-The Hindu 12-member team to go beyond present crisis, prepare road map for transparent budgeting with States The Supreme Court has constituted a 12-member National Task Force to streamline and ensure the “effective and transparent” allocation of liquid medical oxygen on a “scientific, rational and equitable basis” to States and Union Territories fighting COVID-19. The apex court had expressed its dissatisfaction at the Centre’s earlier “oxygen-for-bed” formula. This “rough-and-ready” arrangement, as the court...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-IndiaToday.com Nandurbar, a tribal district in Maharashtra, has evolved a model that ensures optimum use of medical oxygen. The district had started planning for its oxygen needs in September last year and has installed three plants since then. Today, it's self-sufficient in oxygen and is supplying the excess to other districts. The term 'oxygen nurse' was coined in Nandurbar, a tribal district in Maharashtra, for its optimum utilisation of oxygen cylinders. Following...

-TheNewsMinute.com The scientists said that they have received partial funding and permission for implementing systematic surveillance of new variants of Coronavirus. Over 300 scientists from across India, including renowned names like Prof LS Shashidhara (Professor of Biology, IISER Pune and Ashoka University) and Prof Partha Majumder (National Science Chair, Government of India), have requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to open access to various data in order to transparency in...

-Science.thewire.in Dear Dr Harsh Vardhan,  The ongoing second wave of COVID-19 in India with over 3.32 lakh new cases counted in the last 24 hours is extremely concerning and demands imperative and urgent action. This is necessary in the immediate term as well as through longer term preparedness to mitigate the current medical and humanitarian crisis and to prevent its further escalation. We, concerned public health practitioners urgently request the Government of India...