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U.S. automakers to say they aspire to up to 50% of EV sales by 2030 -sources

Automakers are spending tens of billions of dollars to speed EV adoption, even though U.S. EV sales outside Tesla Inc’s remain small. Consulting firm AlixPartners in June said investments in electric vehicles by 2025 could total $330 billion, a 41% increase from the firm’s comparable five-year investment outlook a year ago. As of now, electric vehicles represent about 2% of total global vehicle sales, and will be about 24% of total sales by 2030, the firm forecast.

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What is a breakthrough infection? Here’s a guide to what you need to know

No vaccine is 100 per cent effective. Dr Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was 80 per cent-90 per cent effective in preventing paralytic disease. Even for the gold standard measles vaccine, the efficacy was 94 per cent among a highly vaccinated population during large outbreaks. Comparably, clinical trials found the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were 94 per cent 95 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 much more protective than initially hoped.

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Willis Towers mulls sale of reinsurance unit after halting merger

Reports this week suggested Gallagher was close to clinching a deal for Willis Re, but Willis Towers Watson Chief Executive Officer John Haley said he is considering wider possibilities.

“We’re conducting a review of strategic alternatives for Willis Re,” Haley told a conference call on Tuesday reporting on second-quarter results. While the timing was “appropriate” given the failed merger, he warned that a sale was not assured.

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COVID-19: Mumbai gets its first genome sequencing lab

Another project- Spinraza therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in children was also launched at the T. N. Medical College & BYL Nair Charitable Hospital, one of the premier medical institutes in the city as part of its centenary celebrations.
Spinraza Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) encompasses a group of inherited progressive, degenerative neuro-muscular disorders, in which children die at a young age due to respiratory failure or they are wheelchair-bound for a lifetime, the statement said.

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WHO calls for moratorium on booster COVID-19 vaccine shots until end of Sep

A small group of nations, including some in Europe, are planning additional shots for the fully inoculated even as the COVID-19 continues to infect and kill at alarming rates across the Global South, where vaccination levels remain “catastrophically low,” The Washington Post reported.

The report stated that the decision by wealthy countries to give booster shots to their own people rather than donating those doses to poorer countries is controversial. Health experts have called this move immoral.

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Study finds air pollution associated with higher risk of dementia

“We found that an increase of 1 microgram per cubic meter of exposure corresponded to a 16 per cent greater hazard of all-cause dementia. There was a similar association for Alzheimer’s-type dementia,” said lead author Rachel Shaffer, who conducted the research as a doctoral student in the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences.

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COVID-19 herd immunity: It’s not going to happen, so what next?

The evolution of the virus has been so rapid that the Delta variant, which is currently dominating the world, is at least twice as transmissible as the ancestral virus that was circulating.

What this means is that herd immunity is no longer a discussion the world should be having. We should start to avoid using that term in the context of SARS-CoV-2, because it’s not going to materialise – or is unlikely to materialise – during our lifetimes.

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