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Health Ministry partners with Google to enhance people’s access to COVID-19 vaccine
Starting this week, for over 13,000 locations across the country, people will be able to get more helpful information about vaccine availability and appointments — powered by real-time data from the CoWIN APIs (application programming interfaces). This includes information such as availability of appointment slots at each center, vaccines and doses offered (dose 1 or dose 2), expectations for pricing (paid or free) and the link to the CoWIN website for booking.
The above information will automatically show up when users search for vaccine centres near them, or in any specific area – across Google Search, Maps and Google Assistant.
WHO leader opposes ‘widespread’ use of boosters
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke in Berlin on Wednesday. He says the U.N. health agency last week witnessed the first decline in new global cases in more than two months.
He says, “this is obviously very welcome but it doesn’t mean much,” since many countries are still seeing steep increases and “shocking inequities” in access to vaccines.
2020 was especially deadly, COVID wasn’t the only culprit
More than a quarter of deaths above normal have been from other causes, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, high blood pressure and pneumonia, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Digital registration, allocating manufacturers: Guidelines for Covid-19 vaccination drive
The Covid-19 vaccine will be offered first to healthcare workers, frontline workers and to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities based on the evolving pandemic situation, and finally to the remaining population based on the disease epidemiology and vaccine availability.
At the vaccination site, only pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated in accordance with the prioritisation, and there will be no provision for on-the-spot registrations.
Under phase one of the vaccination, it is planned to vaccinate nearly 30 crore population.
‘New variant’ of coronavirus identified in Britain
“We’ve currently identified over 1,000 cases with this variant predominantly in the South of England although cases have been identified in nearly 60 different local authority areas.”We do not know the extent to which this is because of the new variant but no matter its cause we have to take swift and decisive action which unfortunately is absolutely essential to control this deadly disease while the vaccine is rolled out,”said Health Secretary Matt Hancock said
Next four to six months could be worst of Covid-19 pandemic: Bill Gates
“Overall, when I did the forecasts in 2015, I talked about the deaths potentially being higher. So, this virus could be more fatal than it is. We didn’t get the worst-case. But the thing that has surprised me is that the economic impact in the US and around the world has been much greater than the forecasts that I made five years ago,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said.
Gates said that his foundation had been funding a lot of the research for the vaccines.
SpiceHealth signs MoU with CCMB to launch dry swab RT-PCR tests
“The dry swab testing method will be a game-changer in testing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The method is safer, faster and cheaper than the current testing method without compromising the quality of test results,” Rakesh Mishra, Director, CSIR-CCMB was quoted as saying in a statement.
Covid vaccine to be available in India ‘soon’, says Javadekar
He took the opportunity to caution people against letting the guard down before antibodies are created and second dose of the vaccine administered.
Singapore first Asian country to OK Pfizer shot
“If all goes according to plan, we will have enough vaccines for everyone in Singapore by the third quarter of 2021,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.
Loong, 68, said he would be among the early recipients in the city-state of 5.7 million people, which has one of the lowest fatality rates globally from the coronavirus.
Going Digital: COVID-enforced mindset changing insurance landscape in India, Indonesia, Malaysia,Swiss Re
The growing presence of e-commerce and digital wallet apps presents opportunities for innovative partnerships between insurers and digital platforms to bridge the USD 498 billion health protection in India, Indonesia and Malaysia, according to the latest Swiss Re study.
COVID-19 caseload in India rises to 98.57 lakh with 30,254 new cases
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 93,57,464 pushing the national recovery rate to 94.93 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.45 per cent.
The COVID-19 active caseload remained below 4 lakh for the seventh consecutive day. There are 3,56,546 active coronavirus infections in the country which comprises 3.62 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.
What we know about COVID-19 vaccines and side effects
Some 80 percent of those vaccinated felt pain at the injection site. Many also felt fatigue, headache and muscle-pain and some had temporarily swollen lymph nodes.
These side effects were more frequent and intense for young people.