Coronavirus: India Reports Record 896 Cases In A Day; UK Registers 980 Deaths In 24 Hours

The United States recorded 1,783 deaths and 32,385 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll in the country past the 16,500 mark with more than 4,62,000 total confirmed cases, according to John Hopkins University.

America's coronavirus epicentre of New York recorded a new single-day high of 799 COVID-19 deaths but Governor Andrew Cuomo said the rate of hospitalizations continued to fall.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved out of intensive care as his condition improves, Downing Street said on Thursday evening.

India continued to see a spike in number of cases with 678 new cases being reported since Thursday, according to the Health Ministry.

Here are all the major developments from the day:

9:52 PM: UK COVID-19 daily death toll climbs by record 980: Health minister.

9:45 PM: At meet with state unit presidents, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi expresses concern over shortfall, deficit in number of testing centres.

8:37 PM: Sixteen new Coronavirus positive cases have been reported in Andhra Pradesh today. Positive cases in the state rise to 381, including 10 discharged people and 6 deaths, says the State Nodal Officer, Andhra Pradesh.

8:28 PM: Wearing of face masks was made compulsory in Gurugram on Friday in the wake of coronavirus spread with authorities mandating legal action against violators. The order by District Magistrate Amit Khatri stated that wearing masks is compulsory even while travelling in personal or government vehicles.

7:52 PM: With 210 persons testing positive today,  thenumber of coronavirus cases in Maharashtra rises to 1,574: state health department.

7:49 PM: Seven more people, including two Tablighi Jamaat returnees, tested positive for COVID-19 in Kerala on Friday, taking the total number of active cases in the state to 238.

6:53 PM: 77 new COVID19 cases reported in Tamil Nadu today; the total number of COVID19 cases in the state is 911, according to the state government.

6:50 PM: One COVID19 patient in Thoothukudi passed away today; death toll rises to 9: Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary CS Shanmugam

6:10 PM: Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh has proposed to the Centre a Rs 550-crore project for setting up an ‘Advanced Centre for Virology’ in the state, with land to be offered by his government free of cost,

5:47 PM: 37 deaths, 896 new cases reported in the last 24 hours in the sharpest ever increase in cases. India's total number of coronavirus positive cases rises to 6761 (including 6039 active cases, 516 cured/discharged/migrated and 206 deaths): Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

5:45 PM:  Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Friday agreed to enhance cooperation to further intensify the fight against the coronavirus and underlined the need of taking care of the citizens left stranded in each other's country due to the lockdown to contain the spread of the pandemic.

5:17 PM: National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) asks Centre to issue directions to States and UTs to ensure people with mental illness don’t become easy carriers of COVID-19.

4:55 PM: The BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government on Friday published a directive saying that media organisations will be liable for legal action if they report coronavirus-related stories without the prior approval of authorised officials from the health department or the district magistrate concerned.

4:35 PM: Rise of 678 COVID-19 cases and 33 deaths in last 24 hours, says Health ministry. 

4:30 PM:  India has a stock of 3.28 crore hydroxychloroquine tablets, says Health ministry.

4:25 PM: Health Ministry said the government conducted 16,002 tests on Thursday, out of which 0.2% cases were positive.

"On the basis of the samples collected, the infection rate is not high; Rapid diagnostics kits have also been sanctioned," says Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health.

4:22 PM: 20,473 foreign nationals evacuated from India as of Thursday: MEA official on COVID-19 situation.

"Need to assess the situation, then decide at a later stage about the return of Indians from abroad," says the MEA official.

4:20 PM: "A lot of requests on Hydroxychloroquine were already there. Several countries have made requests for this particular item and taking into view the domestic necessities and keeping a sufficient buffer for our own requirement, a  decision was taken by a group of ministers to release some of the surplus medicine for export purposes. This is an ongoing process": Dammu Ravi, AS & Coordinator, MEA

4:17 PM: In view of the ensuing festivals in the month of April 2020, MHA has directed all States/UTs to ensure strict compliance of lockdown measures to fight COVID19: Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.

4:10 PM:  DHFL promoters, Wadhawans to be booked under IPC sections 188, 269,  270, 34; sections of Disaster Management Act and COVID-19  regulations, says Maharashtra minister Anil Deshmukh.

4:05 PM: The number of total confirmed coronavirus cases in Uttar Pradesh rose to 431 on Friday with 21 more people testing positive, while the death toll stood at four,according to a health official.

3:55 PM: Delhi’s Air Cargo supply chain has geared up during this lockdown period for handling a significant number of cargo freighters that are bringing essential supplies like Masks, Medicines, Medical equipment, Test kits, Reagents and other supplies: Delhi Airport

3:40 PM: PM Modi held an online meeting with his Japanese counterpart. Modi said, "Had fruitful discussion with my friend, Japanese PM  Shinzo Abe about COVID19. India-Japan special strategic and global partnership can help develop new technologies and solutions for post-COVID world -- for our peoples, for Indo-Pacific region, and for the world."

3:35 PM: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has directed a private hospital to quarantine all its nurses and stop new admissions after two of its nurses tested positive for coronavirus.

A senior BMC official said two nurses from Sushrusha Hospital in Dadar, aged 27 and 42, have tested positive for the viral infection.

3:32 PM: A man, who tested positive for coronavirus, was booked for hiding his travel history after allegedly attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Markaz last month and his village, Deenpur, in Najafgarh was declared a containment zone, police said.

3:30 PM: Spain sees lowest daily toll in 17 days, with 605 deaths .

2:24 PM: Experts from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, project that COVID-19 may peak by mid-September; can infect 58% of country's population, says Punjab CM Amarinder Singh.

2:16 PM: With two more persons, one of them an elderly man, succumbing to coronavirus, the toll in Gujarat went up to 19, said officials.

Those who died during the last 12 hours were a 40-year-old man from Ahmedabad and an 81-year-old man from Gandhinagar, said Principal Secretary, Health, Jayanti Ravi.

2:14 PM: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) validates TrueNat -- a tuberculosis testing machine for COVID19 screening tests.

2:02 PM: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh says, "As of today we have 132 confirmed COVID19 cases in Punjab, out of which 11 people have died. The total number of samples we have collected so far is 2877, for a state which has 28 million people this is not much."

1:50 PM: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday chaired a meeting with state health ministers via video conferencing from Nirman Bhawan in Delhi to review actions on COVID-19 management.

1:20 PM: Siwan, Begusarai and Nawada in Bihar have been completely sealed now after new cases reported from these areas. A curfew-like situation is prevailing in these districts. People are not allowed to move from one house to another, according to the police.

1:15 PM: The UK government on Friday announced an additional 12 charter flights to bring over 3,000 UK residents stranded in India in the coronavirus lockdown back to Britain.

1:12 PM: 10 more COVID19 positive cases reported in Karnataka, taking the total number of positive cases in the state to 207, including 6 deaths and 30 discharged. 9 of the 10 new cases, are close contacts of people who had tested positive for the virus earlier: Karnataka Government

12:52 PM: Ramping up testing for coronavirus in UP can prove to be a lifesaver: Priyanka Gandhi in a letter to UP CM Yogi Adityanath.

12:47 PM: As many as 32 people have been booked by Delhi Police for stepping out of their homes without wearing masks in the Northwest region of the national capital.

12:05 PM: Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has written a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, suggesting ways to increase the facilities for testing and treatment of COVID19 and to control the spread of the pandemic in the state.

12:00 PM: 16 new COVID19 positive cases have been reported in Maharashtra today, taking the total number of positive cases in the state to 1380.

11:30 AM: In the hotspots identified in Delhi, Delhi government is conducting door-to-door medical scanning of the residents, said Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain. There are 720 positive cases in Delhi so far.

He added that 6000 houses have been scanned in Nizamuddin where one person tested positive.

11:15 AM: As post-lockdown plan, IndiGo CEO says the airline will have no meal service for some time and will fill only 50 per cent seats in flights.

11:08 AM: A 78-yr-old woman with co-morbidity conditions, who died on April 7 in Mohali, has been tested positive for Covid-19 posthumously. 

The woman, hailing from Mundi Kharar in Punjab, was brought to Emergency Ward of Kharar Civil Hospital. Her primary contacts are being traced and will be sampled, said DC Mohali.

10:55 AM: A bipartisan group of the top US lawmakers have urged China to "urgently" shut down all of its operating wet markets, amid the coronavirus pandemic, that have a potential to expose humans to "health risks" through the introduction of zoonotic disease.

A wet market sells fresh meat, fish, produce, and other perishable goods as distinguished from "dry markets".

10:40AM: Five more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 in Mumbai's Dharavi, taking the tally of the virus in the area to 22, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

10:38AM: Asian Development Bank has assured a $2 billion support package to India to fight against Covid-19. 

10:13AM: A 65-year-old woman who had tested positive for coronavirus died here, taking the toll in Rajasthan to eight. The state has also reported 26 fresh cases of the deadly virus, taking the total number of COVID-19 patients to 489.

9:16AM: Death toll due to COVID-19 rises to 199 in India; cases climb to 6,412, says Health Ministry.

8:50AM: China has reported 42 new coronavirus cases, including 38 imported infections, taking the total tally to 81,907, health officials said, as the country started a new trial of re-testing the recovered COVID-19 patients amid heightened concern of a rebound of the deadly disease.

8:18AM: Spain is close to passing the worst of its coronavirus outbreak, the prime minister said, as the Spanish parliament approved a 15-day extension to the national state of emergency. The death toll in the country has now crosses the 15,000-mark. 

7:59AM: France reported its first fall in the number of patients in intensive care suffering from COVID-19 since the coronavirus epidemic began, with 82 fewer people in intensive care units compared with the day earlier.

7:57AM: The death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 90,000 worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

7:55AM: Assam has reported the first death due to complications related to COVID-19 with the total number of positive cases in the state rising to 28, state minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said.