WHO reports global decline in new COVID-19 cases
Geneva, (AP): The number of new COVID-19 cases continued to fall last week, with 3.6 million new cases reported globally, down from 4 million new infections the previous week, the World Health Organization said.
Last week's drop marked the first substantial decline for more than two months, with falling COVID-19 cases in every world region.
In its latest update on the pandemic released on Tuesday, WHO said there were major decreases in cases in two regions: a 22 per cent fall in the Middle East and a 16 per cent drop in Southeast Asia.
The UN health agency said there were just under 60,000 deaths in the past week, a 7 per cent decline. It said that while Southeast Asia reported a 30 per cent decrease in COVID-19 deaths, the Western Pacific region reported a 7 per cent increase.
The most coronavirus cases were seen in the U.S., India, Britain, Turkey and the Philippines. WHO said the faster-spreading delta variant has now been seen in 185 countries and is present in every part of the world.
The organisation also revised its list of variants of interest, or those that it believes have the potential to cause big outbreaks; WHO said it's tracking the lambda and mu variants, which both arose in Latin America but have yet to cause widespread epidemics.
WHO has previously said that in all countries where the delta variant is circulating, it has become the predominant virus.
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Indigo flights chaos: SCR to run special trains to clear passenger rush
Hyderabad (PTI): The South Central Railway on Saturday announced that it would run four special trains to manage the surge in passengers resulting from the large-scale cancellation of IndiGo flights here.
The move comes as flyers face significant disruption and long queues at the airport due to the cancellation.
A press release from the SCR said it is running the special trains to clear the extra rush of passengers to Chennai, Mumbai and Shalimar (Kolkata) from Hyderabad today.
Meanwhile, as many as 43 outbound Indigo flights were cancelled from here on Saturday, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport sources said.
ALSO READ: IndiGo cancels over 200 flights from Delhi, Mumbai on Saturday
Similarly, 26 incoming flights are also likely to be cancelled during the day, they said.
The flight cancellations drew ire from passengers, who thronged the IndiGo counters at the airport demanding to know the exact situation.
“This is utter nonsense! Digiyatra done, message received that departure has been rescheduled ahead of the scheduled departure and now upon arriving at Hyderabad airport coming to know at the security checkpoint that Indigo flight is cancelled,” Tarun Singha, former Ministry of Defence spokesperson said in a post on X.
“But the thing is if you don’t shout they do nothing. Example at Hyderabad Airport, there was no staff no flight information for an hour. Then a fellow passenger started shouting on mic and an Indigo staff appeared finally,” a netizen said in a post.
On Friday, when IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports, its CEO Pieter Elbers apologised in a video message for the major inconvenience caused to passengers due to the disruptions.
In the one-way video communication, Elbers also said that the airline was expecting fewer than 1,000 flights on Saturday.
