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Nurses, female health care workers most at risk of distress during COVID-19 pandemic: Research

“By analysing data from previous infectious disease outbreaks such as SARS, bird flu and swine flu, it appears that distress for health care workers can persist for up to three years after the initial outbreak.

“As the world continues to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic it is so important that we identify the health care workers who are most at risk for distress and the factors that can be modified to reduce distress and improve resilience,” Dr Fuschia Sirois, Reader in Social and Health Psychology in the university and lead author of the study said.

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Oxford kept Covid-19 vaccine trial volunteers in dark about dosing error, letter shows

Questions surrounding the clinical trials continue to plague the vaccine. Last week, Germany’s vaccine committee recommended it should only be given to people aged under 65, while the EU, which authorized it on Friday for people aged 18 and over, lowered its reported efficacy rate from 70.4% to 60%. In both cases, authorities cited a lack of sufficient data from the clinical trials.

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Why India’s coronavirus cases have fallen so sharply

Experts say the number of people in India who have contracted the disease is probably much higher than the official figure. They are backed by various state and national surveys measuring antibodies for the virus.

An official national survey in December-January of urban and rural neighbourhoods as well as healthcare workers suggested that some 21.5 percent — almost 280 million people — carried antibodies.

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22 countries have requested India for supply of Covid-19 vaccines: Health minister

“We have received requests for vaccine supply from 22 nations so far. Out of these, supply has already been made to 15 nations as grant assistance as well as contract doses. As of February 2, a total of 56 lakh doses has been given as grant assistance and 105 lakh as contracts doses,” the minister said.

80 countries including India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan on Thursday criticised the European Union for its recent decision of introducing export controls on Covid-19 vaccines.

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China to launch public platform to track, crack down on polluters

Polluting enterprises are obliged to install monitoring equipment and keep at least five years of data, with fines of 200,000 yuan ($31,000) for those that fail to do so. Fines of 1 million yuan can be imposed on firms that pollute without permission.
According to the environment ministry, the new information platform will allow authorities and members of the public to monitor real-time emission levels and check historical data in order to determine whether rules are being breached. It is set to come into effect on March 1.

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Over 90k samples archived so far in 17 national COVID-19 bio-repositories: Govt

Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said these samples are being used to develop validated diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19 prevention, control and treatment. Additionally, the samples are a valuable resource for research and development related activities to understand the early predictors of disease severity, immunopathogenesis of the disease.

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