The B.1.617 variant was first detected in India and was divided in three lineages -- B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2 and B.1.617.3.
Five to 10 per cent of the active Covid cases this time so far needed hospitalisation but the situation is dynamic and may change rapidly, the Centre said on Monday and asked states to keep a watch on cases under home isolation and in hospitals.
A one-day complete lockdown to tackle the rapidly rising COVID-19 cases was enforced across Tamil Nadu on Sunday while police, local and health authorities stepped up measures to check violations.
The pandemic will be over but Covid will be here to stay, the scientists said as Covid numbers begin to ebb in several parts of the world, including India.
During the heavy rains through the week here and other regions of Tamil Nadu not only inflatable boats, but preparedness, determination and presence of mind came in handy for personnel including policemen and women, civic and forest workers who rescued people, animals and snakes.
It was supposed to be a happy journey to London, one that the Imam family had been planning for the past two months. Everything was set - except the visa, which did not arrive in time for one of its members. "Visa was the villain...As a consequence, half of the family of four will be in London today and the other half at home in India and the US, respectively," Sanjar Imam, director of travel firm Panache World, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.
The reduced severity of Omicron is good news for now, but it is the result of an "evolutionary mistake" as Covid-19 is transmitting very efficiently and there is no reason for it to become milder, indicating that the next variant could be more virulent, a leading Indian-origin scientist from the University of Cambridge has warned.
There is a process to be followed for EUL and pre-qualification of vaccines under which a company has to complete phase 3 trials and submit the whole data to the regulatory department of WHO which is examined by an expert advisory group," Swaminathan said.
More than 200 million Pfizer doses have been administered in the US, and hundreds of millions more worldwide, since December.
The Olympics will take place without spectators in host city Tokyo, organisers said on Thursday, as a resurgent coronavirus forced Japan to declare a state of emergency in the capital that will run throughout the event.
Diesel price on Friday was hiked by 20 paise per litre - the first increase in rates in over two months - as international oil prices neared their highest since 2018. Price of diesel was hiked to Rs 88.82 per litre in Delhi and to Rs 96.41 in Mumbai, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers. Petrol price was not changed. It costs Rs 101.19 a litre in Delhi and Rs 107.26 in Mumbai.
The Omicron variant of Covid-19 adds new uncertainties to the global economic outlook but much will depend on its speed of transmission, hospitalisation and death rates, and also the effectiveness of vaccines, Moody's Analytics said on Monday. In its commentary titled 'Much to Learn About Omicronast', Moody's Analytics said although the variant appears to spread "remarkably quickly", it will be at least two more weeks before more will be known about this new variant. "The Omicron variant of COVID-19 adds new measures of uncertainty to the outlook for the global economy, although it is too soon to adequately quantify that risk.
A technical advisory group of the World Health Organisation was on Tuesday reviewing data on Covaxin for the emergency use listing of India's indigenously-made vaccine and it could pronounce its decision within the next 24 hours or so, a spokesperson said.
Macroeconomic management is usually a lot more comfortable with lower fiscal deficits. The sooner we get there, the better for the economy, says former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Shankar Acharya.
Maharashtra minister Varsha Gaikwad on Thursday said that schools for Classes 1 to 9 in the state can be reopened for offline classroom sessions from January 24.
'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.'
'The kids' happiness with the resemblance between me and Messi is indescribable. When you make someone happy, God rewards you. I wanted to share this happiness with them'.
Beijing's health officials on Monday announced 29 fresh cases taking the total cases to 70 in the city.
'If deaths had been properly reported, it would have helped contain the pandemic.'
There is widening gap between what the government's premier retirement fund makes on its investments and what it offers to employees. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) makes the bulk of its investments in government-related securities. In other words, it lends to central and state governments and related entities. The interest it gets from these instruments is largely what it uses to pay interest to its subscribers.
The Delhi government-run LNJP Hospital, the mainstay of the city's fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, now has "zero patient" admitted at the facility, the first time since March 2020, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday.
Politics, bureaucracy, ineptitude, double-standards and an attempt to politicise the fight in pseudo-nationalistic terms have all hampered the fight against this deadly virus, says Vir Sanghvi.
Voluntary use of masks must be promoted in the country in view of Covid-19's new XE variant, healthcare experts said, calling it the single-most effective intervention against all variants of the coronavirus.
The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India may peak by February 3, 2022, claims a modelling study by researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
The Uttarakhand high court on Monday stayed the Chardham Yatra reversing a cabinet decision to open it partially for residents of three districts from July 1.
2.75 million of the 3 million Covid-related health claims were settled.
Two doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines generate lower levels of antibodies against the Omicron variant of coronavirus, according to a study which suggests that those previously infected or vaccinated may be at an increased risk of infection.
There are around 7.5 million people aged 30 to 39, and 3.5 million of those are eligible for boosters from Monday, NHS England said.
Marisa Fotieo, a teacher from Michigan, said her throat began to hurt halfway through the trip on December 19 so she went to the bathroom to perform a rapid Covid test which confirmed she was infected, WABC-TV reported.
It was a repeat of scenes witnessed last month as motorists struggled to manoeuvre their vehicles on flooded roads and subways while showers led to traffic congestion in Chennai and suburbs.
Pfizer's chief executive Dr Albert Bourla told the BBC that he is of the view that annual vaccinations would be needed to maintain a "very high level of protection" against the deadly disease that has claimed over five million lives across the world.
'During the course of these two years, as new people have joined, we have no mental picture to associate with them and hence, have little connection with them.'
According to the police, the doors of the markaz were opened at around 12.30 pm.
'An individual who maybe has had two vaccines, or has had two vaccines, and a booster, is going to be pretty well protected.'
The technical advisory group will now meet on November 3 for a final assessment.
A surge in international oil prices may translate into an increase in the retail selling price of petrol and diesel in India as oil companies face extreme margin squeeze, sources said. Petrol and diesel prices have remained unchanged for 12 days but now the international rate surge is exerting pressure. Current prices of petrol and diesel in the international market are higher by around $4-6 per barrel as compared to average prices during August. However, no increase in retail prices has been affected by oil companies so far, sources said.
Swiss brokerage Credit Suisse expects the economy to continue to show positive surprises and record up to 9 per cent growth in the next fiscal. For the current financial year too, the brokerage anticipates growth to be higher than the consensus forecast of 8.4-9.5 per cent, and printing in at around 10.5 per cent. As a policy, Credit Suisse does not provide absolute growth numbers in its forecast.
While some experts believe that a large part of India is still vulnerable to the virus that could trigger a third wave, others feel the country is not likely to be engulfed by another deadly wave unless a new variant emerges.
As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centrestage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which monitors data related to the pandemic, said the sub-lineage known as BA.2 shows a low number of cases in the country, with the original Omicron lineage BA.1 still dominant.
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