'Since the Covid virus has a tendency to mutate, we can continue to expect new variants of the virus to emerge and keep circulating and recirculating in the communities.'
If the pandemic persists, at least a portion of the blame should go to greed and nationalism that got in the way of the world acting together, notes Prosenjit Datta.
The World Health Organisation has said it is 'not yet clear' whether the newly-detected coronavirus variant Omicron is more transmissible or causes more severe disease compared to other variants, including the highly-transmissible and globally prevalent Delta variant.
COVAX, 'the global COVID vaccine equity scheme', has so far delivered 65 million doses to 124 countries and economies but it is dependent on countries and manufacturers honouring their commitments.
On when vaccination for children could start as Zydus Cadila's Covid vaccine has been granted emergency use authorisation for those 12-year-old and above, he said children were not being inoculated against COVID-19 on a large scale anywhere in the world though it has been initiated in some countries in a limited manner.
'A tornado... when it lands, it swirls through the body, causing chaos, confusion, coughs, wreaking damage to each organ it touches.'
Chian it was open to international efforts to identify the source of the deadly virus.
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.
A sense of disquiet prevailed in Beijing as officials announced the capital's first death from the deadly virus, a grim reminder that the epidemic has begun to take toll outside Hubei province.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the G North ward of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the civic body had to change its traditional approach of waiting for patients, contact tracing, isolation and home quarantine to begin proactive screening instead.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
A technical advisory group of the UN health agency which met on Tuesday has sought "additional clarifications" from Bharat Biotech for Covaxin to conduct a final "risk-benefit assessment" for Emergency Use Listing of the vaccine.
The green body's report said three of the world's largest nitrogen oxide air pollution emission hotspots that contribute to formation of PM2.5 and ozone are in India with one in the Delhi-NCR.
India had 14 out of the world's 20 most polluted cities, the World Health Organization reveals.
The Omicron variant carries 'concerning' mutations that may make it more transmissible and allow it to evade immunity, scientists said on Monday, stressing that the one certainty in the uncertainty of the many things unknown is this -- COVID is not a short-term crisis and vaccines are still a critical tool.
'Testing is a very good strategy if only symptomatic people are transmitting the disease.' 'Here asymptomatic people, with minimum, trivial symptoms, are transmitting too.' 'Testing, treating, tracing contacts and quarantining them -- yes, it will work up to a certain extent.' 'But more important is physical distancing, hand hygiene, cough etiquette and cocooning, protecting with reverse quarantining the most vulnerable people, senior citizens, people with other major medical problems.' 'To me, that makes much more sense.'
Trump also announced that the US will end special treatment of Hong Kong in response to Chinese imposition of new controls.
Eighty-six deaths were reported in mainland China with 3,399 fresh cases from 31 provincial-level regions, the country's National Health Commission said on Saturday.
The prime minister also visited the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi after the milestone was achieved and interacted with hospital officials.
The move comes a day after China lifted the 76-day lockdown in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated. China's National Health Commission (NHC) on Thursday reported 63 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including 61 imported ones taking the total to 1,104 cases.
The 'terrible' surge of the coronavirus cases in India has severely impacted COVAX's vaccine supply in the second quarter of this year to the extent that there will be a shortfall of 190 million doses by the end of June, according to a joint statement by the WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and CEPI.
A home ministry official said while 9,000 Tablighi Jamaat members and their primary contacts have been quarantined till now across the country due to "massive efforts" to check the outbreak, the Centre has written to all states and union territories that "the lockdown measures should be implemented in letter and spirit".
'Serial testing is much more valuable than a single test which reflects just a point in time.'
We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
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