Covishield pricing whips up a political storm
April 22, 2021
The concerns are over vaccine equity and that some States would get left behind. Serum Institute of India (SII) chief executive Adar Poonawalla has stirred a hornet’s nest, politically, with the pricing structure he recently announced for Covishield vaccine.
A day after SII announced that Covishield would be priced at ₹400/dose for States and ₹600/dose for private hospitals, key political voices, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and DMK leader MK Stalin, have been raised against the “differential pricing mechanism”. The concern was over vaccine equity, and whether some States would get left behind.
As Covid surges, Modi calls off Bengal rallies
April 22, 2021
PM will be chairing a high-level meeting to review the Covid-19 situation
With a second wave of Covid-19 infections engulfing the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled all his rallies after the sixth phase of polling on Thursday.
Voter turnout in Phase VI – when 43 constituencies in North 24 Parganas, Nadia, Uttar Dinajpur and Purba Bardhaman went to polls – was 79.09 per cent. “Voters set an example of Covid-19 appropriate behaviour following due protocols of sanitisation and social distancing,” said the Election Commission. The Commission monitored 7,466 out of the 14,480 polling stations through webcasting. Drones were used to keep watch over the process.
Coronavirus LIVE Updates: Indefinite night curfew to be imposed in Agartala from tomorrow
Firstpost 48 minutes ago FP Staff
16:38 (IST)
Over 146 districts have positivity rate of 15%, says health ministry
Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that 146 districts have positivity rate of over 15percent and these are facing the strain in terms of hospital care, reports
The Hindu.
Over13 crore vaccinated so far, says Rajesh Bhushan
There are 21,57,000 active cases in India currently i.e. twice the number of maximum active COVID-19 cases last year. More than 13 crore people have been vaccinated in the country so far including 30 lakh doses administered in the last 24 hour,
NEW DELHI: No more than 500 people each will be allowed into PM Narendra Modi and other BJP campaigners’ remaining poll rallies in Bengal, party president JP Nadda decided on Monday amid the Covid surge.
Modi will now visit Bengal on Friday, April 23, and address four rallies in Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum and south Kolkata. The original plan was to have these four rallies spread over two days –– on April 21 and April 24. BJP functionaries said that all rallies would follow Covid-prevention guidelines.
“We will try to arrange 100% seating arrangement for people at the PM’s rallies. I had proposed this during the PM’s Siliguri rally but security forces did not allow us to do this. They argued that there might be commotion if people came in large numbers,” BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu said.