Physical distancing of two metres - about six and a half feet - may not be enough to sufficiently prevent transmission of virus-carrying airborne aerosols indoors, says a study.
A DDMA meeting, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, also discussed ways to strictly enforce existing restrictions to check the rising cases of the coronavirus and its Omicron variant.
'Between its natural immunity with Delta, in so many populations, and then getting on top of the vaccination (situation), I do not think India is going to have another bad wave.'
The Delta variant of COVID-19, or the B1.617.2 variant of concern (VOC) first identified in India, is about 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha strain identified in the United Kingdom and also reduces the effectiveness of vaccines to some extent, UK health experts report.
The order was issued a day after Shehbaz held a telephonic conversation with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and among other issues also discussed the issue of security of Chinese in Pakistan.
The tragic incident occurred on Wednesday when the Appar temple's chariot procession was passing through the Thanjavur-Boodalur Road.
Adani Wilmar (AWL) joined the elite group of companies with market capitalisation (m-cap) of Rs 1 trillion after the stock of Gautam Adani-led edible oil company hit a new high of Rs 802.80, up 5 per cent on the BSE in Tuesday's trade.
"This virus just may become another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away. HIV has not gone away," Dr Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies programme, said.
In the wake of Omicron cases being detected in a few places in the country, the Union health ministry on Wednesday wrote to states and union territories, stating that patients of the new coronavirus variant have to be treated in designated COVID facilities with separate isolation area.
The Serum Institute of India is the first Indian company to seek approval for the COVID-19 booster dose.
Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Wednesday attributed the mushrooming of COVID-19 clusters in the state and spike in cases in the city to students coming from other states, particularly North.
The Centre has increased the premium rates for its flagship insurance schemes, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), for the first time in seven years due to "long-standing adverse claims experience", and to make them economically viable. The premium for PMJJBY would increase from Rs 330 to Rs 436 a year effective June 1, and the PMSBY premium would rise from Rs 12 to Rs 20, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement. PMJJBY provides life insurance cover worth Rs 2 lakh to all account holders aged 18-50 years.
GAIL (India) Ltd has pre-poned the supply of gas from the US and is looking to contract more LNG next year as it doubles down efforts to secure affordable energy supplies to meet the needs of Asia's third-largest economy, chairman Manoj Jain said. India's No.1 gas transporting and marketing firm has long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts from the US to Australia and with Russia, supplementing domestic gas supplies. "In 3Q (October-December 2021) we preponed a couple of cargoes (LNG shiploads) from supplies that we were to receive next year and we did it again in the current quarter," Jain told PTI. This is because US LNG costs one-third of the price of gas available in the spot or current market.
I do think a younger population structure is an advantage against this virus, but there are other important factors such as the capacity of the healthcare system," says Dr Jennifer Dowd, associate professor of demography and population health, University of Oxford.
According to sources, so far only one traveller from Canada having symptoms of monkeypox infection had been isolated.
Experts in Singapore, which is seeing a surge in Omicron cases, have warned that the new and supposedly more contagious variant is likely to replace Delta over the coming weeks as the dominant global variant, with the virus being fitter and having a reproductive advantage.
'Vaccination is the only safe way to get immunity.'
The age cap for the booster shot came at a time when another highly transmissible XE variant of the coronavirus is being reported.
'Monkeypox is a rare but potentially serious viral illness that typically begins with flu-like illness and swelling of the lymph nodes and progresses to a rash on the face and body'
'In the likelihood that Omicron is circulating, you have a much greater chance of getting infected now, than you did during the Age of Delta.'
'Most vaccines do target the Spike protein, in which there are changes in the variants but vaccines stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies'
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have pulled out Rs 17,696 crore from the Indian markets in December so far amid uncertainty due to a new coronavirus strain, Omicron, and expectations of faster tapering by the US Federal Reserve. According to the depositories data, FPIs took out Rs 13,470 crore from equities, Rs 4,066 crore from the debt segment and Rs 160 crore from hybrid instruments between December 1-17. In November, FPIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 2,521 crore in Indian markets.
In the QKD technology, encryption keys are sent as qubits in a fibre optic cable. Quantum computing uses qubits as basic resources, similar to how bits are used as basic resources in classical computing.
A new user-friendly app to control the beast. Automatic transmission with petrol engine. Electronic sunroof. Plus, of course, the safety elements. Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com on what makes the new XUV300 special.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted protection from arrest to businessman Raj Kundra in connection with an FIR registered against him for allegedly distributing pornographic videos.
Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur said the Board of Control for Cricket in India should consult the government before sending the cricket team to South Africa, where a new COVID-19 variant is causing havoc.
Like the UK variant identified earlier, the new variant of the novel coronavirus is also driving a massive resurgence of the disease in South Africa, with experts warning the country is probably facing a much larger second wave.
Mahatransco (Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited - MSETCL) Chairman and Managing Director Dinesh Waghmare said Tata Power's plants took time to start generating electricity following the grid collapse on Monday morning, resulting in the specially created 'islanding' system not working.
The latest variant is the most heavily mutated version discovered so far.
Delhi's R-value, which indicates the spread of COVID-19, was recorded at 2.1 this week, implying that every infected person is infecting two others in the national capital, according to an analysis by IIT-Madras.
The patients were being administered paracetamol, and not Remdesivir drug, which was used for patients in the first and second COVID-19 waves, they said.
In its weekly bulletin of December 27, released on Monday, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said global outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 are increasingly shifting from Delta to Omicron.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday confirmed the UK's first death from the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the first known fatality from the highly transmissible variant of Covid-19 in the world.
Supreme Court judge Justice D Y Chandrachud has termed the delay in communicating bail orders to prison authorities as a "very serious deficiency" and stressed the need to address it on a "war footing" as it touches the "human liberty" of every undertrial prisoner.
Coronaviruses, like other RNA viruses, can develop mutations in three different ways: by mistake from copying errors during viral replication, through interactions with other viruses infecting the same cell, or they can be induced by RNA modification systems which are part of host immunity, the researchers explained.
A senior citizen was mistaken for dead at an elderly care centre in Shanghai and sent to a morgue where he was found alive, prompting authorities to launch an investigation into the shocking incident that triggered a new wave of anguish in the locked down city.
The Delhi government has called a meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority to discuss steps that need to be taken in view of threat of a new Covid-19 variant from African countries, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday.
The yet-to-be peer-reviewed study, posted recently on the preprint repository BioRxiv, found that the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants exhibited more than two-fold longer survival on plastic and skin surfaces, than the Wuhan strain.
The World Health Organisation has issued warning against XE, a new variant of Omicron first detected in the UK.
At the same, it said the latest figures do not establish a clear trend and in no way the government is relaxed about anything at this point.
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