Heena Sharma Blog

  Covid-19 has been devastating. A future pandemic could be far worse. If scientists used a scale to classify pandemics like hurricanes, the fatality rate of Covid-19 would probably make it a “category two” out of five, according to Richard Hatchett, a former White House adviser who leads the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. “What’s the worst case?” he asked. “It’s a lot worse than Covid.” The specter of another global crisis, along with the potential emergence of a deadlier foe, is pushing disease trackers to begin preparations now, even as Covid continues to rage in some regions. Researchers and governments want to smash vaccine development records set during this pandemic, harnessing technologies such as messenger RNA, and build a stronger system that can respond swiftly to stop the next outbreaks from exploding when they do occur. Read More

  UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that the coronavirus variant first detected in India can " spread like wildfire " among those who haven't received a vaccine against the disease. The variant is "becoming the dominant strain in some parts of the country" such as Bolton and Blackburn, Xinhua news agency quoted Hancock as saying to Sky News on Sunday. But on a more positive note, he said there is a "high degree of confidence" that the current vaccines are effective against the variant. Hancock urged those who are eligible for vaccination but have not yet booked an appointment to come forward to get their jab. The Health Secretary described the current situation as "a race between the vaccination program and the virus", with the new variant having "given the virus some extra legs in that race". "And so even with the protection that the vaccine gives you -- the vaccine protection is very high but it is not absolu...

  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that his country is " anxious " about the coronavirus variant detected in India and the government is "ruling nothing out" to tackle its spread. "We want to make sure that we take all the prudential, all the cautious steps now that we could take," Xinhua news agency quoted Johnson as saying to Sky News on Thursday. "So there are meetings going on today to consider exactly what we need to do," he said. Johnson's remarks came in the wake of spikes of new variants in some areas in Britain. Scientists have raised concerns that the current vaccines may be less effective against the new variants. The consortium of scientists studying new variants in the country, COG-UK, has identified a total of 1,723 cases of the Indian variant known as B1617.2. Although some of these will be duplicates, it is more than triple Public Health England's confirmed figure last week of 520, according to Sky News. R...

  India, currently struggling with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic , on Friday received coronavirus-related assistance from Romania and the United Kingdom, informed Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. Taking to Twitter, Bagchi said India has received 80 oxygen concentrators and 75 oxygen cylinders from Romania, while it received 280 oxygen concentrators from the UK. "Taking forward our warm and friendly relations. Thank our EU partner Romania for their support with consignment containing 80 oxygen concentrators and 75 oxygen cylinders," he tweeted. In a subsequent tweet, he said: "Grateful to UK for the third shipment containing 280 oxygen concentrators that arrived early this morning. Reflects our shared commitment to fighting the pandemic." Earlier, a shipment from Ireland containing 700 units of oxygen concentrators and 365 ventilators arrived here in India. Read More

  Nirav Modi , once touted as a billionaire designer diamantaire, and now wanted on charges of fraud and money laundering in the $2-billion (Rs 14,000-crore) Punjab National Bank scam case , was on Thursday ordered by a London court to be extradited to India, with the judge ruling that the 49-year-old did have a case to answer before Indian courts. The verdict will, as is the procedure in Britain, be referred to the country’s home secretary, Priti Patel, to authorise deportation at her discretion. But Nirav Modi is permitted to appeal against the ruling to the high court. After nearly two years of proceedings since he was arrested at the British capital’s well-known shopping precinct of Oxford Street, a district judge at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Samuel Goozee, ruled: “I am satisfied that there is evidence upon which Mr Modi could be convicted… A prima facie case is established…He has a case to answer for in India.” The Prime Minister’s Office has acknowledged it wa...

  The number of people who have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 has climbed to 82 in India, the health ministry said on Friday. The number of such people stood at 73 till January 6, it added. "The total number of cases infected with the new strain of the novel coronavirus, first reported in the UK, now stands at 82," the ministry said. All the people who have tested positive for the new variant of the virus were kept in single-room isolation at designated healthcare facilities by the respective state governments, the ministry had earlier said. Their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. A comprehensive contact-tracing exercise has been initiated for their co-travellers, family members and others and genome sequencing on other specimens is going on, the ministry said. Read More

  Amid rising concerns over the discovery of a new strain of coronavirus in the UK, five out of 266 passengers and crew members of a London to Delhi flight have tested positive for coronavirus, an official said on Tuesday. "Five out of 266 passengers and crew members of a flight which arrived at Delhi airport from London last night have tested positive for COVID-19 . Their samples have been sent to NCDC for research and they have been sent to the care centre," said a Nodal officer for COVID-19. This comes as flight services from the UK to India have been suspended till December 31 over the spread of a new strain of coronavirus in London and England. Passengers arriving from the UK in Punjab were seen waiting in a long queue on Tuesday at the Amritsar airport to get themselves tested for COVID-19 in the wake of the new virus coronavirus strain. Scores of people waited outside Amritsar airport to receive their relatives who came from a flight from London. Read More

  Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother from Britain, has become the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine outside of a trial following its rapid clinical approval. An early riser, Keenan received the jab at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, on Tuesday morning at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91. Britain began rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population in what was hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus. The mass inoculation will fuel hope that the world may be turning a corner in the fight against a pandemic that has crushed economies and killed more than 1.5 million, although ultra-cold storage and tricky logistics will limit its use for now. Read More

Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter as its overseas investments were hammered by the coronavirus pandemic , but the company is looking to its growing food delivery business and aggressive cost-cutting to ease the pain. The ride-hailing giant said Thursday it is offloading Jump, its bike and scooter business, to Lime, a company in which it is investing $85 million. Jump had been losing about $60 million a quarter. Read More

With new coronavirus cases being discovered in the country each day and panic among people also increasing, the government has proposed various measures to contain the spread of the disease. The latest steps in the fight against the pandemic come at a time when the number of positive cases in India has reached 125, with fresh cases being reported from Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Kerala and Telangana. In this edition of Business Standard podcast, we will discuss different measures taken by the government to control the outbreak. On Monday, a Group of Ministers (GoM) proposed various measures, including the closure of all educational and recreational institutions across the country. The government has also barred travellers from countries in the European Union, Turkey, the UK, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Malaysia from coming to India till March 31. Read More