Category:

Disaster & Management

Beijing says residents can go mask-free as China COVID cases hit new lows

Beijing’s municipal Centers for Disease Control first said residents could go without masks in outdoor areas in late April, though the rules were swiftly reversed in June after a new outbreak in a large wholesale market in the city’s south.
Experts say the key to the country’s success in controlling the disease has been the strict enforcement of local rules, including wearing masks, mandatory home quarantine and participating in mass testing.

read more

Russia vaccine roll-out plan prompts virus mutation worries

Sputnik-V’s developers, as well as financial backers and Russian authorities, say the vaccine is safe and that two months of small-scale human trials have shown that it works.

But the results of those trials have not been made public, and many Western scientists are sceptical, warning against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory hurdles have been passed.

read more

Covid hit 20% of meat workers in No. 1 chicken exporter Brazil

Employees in the meat industry have been deemed essential globally as companies try to keep up with protein demand. But the workers face conditions ripe for the spread of disease, and outbreaks have emerged from South America to Europe and Australia. Brazil is the world’s biggest exporter of poultry and beef and a key supplier of pork.

read more

14 hospitalised after ammonia gas leak in Andhra Pradesh

“We got the information that Ammonia gas was leaked at Hatson company milk process unit near Putalapattu at around 5 PM. 14 labourers who were working in that shift are brought to the hospital here in Chittoor. Among them, 3 people are serious and probably will be shifted to SVIMS or Ruia hospital in Tirupati,” Dr Narayan Bharat Gupta, Chittoor District Collector said.

“All are stable. All of them are women. It is to yet be ascertained whether this incident is a result of the negligence of management or the negligence of the workers. Industries department General Manager and fire department officials will review the ground-level situation on Friday,” he said.

read more

World Health Organization’s struggle for a global COVID-19 vaccine plan

The WHO has expressed concern that wealthier countries hoarding vaccines for their own citizens could impede efforts to end the pandemic.

“We need to prevent vaccine nationalism,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a Tuesday virtual briefing. “Sharing finite supplies strategically and globally is actually in each country’s national interest.”

read more

Aon launches its virtual reinsurance renewal season

Andy Marcell, CEO of Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions business, said: “In an uncertain global economy, one thing is clear – reinsurance has never been more important as a strategic tool for client success. We are committed to collaborating with insurers and markets towards the 1st January renewals to help clients protect people and assets, strengthen their balance sheets and make better business decisions that reduce volatility.”

read more

On Facebook, health-misinformation ‘superspreaders’ rack up billions of views: report

Facebook’s algorithm is a major threat to public health. Mark Zuckerberg promised to provide reliable information during the pandemic, but his algorithm is sabotaging those efforts by driving many of Facebook’s 2.7 billion users to health misinformation-spreading networks,” said Fadi Quran, campaign director at Avaaz.

read more

India’s COVID-19 tally crosses 27-lakh mark,death toll climbes to 51,797

the death toll climbed to 51,797 with 876 people succumbing to the disease in a span of 24 hours
There are 6,73,166 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which is 24.91 per cent of the total caseload, while the number of recoveries has risen to 19,77,779.
Of the 876 fresh deaths reported, 228 are from Maharashtra, 120 from Tamil Nadu, 115 from Karnataka, 82 from Andhra Pradesh, 66 from Uttar Pradesh, 45 from West Bengal, 51 from Punjab, 23 from Madhya Pradesh, 18 from Delhi, 15 from Gujarat, 13 from Kerala, 12 from Haryana, 11 from Rajasthan and 10 from Odisha

read more