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84-day gap between two COVISHIELD doses based on vaccine availability or efficacy: Kerala HC asks Centre
The court said if availability was the reason for the gap, then those who can afford to buy it , they should be allowed to take the second dose without waiting for 84 days as per the prevailing protocol.
The court further said if efficacy was the reason then the scientific data in support of it be also provided.
Covid in India maybe entering some kind of stage of endemicity: WHO’s Soumya Swaminathan
“As far as India is concerned that seems to be what is happening and because of size of India and heterogeneity of population and immunity status in different parts of country in different pockets, it is very very feasible that the situation may continue like this with ups and downs in different parts of the country, particularly where there are more susceptible population, so those groups who were perhaps less affected by first and second waves or those areas with low levels of vaccine coverage we could see peaks and troughs for the next several months,” said Chief Scientist of the World Health Organisation Dr Soumya Swaminathan.
Centre to vaccinate around 300 mn by July-August: Harsh Vardhan
The Union Minister highlighted that India has one of the highest recovery rates in the whole world. “From 1 lab in January 2020, we now have 2,165 labs. More than a million people are being tested on a daily basis. We have completed 14 crore cumulative tests today. This all shows the determination of the government and relentless efforts of our corona warriors whose contribution is significant in fighting the pandemic,” he said.
Moderna to ask US, European regulators to OK its vaccine for emergency use
Moderna created its shots with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and already had a hint they were working, but said it got the final needed results over the weekend that suggest the vaccine is more than 94% effective.
Moderna is just behind Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech in seeking to begin vaccinations in the U.S. in December. Across the Atlantic, British regulators also are assessing the Pfizer shot and another from AstraZeneca.
India”s COVID-19 tally rises to 94.31 lakh with 38,772 fresh cases
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 88,47,600, pushing the national recovery rate to 93.81 per cent. The COVID-19 case fatality rate declined further to 1.45 per cent.
The active COVID-19 caseload remained below five lakh for the 20th consecutive day.
Dictionary.com picks ‘pandemic’ as its 2020 word of the year
Asymptomatic, furlough, non-essential, hydroxychloroquine and a host of other pandemic-related words saw massive increases in lookups as well. Jennifer Steeves-Kiss, chief executive officer of Dictionary.com, said one key ingredient in the hunt for the site’s word of the year is sustained interest over time. Pandemic met that standard.
Russian hospital says it began civilian coronavirus vaccinations last week
Domodedovo’s Central City Hospital said on its website that residents wanting for inoculation had to register on a government website in advance and bring along a negative COVID-19 test result and ID documents on the day.
Pandemic Motors: Europeans snap up old cars to avoid public transport
The surge in interest in used cars is neither good news for struggling mass transit networks nor the environment as dirty old cars appear to be more in demand than new electric vehicles.
In the longer term, however, the shift away from public transport towards “individual mobility” in the pandemic era is expected to help carmakers, hit by a 27% slump in new vehicle sales across Europe in the first 10 months of 2020.
Insurers winning most, but not all, Covid-19 business interruption lawsuits
The stakes are high for thousands of businesses. The outbreak has led to a surge in U.S. bankruptcies, including rental-car company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. Century 21 Stores said it couldn’t survive after its insurer denied its business-interruption claim.
But the pandemic is also squeezing insurers. In the second quarter — after the initial shutdowns — Chubb Ltd. reported $1.16 billion in Covid-19 losses. Munich Re said this month coronavirus losses keep growing. Overall, the industry could face at least $100 billion in total underwriting losses from the pandemic, Lloyd’s of London predicted in May.
Novel coronavirus may enter brain via nose, study says
The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, noted that SARS-CoV-2 not only affects the respiratory tract but also impacts the central nervous system (CNS), resulting in neurological symptoms such as loss of smell, taste, headache, fatigue and nausea.
No direct correlation between health expenditure and Covid outcomes: Report
A significant part of the health care cost in India has to be borne by non-governmental entities, of which out of pocket expenses of households (including medical insurance) accounted for 2.2 per cent of the GDP and the remaining 0.4 per cent was accounted for by non-governmental organisations/ external donor/local bodies, it said, citing official data of FY17.
The share of government in the current expenditure on health in India is only 27.1 per cent and an a large share of 62.4 per cent is borne by households, it said.
Researchers to explore how vitamin D affects Covid-19
The research team, including one of Indian-origin, have received nearly $241,000 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research on how vitamin D regulates the immune system in the gastrointestinal tract.