Tue 07 July 2020:
NEW DELHI (AA) – India’s death count due to COVID-19 crossed 20,000 on Tuesday with 467 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, total cases in the country have reached 719,665.
Over the past day, 22,252 new cases were reported.
Indian Council for Medical Research has tested more than 10 million samples so far.
The capital Delhi has become the third state to register over 100,000 coronavirus cases in the country after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Maharashtra has over 200,000 cases and Tamil Nadu has over 111,000 cases.
Beijing reports zero new cases for first time since market outbreak
Beijing has reported no new cases of coronavirus for the first time since an outbreak emerged at the Chinese capital’s main wholesale market last month.
City authorities say they have tested more than 11 million people for COVID-19 since June 11.
Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of Beijing’s centre for disease control, said the outbreak was “stabilising and improving”.
Coronavirus can spread in the air
Meanwhile, More than 200 scientists called for the World Health Organization to acknowledge the coronavirus can spread in the air – a change that could alter some measures taken to stop the pandemic.
In a letter published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, two scientists from Australia and the US wrote that studies have shown “beyond any reasonable doubt that viruses are released during exhalation, talking and coughing in microdroplets small enough to remain aloft in the air”.
That means people in certain indoor conditions could be at greater risk of being infected than was previously thought.
The WHO has long maintained that COVID-19 is spread via larger respiratory droplets, most often when people cough or sneeze, that fall to the ground. It has dismissed the possibility of airborne transmission, except for certain high-risk medical procedures, such as when patients are first put on breathing machines.
In a statement on Monday, the UN health agency said it was aware of the article and was reviewing it with technical experts.
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