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Non-Life

Cyclone Yass: Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Balasore to be worst hit, says IMD

“We are expecting that the well-marked low-pressure area over the east-central Bay of Bengal will concentrate into a depression during next 12 hours and by tomorrow (May 24), it is going to be a cyclonic storm and will continue to move in the north north-westward direction and on May 26 it will reach Odisha, West Bengal, and Bangladesh coast,” Umashankar Das, Deputy Director of India Meteorological Department, told ANI.

“The North Odisha districts, particularly Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, and Balasore are expected to most affected,” Das said.

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US ramps up surutiny of highly transmissible Covid variant first detected in India

A just-released U.K. study found the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine was “highly effective” against a form of the B.1.617 variant two weeks after the second dose, affirming preliminary data from Phase 3 clinical trials. Still, the mutation has arrived in the U.S. at a time when anti-pandemic measures are loosening and around 60% of the population isn’t yet fully vaccinated.

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Covid shots are all highly protective against death, study shows

The unprecedented speed with which safe and effective vaccines have been developed and rolled out across the world have enabled many economies to reopen, paving the way for a recovery from the worst pandemic in a century. Still, uncontrolled spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus risks spawning new variants that may undermine the potency of these immunizations.

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How long do Covid-19 vaccine protections last? Science can’t say for sure

The gap in knowledge and testing raises the prospect of heightened anxiety in the coming months for vaccine recipients wondering if they’re still protected — anxiety that could curb willingness to venture out in public. That in turn could put a renewed drag on the global economic recovery.
Scientists are racing to figure out the so-called correlates of protection against Covid; in other words, which test results assure immunity.

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