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Eco/Invest/Demography

3rd wave will be ‘ripple’ in absence of faster spreading mutant: IIT study

“The optimistic one – where we assume that life goes back to normal by August, and there is no new mutant. Second the intermediate one – where we assume that vaccination is 20 per cent less effective in addition to optimistic scenario assumptions. Third pessimistic one – This has an assumption different from the intermediate one: a new 25 per cent more infectious mutant spreads in August,” he added.

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Guidelines issued for administering Covid vaccine to pregnant women

Symptomatic pregnant women appear to be at an increased risk of severe disease and death. In case of severe disease, like all other patients, pregnant women shall also need hospitalisation. Pregnant women with underlying medical conditions like high blood pressure, obesity, age over 35 years are at a higher risk of severe illness due to COVID-19, the fact sheet said.

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6 fully vaccinated people have died from COVID-19 in one of the world’s most-vaccinated countries

Out of six, five had taken Covishield, a version of the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine made in India, and one had been given Sinopharm, Jude Gedeon, the island nation’s public health commissioner said at a press conference on Thursday. Covishield has mainly been reserved for people over 60 in the Seychelles. All of those who died had serious underlying conditions, he said.

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A massive ransomware attack has hit more than 1,000 companies

The impact of the attack is only beginning to come to light. In Sweden, a majority of grocery chain Coop’s more than 800 stores couldn’t open on Saturday after the attack led to a malfunction of their cash registers, spokesperson Therese Knapp told Bloomberg News.

There are victims in 11 countries so far, according to research published by cybersecurity firm ESET.

The hackers were identified as the Russia-linked ransomware group REvil, which was accused last month of hacking giant meatpacker JBS SA.

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Billions risk being without access to water and sanitation services by 2030

It notes that still only 81 per cent of the world’s population would have access to safe drinking water at home, leaving 1.6 billion without; just 67 per cent would have safe sanitation services, leaving 2.8 billion in the lurch; and only 78 per cent would have basic handwashing facilities, leaving 1.9 billion adrift.

For the first time, the report also presented emerging national data on menstrual health.

In many countries, it showed a significant proportion of women and girls are unable to meet their menstrual health needs.

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Study indicates association of cloud bursts with forest fires

The study led by Alok Sagar Gautam from HNB Garhwal University and co-authored by S N Tripathi from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and Abhishek Joshi, Karan Singh, Sanjeev Kumar, R C Ramola from HNB Garhwal University can help improve the understanding of the complex mechanism of cloud burst, weather prediction and climate change condition over this region of Himalayas, the DST said.

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