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After dropping below one, Covid R-value rises sharply to 1.17 in second half of August

When the second wave swept through the country between March to May, the R-value was 1.37 (between March 9 to April 21). From May 15-June 26, the R-value stood at 0.78. However, it slowly started increasing — it was 0.88 from June 20-July 7, 0.95 from July 3-22, 0.96 from July 24-27. It breached the value of 1.03 for the first time after the second wave during July 27-31. However, since then it has slowly started to decline.

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India records 47,092 new COVID-19 cases, biggest daily rise in 2 months

“With cases rising in Kerala, adequate steps should be taken to contain the inter-state spread of COVID-19,” Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a statement after speaking with his state counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which border Kerala.

He asked them to increase vaccination in the districts close to Kerala. India has so far administered 662 million doses, with at least one dose in 54% of its 944 million adults and the required two doses in 16%.

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German companies not allowed to check on employees’ vaccine status

But Germany has strict data privacy laws because of its history of Nazi and Communist state surveillance of citizens, meaning that companies have no right to find out about health issues relating to their staff.

German businesses have been pushing to be able to ask staff about vaccination and the government is trying to get more people to get the shots as infections rise again. Almost 61% of the population has had both shots and 65% at least one.

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Health Ministry partners with Google to enhance people’s access to COVID-19 vaccine

Starting this week, for over 13,000 locations across the country, people will be able to get more helpful information about vaccine availability and appointments — powered by real-time data from the CoWIN APIs (application programming interfaces). This includes information such as availability of appointment slots at each center, vaccines and doses offered (dose 1 or dose 2), expectations for pricing (paid or free) and the link to the CoWIN website for booking.

The above information will automatically show up when users search for vaccine centres near them, or in any specific area – across Google Search, Maps and Google Assistant.

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Number of people with dementia set to jump 40% to 78 mln by 2030 -WHO

Only one in four countries has a national policy in place to support dementia patients and their families, it said, urging governments to step up to the public health challenge.

“Dementia robs millions of people of their memories, independence and dignity, but it also robs the rest of us of the people we know and love,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.

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