Noted educationist and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malviya was on Monday posthumously conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award, by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Only vaccinations can eliminate the threat of new waves, help raise sentiments and allow sellers and buyers to participate aggressively in the much awaited economic recovery, observes Mahesh Vyas.
In a video issued by the Health Ministry, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) answered commonly asked questions regarding the dosage of the vaccine saying that two doses of the vaccine will have to be taken 28 days apart and protective levels of antibodies generally would develop two weeks after the second dose.
We need to give a booster shot to all our frontline workers first as if they fall victim to Omicron, the health system will collapse, points out Ramesh Menon.
With the Omicron variant of coronavirus slowly spreading its tentacles in the country, a number of states enhanced surveillance to trace, track and quarantine contacts of COVID-19 positive persons while Delhi began genome sequencing of samples of all infected people and has prohibited Christmas and New Year gatherings.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday said she was undergoing tests at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for a kidney transplant.
Poonawalla said the price will be around USD 5-6 per dose with an MRP of around Rs 1,000 for the two necessary doses.
'The fight against COVID-19 is not a hospital fight.' 'It's a community level fight. 'If your community level measures are good, you can decrease the number of people coming to hospitals, or flatten it.'
'Chances of getting the disease are not reduced, either after one dose or both doses of the vaccine.' 'And the probability of getting the infection -- you need to differentiate infection from disease -- by getting vaccinated is almost unaltered, be it single dose or two doses.' 'But your chances of developing moderate to severe disease, after getting infected, gets reduced with every dose you receive.'
Whether the third wave will ravage us depends on the pace of vaccinations, careful and calibrated opening up of establishments, and a strategy to contain the spread in specific states or pockets.
AIIMS-Delhi is among the 12 sites selected by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for conducting Phase I and II randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trials of Covaxin.
The number of recoveries also surged with 2,48,189 patients cured so far, while there were 1,78,014 active cases, according to the updated official figures at 8 am.
'In our country, there is a lot of checks and balances, the figures cannot go wrong.' 'Because they are being checked by not only the governments, but by doctors themselves.'
The global heath body had earlier suspended the hydroxychloroquine arm of the clinical trials of experimental COVID-19 drugs over safety concerns.
The first COVID-19 vaccine shots in India were given on Saturday to nearly two lakh frontline healthcare and sanitary workers as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest inoculation drive against the pandemic that has caused 1,52,093 deaths and upended millions of lives in the country.
The highest number of confirmed cases are from Maharashtra (748), followed by Tamil Nadu at 571 and Delhi with 523 cases. Cases in Telangana have gone up to 321, in Kerala to 314, in Uttar Pradesh to 305, while the number of cases has gone up to 274 in Rajasthan.
'There were any number of Congress leaders who disliked Sonia Gandhi, but they were very close to Ahmed Bhai and he would listen, and give a shoulder to cry upon.'
Nothing is going to dramatically open up on May 3. There will be too many ifs and buts and terms and conditions and guidelines in leading one's life in various zones, reveals Sheela Bhatt.
Similar traffic restrictions in other cities did not see a significant improvement in air quality only because car owners begin making more trips during their unrestricted periods. The other apprehension, as seen in other cities, is that residents have bought secondhand cars, using the other number plate so that they can continue to drive to their work place, thereby defeating the very purpose of this scheme.
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