New coronavirus infections reported on Saturday crossed 18,000, for the first time since January.

Last week, a Health Ministry team had visited Maharashtra and reported that among the possible reasons for the growing number of cases in the city were — COVID inappropriate behaviour due to “lack of fear of disease,” pandemic fatigue, missed cases, super spreading events and crowds due to recent gram panchayat elections, marriages, re-opening of schools, and crowded public transport.

However, the report stressed that the situation in Maharashtra was not unique and a similar combination of events was responsible for a surge in other States too.

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 latest updates:

New Delhi

More front-line workers than healthcare workers immunised

Despite the vaccination drive for front-line workers starting almost a month after healthcare workers, more front-line workers have been immunised, according to official data. While vaccination of healthcare workers started on January 16, front-line workers, which includes police, paramilitary and government officials, started getting vaccinated from February 13.

Over 2,30,073 of 3,38,251 (68%) front-line workers had taken the vaccine till Thursday and only 1,49,910 of 2,38,256 (62.9%) healthcare workers had been vaccinated.

Officials said that many healthcare workers were infected by the virus and that is one of the reasons for the lesser turnout.

Enthusiasm is more because of “better awareness and communication” among front-line workers, said Delhi government officials. But there have been cases of them being under some level of “pressure” to take the vaccine, as per officials.

New Delhi

As interim bails issued during Covid-19 expire, Delhi HC asks undertrial prisoners to surrender

The Delhi High Court has directed 3,499 undertrial prisoners, who were granted interim bails to de-congest jails here amid the COVID-19 pandemic, to surrender on expiry of their period.

The decision of the court was based on the recommendation of the high powered committee (HPC) constituted on the direction of the Supreme Court to decongest jails to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A Bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh said it was “not inclined” to further extend the period of interim bail granted to these undertrial prisoners (UTP) under various criteria laid down by the HPC in its several meetings.

Tamil Nadu

IOCL donates truck to carry vaccines

Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) has donated a refrigerated truck to the State government for transporting COVID-19 vaccines to various parts of the State. The refrigerated compartment would maintain a temperature in the range of two degrees Celsius to eight degrees Celsius.

The ₹35-lakh custom-made truck was handed over to Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan by P. Jayadevan, Executive Director, IOCL, Tamil Nadu, in the presence of T.S. Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and Arun Kumar, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The truck is part of the equipment worth ₹3.24 crore being given by IOCL and Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. under their corporate social responsibility programme to the State government.

Punjab

Night curfew imposed in four Punjab districts

A night curfew was imposed in Punjab’s four districts from Saturday to tackle a recent surge in COVID-19 cases.

The orders came after Punjab Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan and Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta held a meeting to review the COVID-19 situation with all Deputy Commissioners, district police chiefs and civil surgeons through a videoconferencing. The districts where the night curfew has been imposed are Jalandhar, SBS Nagar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala.

The night curfew will remain in place in the districts from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Kerala

No surge in daily cases in Kerala, unlike in other States implicated by Centre

From mid-February, a spike in daily new cases was reported from a few States including Maharashtra. For days on end, the Health Ministry kept repeating the message that Kerala too was “witnessing an upsurge of daily new cases”. Even as recently as March 6, the Health Ministry wrongly implicated Kerala for the surge in cases when it said “Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka continue to report a surge in the COVID-19 daily new cases.”

Kerala continues to contribute a high number of cases on a daily basis. However, there has not been any surge or spike in daily cases, as seen in other States. In reality, Kerala has been witnessing a steady decline in daily cases since end-January.

“From a second peak of 6,078 seven-day moving average of daily cases as on January 23, we have been seeing a steady decline in cases in Kerala. There has been a 50% decline in the seven-day moving average of daily cases from the fourth week of January to March 4,” says Dr. Rijo John, Health Economist and Consultant based in Kochi, Kerala. “The seven-day moving average of daily cases in Kerala as on March 4 was 2,996. The absolute number of daily cases on March 4 was 2,616.”

While other States have reduced the number of daily tests in recent months, Kerala has been continuing with the same number of daily tests.

New Delhi

Number of inoculations cross 20 million

More than 20 million vaccine doses have been administered since the programme began on January 16 with 7.6 lakh senior citizens and 1.4 lakh persons above 45 and with comorbidities, getting their first dose on Saturday.

Nearly 70 lakh healthcare workers (HCWs)have been vaccinated with at least one dose of either Covaxin or Covishield and more than 35 lakh of them have got their follow-up doses after at least four weeks, the recommended schedule. Nearly 63 lakh frontline workers (FLWs) have been inoculated with one dose with 14 lakh getting a second dose.

The second phase of the vaccination drive appears to be inoculating more people than during the first phase of the exercise. Close to 7-8 lakh have been inoculated for most days last week as opposed to the 1-3 lakh HCWs workers in the early weeks of the vaccination programme.

USA

Joe Biden’s COVID-19 rescue plan clears crucial Senate hurdle

The U.S. Senate on Saturday voted to approve a $1.9 trillion relief package that President Joe Biden vows will revive the country’s pandemic-stricken economy, capping hours of debate, frenzied negotiations and a marathon overnight voting session.

Passed by 50 votes to 49 in a party line vote, the sweeping legislation now heads back to the Democratic-majority House of Representatives, where it is expected to be adopted barring a last-minute setback.

Even without the progressive priority of a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, the stimulus bill marks a victory for Mr. Biden’s Democrats as they put their stamp on the recovery from a pandemic that has killed over 500,000 in the United States and hobbled its economy.

“I promised the American people help was on the way,” said Mr. Biden in an address from the White House, after the plan was approved along strict party lines. “Today, I can say we’ve taken one more giant step forward in delivering on that promise,” he said. “It obviously wasn’t easy. It wasn’t always pretty. But it was so desperately needed.”