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Pandemic

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World faces shortage of merchant sailors to crew ships -study

The Delta variant of the coronavirus has hit hard in parts of Asia and prompted many nations to cut off land access for sailors. That’s left captains unable to rotate weary crews and about 100,000 seafarers stranded at sea beyond their stints, in a flashback to 2020 and the height of lockdowns when over 200,000 merchant sailors were stuck on ships. read more

New York city to offer 100 dollars for vaccination

The announcement comes just days after the mayor said all city workers would have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid-September or face weekly testing. De Blasio also announced that more than 9.9 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the city so far. Sixty-six per cent of adults have been fully vaccinated and 71 per cent have received at least one dose, according to the New York City health department, The Hill reported.

Restaurant dining linked to COVID-19; severe illness less common with GI symptoms

“Masks cannot be effectively worn while eating and drinking, whereas shopping and numerous other indoor activities do not preclude mask use,” researchers said in the report on Friday in the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “Eating and drinking on-site at locations that offer such options might be important risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection,” they added.

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Vaccine likely in a few months, but life won’t return to normal until end of 2021:Dr. Fauci

“If you’re talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to Covid, it’s going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021,” he added.

Nearly 30 U.S. states are reporting downward trends in Covid-19 cases, but the pandemic will likely worsen again, said Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert.

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India staring at another health disaster amid a raging battle with Covid-19

But the biggest crisis is India’s longstanding battle with tuberculosis. The country has as many as 2.7 million TB patients currently, by far the most in the world, and the disease kills an estimated 421,000 Indians each year. The current gap in care could lead to an additional 6.3 million cases and 1.4 million deaths from tuberculosis by 2025, according to a study by Zarir Udwadia, a pulmonologist at Mumbai’s P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre.

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AstraZeneca still aiming for Oxford Covid-19 vaccine by year-end:CEO

The pause highlights the importance of rigorous final-stage trials to pick up on potential side effects or rare events, according to Hatchett. It also shows the need to have a diversified portfolio of Covid-19 vaccines under development, a strategy that CEPI is using with its partners, he said.

“It points to the fact that vaccine development is tricky and unpredictable, and that things that look like they are going along very well can encounter difficulties,” he said.

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IRDAI plans broad basing exclusive Carona covers, moots digital health insurance claim platform:Alamelu

“We are thinking of ways and means, sooner than later we will issue instructions on how standardised Covid-specific health insurance policies can be mainstreamed, renewed, features of porting migration so that Corona Rakshak and Corona Kavach policyholders continue to get a good cover not only for Covid but entire health sector.” said T.L. Alamelu,member (Non-Life),IRDAI on Friday while addressing an ASSOCHAM National e-Summit on Challenges, Opportunities & Way Forward for Health Insurance Under Covid Attack.

She also indicated that  the regulator is currently is working on plans to develop a digital claim settlement mechanism involving all stakeholders – policyholders, insurers, TPAs, hospitals that could be stitched up with National Digital Health Mission.

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