Category:

Pandemic

Latest

Many US families face food challenges, poll shows

Black and Hispanic Americans, Americans living below the federal poverty line and younger adults are especially likely to face food challenges, according to the poll.
Most of those facing food challenges enrolled in a government or nonprofit food assistance program in the past year, but 58per cent still had difficulty accessing at least one service.

And 21 per cent of adults facing challenges meeting their food needs were unable to access any assistance at all. The most common challenge to those in need was a basic lack of awareness of eligibility for both government and nonprofit services.

read more

UK’s £800 million Reinsurance Scheme officially opens, to help providing covers to festivals, conferences and live events

The government has partnered with Lloyd’s Market Association to deliver the scheme as part of the Plan for Jobs. The scheme will see the government act as a ‘reinsurer’ – stepping in with a guarantee to make sure insurers can offer the products events companies need. Insurers Munich Re, Beazley, Arch, Dale, and Ark are carriers of the scheme with more firms coming on board in the weeks to come.

read more

Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine works in kids ages 5 to 11

While kids are at lower risk of severe illness or death than older people, more than 5 million children in the US have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began and at least 460 have died, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Cases in children have risen dramatically as the delta variant swept through the country. “I feel a great sense of urgency” in making the vaccine available to children under 12, Dr. Bill Gruber, a Pfizer senior vice president, said.

read more

Union Health Ministry releases guide on long-term health issues of COVID-19 infection

Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister of State of Health Ministry, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar emphasized the need to tackle mental health issues and to reach the last mile.

“This pandemic has put an unprecedented challenge on our Health and Health Care System. Mental Health Care is a big challenge for a country with such a large population. We need to build our capacity to tackle this challenge of mental health,” she said.

read more

COVID-fuelled child labour crisis spurs call for global social protection fund

The pandemic has pushed many countries – from the United States to Rwanda – to spend trillions of dollars on short-term measures, including payments to businesses and poor families, to cushion their populations from economic shocks. A fraction of this cash could be used to start a fund offering basic income like cash transfers to the poor, pensions for the elderly and disability, unemployment and child benefits, campaigners said at an online event.”Social protection is absolutely fundamental,” said Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation. “If we have a fund to build those social protection systems for the 55% of the world’s people who have no social protection, and for the 72% who have little or no social protection, then it returns money and jobs to the economy,” she said.

read more

Vaccine certification for travel must meet ‘minimum criteria’, says UK

Travelers who are not fully vaccinated, or vaccinated in a country such as India currently not on the UK government’s recognized list, must take a pre-departure test, pay for day two and day eight PCR tests after arrival in England, and self-isolate for 10 days, with an option to “test to release” after five days following a negative PCR test.

read more