted to a quarantine facility. Several others chose to turn back to Hyderabad.With Covid-19 lockdown robbing daily wagers and labourers of their income, thousands across India are walking long distances, over 100 kilometres in many cases, and often on empty stomachs to reach their native villages and towns. In Agra, closure of tourism and footwear industry which employs scores of daily wagers has left many in dire straits. With no money and no work, those working in bordering states are desperate to make it home. Mohammad Kasim and five others managed to reach Aligarh from Palwal (Haryana) after 28 hours of being on the road, walking and hitchhiking on trucks.A 65-year-old man hailing from Hyderpora area, Srinagar, died on Thursday, becoming the first fatality in Jammu and Kashmir due to coronavirus. Four people had tested positive for coronavirus in J&K on Wednesday, taking the total number of cases to 11. Authorities in Kashmir have expressed apprehensions that the cases could be more than reported in the Valley as a significant number of people appeared to have concealed their travel history. As many as 5,124 are under surveillance, out of which 3,061 are in-home quarantine, 80 in hospital quarantine and 1,477 in-home surveillance.The Chinese health authority on Thursday said that no new domestically transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday. The National Health Commission received reports of 67 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday, all of which were imported. By the end of Wednesday, 541 imported cases had been reported.Anthony Fauci, who leads research into infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health said at a briefing on Wednesday that there is a strong chance the new coronavirus could return in seasonal cycles. Fauci said that the virus was beginning to take root in the southern hemisphere, where winter is on its way with southern Africa and countries in the southern hemisphere reporting cases as they go into their winter season. If these countries have a substantial outbreak "it will be inevitable that we need to be prepared that we'll get a cycle around the second time," said Fauci.Over the course of Wednesday, police authorities in Delhi, Gurugram, Pune, and Bengaluru issued notifications and called for meetings with e-commerce executives to resolve issues faces by delivery executives amidst the 21 day lockdown. Some cities are expected to issue “curfew passes”, which executives in these companies said may take a few days, indicating that delays are likely to continue this week before services normalise. However, it might take a couple of days for services to normalise.With the students scrambling for a roof over their heads after being asked to vacate their hostels and India banning international flights for a week from March 22 due to the coronavirus pandemic, more than 6,000 rooms in nearly 700 hotels were offered to Indian students by Wednesday following a call from the Indian Embassy. The Indian Embassy have been running a round-the-clock helpline since last week for the students in the US, who number over 2,50,000.An international aid group says closures aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic are preventing it from reaching 300,000 people in conflict zones across the Middle East, as the virus arrived in war-torn Libya and case counts rose in Syria and the Gaza Strip, among the world's most vulnerable places. The Norwegian Refugee Council said it was unable to reach people in Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip, where authorities have imposed strict measures to halt the spread of the virus.There are currently two vaccines that have entered human trials -- one in the US and one in China -- and they could be a year to a year-and-a-half away from deployment. Treatments are also being investigated -- some new drugs and others that have been repurposed, including the antimalarials chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Worldover around 35 pharmaceutical companies and institutes are racing against time to create such a vaccine. At least four such companies, have already started testing in animals. This unprecedented speed to create a vaccine stems from the early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The Chinese medical authorities wasted no time in sharing that sequence with research groups as early as January.