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Eco/Invest/Demography

By July or early August, will have enough COVID-19 vaccine to inoculate 1 cr people a day: Centre

“Mixing of vaccine is not the protocol yet, same vaccines (Covishield and Covaxin) are to be administered for both doses. Stick to the SOP. There’s international research underway on the mixing of vaccines as the possibility of a positive effect is also plausible but a harmful reaction cannot be ruled out either. It is an unresolved scientific question, science will settle it,” said NITI Aayog’s V K Paul at the press briefing.

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Women in India had irregular gap in menstrual cycle during COVID-19: Study

Among other aspects of menstrual hygiene, this year’s survey specifically aimed to gauge the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown in India on periods in women. The survey revealed that more than 41 per cent of women experienced an unusually irregular gap in their periods.

This is startling because only 13.7 per cent of women who participated in the survey said they were infected with COVID-19. As many as 64.5 per cent of women said that the current COVID times had impacted their stress and anxiety levels, which could be a possible reason for irregularity in the gap between two menstrual periods in so many women.

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There needs to be one price for COVID-19 vaccines across the nation,” Supreme Court questions Central govt on dual policy

“Centre says it gets vaccines at low pricing since it buys in bulk, if this is the rationale then why do states have the higher price? There needs to be one price for the vaccines across the nation. Pandemic has evolved in last two months,” the Court said.
“In this case, if the purpose is to procure vaccines then why should the centre confine itself to only post 45 age people and leave pre 45 age entirely to state for arranging logistics. How do we look at the marginalised and economically weaker ones?” asked the Apex Court.

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UK in early stages of 3rd wave of coronavirus, warns Indian-origin scientist

Professor Ravi Gupta of the University of Cambridge, who is a member of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said although new cases were “relatively low” the B.1.617 variant of the COVID-19 had fuelled “exponential growth”, the BBC reported.

On Sunday, the UK reported more than 3,000 new COVID infections for a fifth day in a row. Prior to this, the UK had not surpassed that number since April 12.

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Biden budget sets aside $750 mln for SolarWinds response

The money comes on top of a $500 million fund for federal cybersecurity as the U.S. government recovers from the cyber attack that hit nine agencies including the State Department and Treasury.
The hack of information technology company SolarWinds, which was identified in December, gave access to thousands of companies and government offices that used its products. Microsoft President Brad Smith described the attack as “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen”.

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India’s active COVID caseload below 20-lakh mark, 1,27,510 new cases reported

India recorded nearly 90.3 lakh Covid cases in May, by far the highest monthly count reported in any country so far. Although infections steadily declined through the second half of the month, the numbers overall were so high that the case count in May was 30% higher than the previous record of 69.4 lakh, also reported in India in the month of April.

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Drones for Health

“When a woman has lost a lot of blood during childbirth and may need to be transferred to a bigger medical facility, she first needs to be stabilized where she is before being driven out of that place. The timely delivery of blood can be lifesaving. A drone can be sent to deliver the blood so that the patient is stabilized,” says Lorato Mokganya, Chief Health Officer in the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

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