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Delta variant accounts for 80% of new Covid cases: Govt expert panel chief
“Besides, on invading a human cell, it replicates faster. It leads to a strong inflammatory response in organs like the lungs. However it is difficult to say that disease due to delta variant is more severe. The age profile and the deaths during the second wave in India were quite similar to that seen during first wave,” he stated.
HDFC Life net profit declines 33 pc to Rs 302 cr in Q1 FY22
”In the quarter gone by, we witnessed a steep rise in death claims with peak claims in wave two at around 3-4 times of the peak claim volumes in the first wave. We paid over 70,000 claims in Q1.The gross and net claims provided for amounted to Rs 1,598 crore and Rs 956 crore, respectively. It appears that claims on individual business have peaked in June and expect them to normalise in the coming months with more people getting vaccinated and a fall in the absolute number of infections,” HDFC Life said on the impact of the pandemic on the business during the quarter.
COVID-19 long-term toll signals billions in healthcare costs ahead
Bruce Lee of the City University of New York (CUNY) Public School of Health estimated that if 20% of the U.S. population contracts the virus, the one-year post-hospitalization costs would be at least $50 billion, before factoring in longer-term care for lingering health problems. Without a vaccine, if 80% of the population became infected, that cost would balloon to $204 billion.
Some countries hit hard by the new coronavirus – including the United States, Britain and Italy – are considering whether these long-term effects can be considered a “post-COVID syndrome,” according to Reuters interviews with about a dozen doctors and health economists.
AstraZeneca to be exempt from coronavirus vaccine liability claims in most countries
With 25 companies testing their vaccine candidates on humans and getting ready to immunize hundred millions of people once the products are shown to work, the question of who pays for any claims for damages in case of side effects has been a tricky point in supply negotiations.“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects,” Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra’s senior executive team, told Reuters.
“In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest,” he said, adding that Astra and regulators were making safety and tolerability a top priority.
WHO suggests Ahmedabad Covid-19 measures as case study:Gujarat govt
The WHO has suggested to take up initiatives in Ahmedabad like ‘Dhanvantari Rath’, 104 fever helpline, Sanjivani Van; and active participation of private hospitals in control and treatment as a case study for other cities in India and abroad, it said.
Moral challenges ahead of developing & distributing a COVID-19 vaccine
The newly published “Ethics and Pandemics,” an anthology edited by philosophy professor Meredith Schwartz of Ryerson University in Toronto, presents contrasting views of academics, doctors and commentators along with a series of impossibly difficult case studies. The scientific, economic and political choices involve moral issues that have divided ethicists for centuries.
Australia’s Victoria declares disaster, sets curfew to curb COVID-19
“The current rules have avoided thousands and thousands of cases each day, and then thousands of people in hospital and many more tragedies than we have seen. But it is not working fast enough,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told a televised briefing.
A curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. every day will be implemented from Sunday evening in Melbourne, barring the nearly five million people in the city from leaving their houses except for work or to receive or give care.
Latin America coronavirus death toll surges past 200,000
Apart from the United States, Brazil and Mexico have racked up more fatalities from the virus than any other country, and together they account for around 70% of the regional death toll.Both have struggled to balance the need to curb the spread of the virus with restrictive safety measures while trying to reopen their economies, which have been battered by the crisis.
ICMR plans to set up registry of hospitalised Covid-19 patients
“The aim is to collect data of the hospitalised COVID-19 patients like clinical and laboratory features, their demographics, comorbidities, treatment outcomes, complications in all age groups among others,” officials said.
The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 and the illness it is causing has so many unknown parameters that are a barrier to the proper understanding and management of the disease, they said.
Kerala to train,export health workers; capitalise on remittances:FM Isaac
Countries have “realized that lack of investment in public health system can, in a pandemic time, be totally debilitating to the national economy,” Isaac said in a telephone interview. “There will be demand for Kerala nurses and paramedics all over the globe.”
U.S.makes deal for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, deaths expected to rise
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Friday forecast between 168,000 and 182,000 total fatalities by August 22, predicting that deaths will rise fastest in Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Tennessee and Washington state.
Coronavirus deaths in the United States are rising at their fastest rate since early June. Roughly one American died about every minute from COVID-19 on Wednesday.
India records highest one-day jump of 57,118 COVID-19 cases; recoveries surge to 10,94,374
According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 1,93,58,659 samples have been tested up to July 31 with 5, 25,689 being tested on Friday
Of the new 764 deaths reported, 265 are from Maharashtra, 97 from Tamil Nadu, 84 from Karnataka, 68 from Andhra Pradesh, 45 from West Bengal, 43 from Uttar Pradesh, 27 from Delhi, 23 from Gujarat, 16 from Punjab, 14 each from Bihar and Telangana, 12 from Jammu and Kashmir and 11 from Rajasthan