European Union lawmakers on Wednesday endorsed a new travel certificate that will allow people to move between European countries without having to quarantine or undergo extra coronavirus tests, paving the way for the pass to start in time for summer. The widely awaited certificate is aimed at saving Europe s travel industry and prime tourist sites from another disastrous vacation season. Key travel destinations like Greece have led the drive to have the certificate, which will have both paper and digital forms, rapidly introduced. Several EU countries have already begun using the system, including Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece and Poland.
In the last 24 hours, the COVID aggregate rose to 1,10,748 with 642 new cases. The new fatalities however fell to four, taking the toll to 1,648. Director of Health Department S Mohan Kumar noted that the number of active cases were 6,853. This was also less than the Tuesday s figure of 7,149. He said 1,02,247 patients recovered and were discharged so far. The 642 new cases were identified at the end of examination of 8516 swabs projecting a test positivity rate of 7.54 per cent. Two of the deceased had no co morbidities. The deceased were in the age groups ranging between 54 and 58 years. The fatality and recovery rates were 1.49 percent and 92.32 percent respectively.
As the country records less than one lakh cases for the second successive days, the daily positivity rate of India has declined to 4.66 per cent, informed to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Wednesday. The weekly positivity rate is currently at 5.66 per cent while the daily positivity rate stands at 4.66 per cent today. It has remained less than 10 per cent for 16th consecutive days now, the health ministry said. India has been witnessing a continuous fall in the active caseload and is below 20 lakhs for nine successive days. The country s active caseload today stands at 12,31,415. A net decline of 72,287 is witnessed in the last 24 hours and active cases are now only 4.23 per cent of the country s total positive cases, it said.
World Trade Organisation member states agreed on Wednesday to intensify talks toward improving access to COVID-19 products, as developing nations push for a proposal to ease patent and other legal protections on coronavirus vaccines - and some wealthier countries remain stiffly opposed. TRIPS Council, a WTO panel focusing on intellectual property, which includes patents on technological know-how like vaccines and the processes to manufacture them, wrapped up a two-day meeting on Wednesday with an agreement to start a text-based process to pull together proposals about improving the fight against COVID-19 through the Geneva-based trade body s intricate system of rules. TRIPS is Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement. India, in last informal meeting of TRIPS Council, had urged all members to begin text-based negotiations on the waiver proposal. India and more than 60 other nations had sought a TRIPS waiver to increase vaccine manufacturing.