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Pandemic

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The hybrid work revolution after Covid-19 is already transforming economies

While a more permanent transformation of working life will have painful consequences for many inner-city businesses, economists see a recalibration underway that can revitalize smaller towns and suburbs. New digital tools mean that retail and hospitality — as well as knowledge-intensive industries — are already undergoing far-reaching change.

Working from home around one day a week will boost productivity by 4.8% as the post-Covid economy takes shape, according to a recent study of more than 30,000 U.S. employees co-authored by José María Barrero of Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and others. Much of that one-off increase is projected to come from reduced commuting time, a factor not usually captured by economists.

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Contaminant in Moderna vaccines suspected to be metallic particles -NHK

Japan on Thursday suspended the use of 1.63 million doses shipped to 863 vaccination centres nationwide, more than a week after the domestic distributor, Takeda Pharmaceutical (4502.T), received reports of contaminants in some vials.
The NHK report, published late on Thursday, cited ministry sources as saying the particle reacted to magnets and was therefore suspected to be a metal. Moderna has described it as “particulate matter” that did not pose a safety or efficacy issue.

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The world economy’s supply chain problem keeps getting worse

The cost of sending a container from Asia to Europe is about 10 times higher than in May 2020, while the cost from Shanghai to Los Angeles has grown more than sixfold, according to the Drewry World Container Index. The global supply chain has become so fragile that a single, small accident “could easily have its effects compounded,” HSBC Holdings PLC. said in a note.

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Celebrate festivals with caution, second Covid wave not yet over: Centre

The government said 41 districts in India were reporting a COVID-19 weekly positivity rate of more than 10 per cent.

According to the government, 58.4 per cent of the total COVID-19 cases last week were reported from Kerala.

”Kerala is the only state reporting over 1 lakh active COVID-19 cases, while four states have 10,000 to 1 lakh active cases and 31 states have less than 10,000 active cases,” it said.

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UN health agency sees virus cases leveling off

The assessment released Tuesday says there were about 68,000 new deaths reported globally, with Europe and the Americas registering increases of about 10 per cent.
he countries with the highest numbers of new cases were the United States, Iran, India, Britain and Brazil.
WHO also noted several recent studies that show licensed vaccines still provide protection against severe coronavirus disease, but that there is some evidence to show the shots are less effective at preventing people from becoming infected with the more contagious delta variant.

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India logs 44,658 new COVID-19 infections, Kerala reports 30,007 cases

As a part of the ongoing nationwide vaccination drive, the country has administered 61.22 crore vaccine doses till date. Yesterday, the health ministry informed that 50 per cent of the eligible population has been administered with the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine under the world’s largest vaccination drive. India’s COVID vaccination drive commenced on January 16 this year.

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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.

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