Death toll due to COVID-19 now 652; total cases in India cross 20,000-mark
New Delhi: The countrywide COVID-19 death toll rose to 652 and the number of cases to 20,471 on Wednesday, an increase of 49 fatalities and 1,486 cases since Tuesday evening, according to the Union Health Ministry.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 15,859, while 3,959 people have been cured and discharged, the ministry said, adding that one patient has migrated.
Thus, over 19 per cent of the cases have recovered so far, a health ministry official said. The total number of cases includes 77 foreign nationals who were tested positive in India.
Of the 49 deaths reported since Tuesday evening, 19 were from Maharashtra, 18 Gujarat, four from Madhya Pradesh, three from West Bengal, two from Andhra Pradesh and one each from Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, the ministry said.
Of the total 652 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 251, followed by Gujarat at 95, Madhya Pradesh at 80, Delhi at 47, Rajasthan at 25, Andhra Pradesh at 24 and Telangana at 23, according to the ministry.
The death toll reached 21 in Uttar Pradesh, 18 in Tamil Nadu while Karantaka has reported 17 cases. Punjab has registered 16 deaths, while West Bengal has reported 15 fatalities due to coronavirus infection so far.
The disease has claimed five lives in Jammu and Kashmir, while Kerala, Jharkhand and Haryana have recorded three COVID-19 deaths each.
Bihar has reported two deaths, while Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam have reported one fatality each, according to the ministry data.
However, a PTI tally of the figures reported by various states as on Wednesday showed 20,564 cases and 654 deaths in the country.
There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.
According to the health ministry's data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 5,221, followed by Gujarat at 2,272, Delhi at 2,156, Rajasthan at 1,801, Tamil Nadu at 1,596 and Madhya Pradesh at 1,592.
The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 1,412 in Uttar Pradesh, 945 in Telangana and 813 in Andhra Pradesh. The number of cases has risen to 427 in Kerala, 425 in Karnataka, 423 in West Bengal, 380 in Jammu and Kashmir, 254 in Haryana and 251 in Punjab.
Bihar has reported 126 coronavirus cases, while Odisha has 82.
Forty-six people have been infected with the virus in Uttarakhand while Jharkhand has 45 cases. Himachal Pradesh has 39 cases, Chhattisgarh has 36, while Assam has registered 35 infections so far.
Chandigarh has 27 COVID-19 cases, Ladakh 18, while 17 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Meghalaya has reported 12 cases, while Goa and Puducherry have seven COVID-19 patients each. Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.
"Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR," the ministry said on its website. It further said that one case of Jharkhand has been reassigned to Bihar after reconciliation.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Trump rushed out of dinner event after shots fired; one arrested
Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump and other top White House officials were evacuated unharmed from the annual dinner of White House correspondents after a man armed with multiple weapons fired shots outside the ballroom of the hotel.
The incident took place at around 8:34 PM local time when dinner was served. At that time, Trump was seen having a conversation with Weijia Jiang, the President of the White House Correspondents' Association, and mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was scheduled to present a show at the marquee event at the Washington Hilton here.
Secret Service officials and other security personnel covered the President, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President J D Vance, and the Second Lady Usha Vance, who were seated at the head table, and escorted them out of the ballroom.
Several guests at the dinner, including leaders across the political spectrum, journalists and other invitees, ducked under the table, apparently as a reflex reaction.
Putting up a brave face, President Trump later announced on Truth Social that the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days.
“Boom, boom, boom, boom is all that I heard, and many guests ducked under the table,” a C-SPAN reporter at the dinner said.
Hours later, Trump addressed a press conference at the White House and announced that the security personnel had captured one person who hails from California.
“I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray going down. I've heard that many times. It was a pretty loud noise, and it was from quite far away. He (the attacker) hadn't reached the area at all. They really got him,” Trump told reporters, recalling the incident.
Trump said one security officer was shot at but saved as he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Several protestors had lined up on the road outside the hotel, raising slogans against the Trump administration and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
A CNN reporter who was outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton said he saw a gunman opening fire just a few feet away. He was among the dozens of attendees who took cover as law enforcement swarmed the venue.
The suspect has been identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen from California.
Asked how Saturday’s incident impacts him as the US president, Trump told reporters he is in a dangerous job but that he is no “basket case.”
“I like not to think about it. I lead a pretty normal life, considering, you know, it’s a dangerous life. I think I handle it as well as it can be handled,” Trump said.
Trump has survived two assassination attempts over the past two years – first at a presidential election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, and later in Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15, 2024.
“I will say you had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, and progressives...everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd,” he said.
“We had some great work done by law enforcement, but in light of this evening's events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts in resolving our differences peacefully,” Trump said.
