How should one billion Indians, for whom deprivation has become an inescapable way of life, join us in celebrating 75 years of Independence? And where do we go from here? asks Kalyan Singhal.
Australian authorities scrambled on Sunday to file a legal defence of their decision to bar entry to tennis world number one Novak Djokovic over his COVID-19 vaccination status, as the Serbian superstar spent his fourth day in immigration detention.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with healthcare workers getting inoculated and vaccination of the frontline workers started from February 2.
The arrival of summer in India may have raised hopes that hot and humid weather could slow the COVID-19 progression but virologist Naga Suresh Veerapu believes that outbreak and pandemic occurrences often do not follow seasonality.
Top 21 images of all the events of the week that was.
An outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness that started in the city of Wuhan in China has put health authorities on high alert around the world. The new coronavirus-named 2019-nCoV-is thought to have originated in the food market of the central China metropolis and has since infected more than 4,000 people worldwide.
'We know that there are new variants which are more transmissible. We know that human behaviour determines the spread of this virus. Therefore, it is not very relevant if we declare whether the second wave is over or not'
Soon after Trump revealed to the world that he has been taking the medicine, the White House doctor said the president is in good health.
The spike in coronavirus deaths came on the same day the number of people hospitalised broke the 100,000-mark, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
What is particularly worrying is that the vast majority will not have access to testing or even to proper treatment. These cases could have been avoided if the government had shown the political will to do so, observes Rashme Sehgal.
The Pune-based company's chief executive Adar Poonawalla said the company, which is the largest vaccine maker in the world, is putting $200 million at risk by manufacturing nearly 300 million doses before the final nod to launch the vaccine in market, which is expected at best by the end of the year.
In an address at a leading think-tank in Paris, Shringla mentioned two recent terrorist incidents in France, one of which he said had its origins in Pakistan, noting that the civilised world needs to act with firmness to address the threat of terrorism.
'There is indeed a link between BCG vaccination and resistance to COVID-19.'
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.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan said on Tuesday Brazil is doing a good job tackling the Zika virus and ensuring that the Olympic games it will host in August will be safe for athletes and visitors. Chan said Brazil's government is doing all it can to mobilize Brazilian society in fighting the "formidable" Aedes mosquito that transmits the virus that has spread rapidly through the Americas since last year. "I want to reassure you that the government is working very closely with the international Olympic movement, with the local organizing committee, supported by the WHO, to make sure we have a very good work plan to target the mosquito, and to make sure that people who will come here either as visitors or athletes will get the maximum protection they need," Chan said. "I am confident the government can do it," she told reporters after meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
Family members of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) secretary Snehashish Ganguly tested positive for COVID-19, the state health department said in Kolkata on Friday. The wife of Snehasish, the elder brother of BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, was found positive for the disease.
'The world and India likely won't have a vaccine that is widely administered till the end of 2021.' 'In the meantime, clear communication would help,' observes Rahul Jacob.
A total of 42,640 Covid infections were reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 3,89,302 with 1,167 daily fatalities, the lowest in 68 days.
The Biden team updated its website to showcase four policy areas the incoming administration will prioritise: COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change.
The approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) was given on the basis of recommendations submitted by a COVID-19 subject expert committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
FIFA ended more than four years of uncertainty over the timing of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by announcing on Thursday that it would be played in November and December with the final on December 18.
The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
'We are not yet out of the woods.' 'If India sees the South African or Brazilian type of mutations, our numbers will rapidly rise.'
Doughty frontline workers say this is what they signed up for and that is what they do.
Some vaccine frontrunners are in advanced stages of trial and could hit the market by early next year, making the task of securing "last mile connectivity" and ensuring that nothing goes wrong before the shot is administered more urgent.
... 'Or any country which has reasonable vaccine coverage.' 'The emergence of Omicron clearly proves that if we allow a virus to circulate in an unvaccinated population, it would take a form which could be a Variant of Concern, or a new variant.'
The leadership needs to put all other government business aside, control the pandemic and save human lives. Searchlights are going to be held by the world community in the weeks and months ahead as the fatality rates start shooting up and Indians die like flies, warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The protection gained after being fully vaccinated with both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines against Covid-19 wanes over time, a new UK study reported on Wednesday.
The Reproduction number or Rt refers to how many people an infected person infects on average. In other words, it can tell how efficiently a virus is spreading.
'We keep worrying about this variant or that variant. Forget about that.' 'Every variant can be stopped with a mask.' 'We don't want to do the simple thing of wearing a mask, but we worry ourselves to death about different variants.'
Images that capture what it was like living through 2021.
'The international community should call upon Pakistan to take sustained, verifiable and irreversible actions against terror outfits operating on the territory under its control'
The year 2020 could see the worst global economic fallout since the Great Depression in the 1930s, with over 170 countries likely to experience negative per capita income growth due to the raging coronavirus pandemic, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday. Georgieva made the remarks during her address on 'Confronting the Crisis: Priorities for the Global Economy' in Washington, DC, ahead of next week's annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Amid rising coronavirus cases in India, the government has asked people not to panic, saying no community transmission of the virus has been observed and there has only been a few cases of local transmission so far and that it is "not a health emergency" in India at present.
By Thursday, 830 confirmed cases of pneumonia, caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), had been reported in 29 provincial-level regions in the country.
'Serial testing is much more valuable than a single test which reflects just a point in time.'
'Antiviral treatment will have no change. Spike protein change may affect the immunity protection.'
'...If people follow the lockdown well.'
An analysis of WHO data shows that most of the countries with an older cohort of population and higher in the development index had a lower excess mortality rate than India.
'What if Kim is alive as the latest reappearance suggests, but unable to rule?' 'Will his sister be installed as the leader to continue with the Kims's hereditary dynasty that began with the present ruler's grandfather?' asks Dr Rajaram Panda.
