Heena Sharma Blog

  Coronavirus (Covid-19) infections continued to scale new highs in the country and were just shy of 60,000 on Thursday, with fatalities rising as well and the country registering 257 deaths. The death rate in the country, however, is nowhere near the peak during the first wave of infections. While India is recording 9 deaths per 1,000 cases at present, last year in September, when the country came close to recording 100,000 cases, this number stood at 14. However, the number of daily deaths have increased 2.2 times in just a month. The one-week average of deaths for the week ending March 25 was 226; on February 25, the weekly average of deaths was 102. Bihar, on Thursday, recorded 40 deaths per 1,000 cases—an increase of five times over the last month when the state recorded 8 deaths for every 1,000 cases. While this does not necessarily indicate that more people are dying in Bihar, it does hint at a faulty testing strategy, where the state finds fewer infections. Read More...

  Preparations are underway at vaccine storage centre in Patna's Nalanda Medical College and Hospital to handle and store COVID-19 vaccines . "Around 35 lakh vials can be stored at the centre. This is a large storage centre. The vaccine when arrived will be stored in the walk-in coolers," said Dr Vinod Kr Singh, NMCH Superintendent. "Vaccines will be transported to different districts from here. We already have a developed system here and we are further preparing for the storage of COVID-19 vaccine . All systems are operational beforehand," he added. Various other states are also gearing up for the storage of COVID-19 vaccine on its arrival. Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had said that India may begin vaccinating people against COVID-19 from January and the government's first priority has been safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Read More  

Net users in tier-II cities are most vulnerable to cyber security threats, with Patna being the most susceptible. A staggering 47 per cent of netizens surveyed from that city said they had been attacked. Patna was followed by Guwahati and Lucknow, according to a latest report by IT security solutions provider K7 Computing. The study says that almost three out of every ten Indian cyber users encountered one or more cyberattacks, while metro cities have experienced a similar number when compared to the previous quarter. Among the metros and tier-I cities, Delhi has seen the highest increase in terms of infection rate, with a growth of six per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis, says the K7 Computing's Cyber Threat Monitor report for the second quarter of 2019-20. The company uses infection rate, described as the regional percentage of threat events reported to its K7 Ecosystem Threat Intelligence (K7ETI) infrastructure, as a barometer to measure the exposure of netizens group...

As many as 175 police constables, many of them women, have been dismissed from service for indulging in large-scale vandalism and violence here Friday, following the death of a female colleague, a top police official said. Inspector General of Police (IGP), Patna Zone, Naiyar Hasnain Khan said Sunday the dismissed constables included 167 trainees. Khan, who had been entrusted with the investigation and taking departmental action against those indulging in the indiscipline, said 23 others posted at the police line here were also suspended. "Nearly half of the dismissed trainee constables are women. The suspended personnel include a head constable and two others who had the responsibility of assigning duties to trainees," the IGP said. The police personnel were dismissed and suspended after getting Khan's approval, Patna Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Manu Maharaj said. Policewoman Savita Pathak (22) died at a private hospital here Friday mo...