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Difficult to predict if India will witness second wave of Covid-19:ICMR DG

“SARS-CoV-2 is a novel virus. There is still a lot we don’t know about it. We have also seen immense variations in the spread of infection and mortality rates in different geographies and across different demographics around the world. So, it is difficult to predict whether or not India will see a second wave of infections. There is also a wide variation in disease distribution in specific states – so one size cannot fit all,” ICMR chief Dr Balram Bhargava said.

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Anxious WHO implores world to ‘do it all’ in long war on COVID-19

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO emergencies head Mike Ryan exhorted nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and testing.
“There are concerns that we may not have a vaccine that may work, or its protection could be for just a few months, not more. But until we finish the clinical trials, we will not know,” he said

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COVID-19 long-term toll signals billions in healthcare costs ahead

Bruce Lee of the City University of New York (CUNY) Public School of Health estimated that if 20% of the U.S. population contracts the virus, the one-year post-hospitalization costs would be at least $50 billion, before factoring in longer-term care for lingering health problems. Without a vaccine, if 80% of the population became infected, that cost would balloon to $204 billion.

Some countries hit hard by the new coronavirus – including the United States, Britain and Italy – are considering whether these long-term effects can be considered a “post-COVID syndrome,” according to Reuters interviews with about a dozen doctors and health economists.

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AstraZeneca to be exempt from coronavirus vaccine liability claims in most countries

With 25 companies testing their vaccine candidates on humans and getting ready to immunize hundred millions of people once the products are shown to work, the question of who pays for any claims for damages in case of side effects has been a tricky point in supply negotiations.“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects,” Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra’s senior executive team, told Reuters.

“In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest,” he said, adding that Astra and regulators were making safety and tolerability a top priority.

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Australia’s Victoria declares disaster, sets curfew to curb COVID-19

“The current rules have avoided thousands and thousands of cases each day, and then thousands of people in hospital and many more tragedies than we have seen. But it is not working fast enough,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told a televised briefing.

A curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. every day will be implemented from Sunday evening in Melbourne, barring the nearly five million people in the city from leaving their houses except for work or to receive or give care.

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Siemens Healthineers expands into cancer care with $16.4 billion deal for Varian

Through the deal to buy Varian, Healthineers, a part of Siemens, acquires the leader in radiation therapy with a market share of over 50%.

Healthineers highlighted a long-term rise in the incidence of cancer – from 14 million cases worldwide in 2010 to a forecast 25 million in 2030.

That translates into an addressable market of $20 billion that is forecast to grow at an annual rate of between 6% and 10%, the company said in a presentation on the deal.

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