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WHO decries ‘vast global gap’ in funds needed to fight coronavirus

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO was only “10% of the way” to funding the billions of dollars required.

“For the vaccines alone, over $100 billion will be needed,” Tedros said. This sounds like lot of money and it is.

“But it’s small in comparison to the $10 trillion that have already been invested by G20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far.”

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10 states account for 80% Covid-19 cases:PM Modi,

“Our experience so far is that containment, contact tracing and surveillance are the most effective weapons against the pandemic with experts of the view that if positive cases are identified within 72 hours of onset, then infection slows down to great extent,” prime minister Narendra Modi said.

Modi said it was a matter of satisfaction that the average fatality rate in India has been going down and noted that it has been very low compared to the world average.
With the fresh cases, India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 22.68 lakh, while the recoveries have surged to 15,83,489, pushing the recovery rate to 69.80 per cent.

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Scientists develop low-cost way to test mask against viral droplets

According to the researchers from Duke University in the US, the preliminary, proof-of-principle findings suggest that professional-grade N95 masks, surgical or polypropylene masks, and handmade cotton masks may all block much of the droplet-spray produced when wearers speak.

However, they said bandanas and neck fleeces likely provide little protection, as the scientists observed that more droplets are expelled through these materials.

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Why the Coronavirus Is More Likely to ‘Superspread’ Than the Flu

“There’s this small percentage of people who appear to infect a lot of people,” said Dr. Joshua Schiffer, a physician and mathematical modeling expert who studies infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Estimates vary from population to population, but they consistently show a striking skew: Between 10 and 20 percent of coronavirus cases may seed 80 percent of new infections. Other respiratory diseases, like the flu, are far more egalitarian in their spread.

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Covid’s spreading fast because billions don’t have water to wash

Underprivileged people in cities are particularly vulnerable as they often live in densely populated areas where social distancing is hard, especially if they have to share a water source. Transmission in the Americas has been tougher to contain in poor urban areas that have limited access to water, sanitation and public health services, said Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization.

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