Heena Sharma Blog

  The COVID-19 curve in the US is rising again after months of decline, with the number of new cases per day doubling over the past three weeks, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings. Confirmed infections climbed to an average of about 23,600 a day on Monday, up from 11,300 on June 23, according to Johns Hopkins University data. And all but two states Maine and South Dakota reported that case numbers have gone up over the past two weeks. It is certainly no coincidence that we are looking at exactly the time that we would expect cases to be occurring after the July Fourth weekend," said Dr Bill Powderly, co-director of the infectious-disease division at Washington University's School of Medicine in St Louis. At the same time, parts of the country are running up against deep vaccine resistance, while the highly contagious mutant version of the coronavirus that was first detected in India is accounting for an ev...

Worldwide, over 2,45,000 Covid cases have been reported in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, India saw its biggest single-day spike of more than 35,000 cases, surpassing the one million-mark. However, if we talk about active cases, at present 3.4 lakh people are infected from the coronavirus while 6.3 lakh have already recovered or cured from the disease. Over 25000 people have lost their lives due to the pandemic and many businesses are on the edge of shutting down. In fact, the International Monetary Fund has warned that the rate of bankruptcy for small- and medium-sized businesses may triple from 4 per cent to 12 per cent this year in the absence of sufficient government support. Read More

Many Indians who hold the H-1B visa and have children born in the US have appealed Indian government to relax foreign travel rules so that families can unite in the coronavirus pandemic . The Vande Bharat mission, launched last month, is the Indian government's largest-ever exercise to repatriate its nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus lockdown. Over 1.07 lakh people have so far returned to the country under the programme. Anguraj Kailasam, who is now out of status in the US as her work visa has expired, requested the Indian government to allow minors of Indians with visas to travel in the Vande Bharat mission as well. The US laws expect her to leave the country as soon as possible, but the current Indian law would not allow her with her US-born daughter. Read More

The US has relaxed regulations to allow doctors on the H-1B work visa to practice telemedicine and help local hospitals to meet the surging demand for healthcare professionals due to the coronavirus pandemic in America, the worst-hit country by the Covid-19 outbreak. The US has nearly 1.45 million cases of confirmed Covid-19 cases and over 86,000 people have died due to the highly contagious disease. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued new guidelines enabling physicians holding the H-1B visas to practice telemedicine and providing local hospitals with the necessary flexibility to meet the increased demand for medical treatment during the Covid-19 pandemic. Read More

Deutsche Post DHL Group's StreetScooter electric vehicle unit will enter the U.S. market next year as delivery firms and municipalities work to cut greenhouse gas emissions. DHL will debut StreetScooter's zero-emission Work L delivery van in two urban U.S. markets, one on each coast, starting in Spring 2020, the companies said. They did not specify which markets would be the first. Full deployment could come in 2022 and 2023, said Ulrich Stuhec, StreetScooter's chief technology officer, who joined the company from Ford Motor Co in October. Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Tokyo and 30 other cities around the globe have been working to establish zero-emission zones by 2030. Those cities hope to curb accumulating greenhouse gases that contribute to extreme weather, higher temperatures and rising sea levels, which have steep economic, environmental and human costs. The transportation industry - which includes fossil fuel-burning ships, trains, trucks and planes - acc...

Individuals with tattoos are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental health issue and report sleep problems, a recent study suggests. In a survey-based study published in the International Journal of Dermatology, the researchers also pointed out that people who had tattoos were more likely to be smokers, to have spent time in jail, and to have a higher number of sex partners. The survey was conducted in July of 2016 and resulted in a sample of 2,008 adults residing in the United States. "Previous research has established an association between having a tattoo and engaging in risky behaviours. In an era of the increasing popularity of tattoos, even among women and working professionals, we find these relationships persist but are not associated with lower health status," said Karoline Mortensen, lead author of the study. Read More Business Standard

Consuming curcumin -- the active compound in turmeric -- may improve exercise capacity in patients with heart failure, a study claims. Curcumin has been used as a traditional Asian medicine for centuries, primarily to treat gastrointestinal ailments and skin wounds, said researchers from the University of Nebraska in the US. Studies increasingly suggest that the compound may prevent or limit muscle wasting associated with a number of health conditions, including heart failure, they said. People with heart failure have a reduced function of the left ventricle -- the chamber of the heart that pumps blood out to the rest of the body -- called reduced ejection fraction. A decreased ability to exercise or exercise intolerance is another significant characteristic of heart failure, according to the study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology. The researchers theorised that a reduction in the normal signalling of Nrf2, a protein that regulates the expression ...

Weight might be the cause for one-fourth of asthma cases in kids with obesity, a recent study suggests. The research, which studied health data from more than 500,000 children in the United States, suggested that about 10 percent of all kids aged between 2 to 17 with asthma , might have avoided the illness by maintaining a healthy weight. The findings are published in the Journal of Pediatrics. " Asthma is the number one chronic disease in children and some of the causes such as genetics and viral infections during childhood are things we can't prevent. Obesity may be the only risk factor for childhood asthma that could be preventable. This is another piece of evidence that keeping kids active and at a healthy weight is important," said Jason E. Lang, lead author of the study. For the retrospective study, researchers analyzed data for 507,496 children from more than 19 million doctor's visits at six major children's health centers. Those cl...

South Korea is expected to launch these services by March 2019, Japan in late 2019 and China, along with most western major cities, in 2020 Technology News : India plans to roll out state-of-the-art 5G telecom services in the next four years, a senior official said, as the nation rushes to catch up with its Asian peers. “We are not there yet,” Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said in an interview in New Delhi, adding that complete roll-out of 5G will be done by 2022. “5G won’t be driven by supply, it’ll be driven by demand and the rest of industry needs to wake up to this.” The South Asian nation, traditionally a laggard while embracing latest technology in telecommunications, will follow South Korea, Japan and China where 5G service will be offered within the next two years. The high-speed and low latency service will help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India plan, which seeks to broaden Internet access, and the Smart Cities initiative. “If we ...