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  • Man dies of COVID-19 in Kashmir

    PTI

    Srinagar: A 55-year-old man, who had tested positive for COVID-19, died at a hospital here on Tuesday, taking the coronavirus death toll in Jammu and Kashmir to 17, officials said.

    The man from Baramulla district in north Kashmir died at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) hospital this morning, Medical Superintendent, SKIMS Soura, Dr Farooq Jan told PTI.

    He said the patient died of cardiac arrest.

    The man was a cancer patient and had tested positive for coronavirus, Dr Jan said.

    With his death, the number of COVID-related deaths in Jammu and Kashmir has risen to 17.

  • JK Policeman and a CRPF Jawan injured in encounter with militants at Nawakadal, Srinagar

    Mobile internet, calling facility snapped

    The J&K police on Tuesday said it had engaged militants in an encounter in a densely populated area in Srinagar, forcing authorities to snap mobile Internet and calling facilities.

    “An encounter has started at Kanemazar Nawakadal area of Srinagar. The Jammu and Kashmir Police and the Central Reserve Police Force are on the job,” said a police spokesman.

    A police official said gunshots were heard during a pre-dawn operation launched around 2 a.m. in the densely populated pocket of the old city in Srinagar.

    However, the initial bout of firing was followed by a long silence and a search is on to nab the hiding militants, the police said. The authorities snapped Internet and voice calling on mobile phones “as a precautionary measure”.

    Two security personnel — one CRPF jawan and one policeman — sustained injuries in the Srinagar encounter, police officials said.

    “A heavy exchange of fire is going on from both sides,” said the police.

    Locals said they heard loud explosions near the encounter site. Meanwhile, there was an incident of stone pelting in the old city.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • Bharti Airtel clocks ₹5,237 crore loss

    Average revenue per user for Q4 rises to ₹154 from ₹123

    Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday posted a net loss of ₹5,237 crore after exceptional items for the January-March 2020 period on account of an exceptional charge of ₹7,004 crore.

    In a regulatory filing the company said, “… the net exceptional charge of ₹7,004 crore comprises a charge on account of reassessment of regulatory cost based on a recent judgment on OTSC [one-time spectrum payment] related matter…”

    The company, which had posted a profit of ₹107 crore in the January-March 2019 period, said the numbers are not comparable as the latest quarter results include the impact of Ind AS 116.

    In the previous October-December 2019 quarter, the company had posted a net loss of ₹1,035 crore.

    Consolidated revenue
    The consolidated revenues for Q4 2020 stood at ₹23,723 crore. Consolidated revenue stood at ₹20,602 crore in the year-ago quarter, it said in a statement.

    Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia, said: “These are unprecedented times for everyone across the world as we battle the impact of COVID-19.”

    ARPU for the quarter stood at ₹154 compared with ₹123 in Q4 2019. “India mobile data traffic increased by 74.2% to 6,010 PBs (petabytes) in the quarter compared with 3,451 PBs in the corresponding quarter last year,” the company said.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • CBSE exam timetable released

    Class 12 exams were affected by lockdown and Class 10 tests by Delhi riots

    The Class 12 examinations of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) postponed nationwide because of COVID-19 and Class 10 exams in northeast Delhi affected by riots will be held from July 1 to 15.

    Issuing safety instructions for the candidates, the CBSE said they should carry hand sanitiser in a transparent bottle, cover the mouth and nose with a mask or cloth and follow physical distancing norms. Parents should guide their children about the precautions to be taken and also ensure they are not sick.

    The Class 12 exams across the country will start with home economics on July 1, Hindi elective and Hindi core on July 2, informatics practices and computer science (both old and new) and information technology on July 7, business studies on July 9, biotechnology on July 10, geography on July 11 and sociology on July 14. For northeast Delhi district, the Class 12 physics exam will be held on July 3, accountancy on July 4, chemistry on July 6, English elective-n, English elective-c and English core on July 8, political science on July 14, and mathematics, economics, history and biology on July 15.

    The Class 10 exams in northeast Delhi will start on July 1 with social science. The exams for science theory and science without practical will be held on July 2, Hindi course-a and Hindi course-b on July 10, and English communicative and English language and literature on July 15.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • Australia welcomes coronavirus inquiry but condemns China tariff

    The move has apparently invited a Chinese boycott of exports and services

    AP

    Australia on Tuesday welcomed international support for an independent coronavirus pandemic investigation as China ratcheted up a bilateral trade rift by placing tariffs on Australian barley

    The World Health Organization bowed to calls Monday from most of its member states to launch an independent probe into how it managed the international response to the coronavirus.

    The comprehensive evaluation, sought by a coalition of African, European and other countries including Australia, is intended to review lessons learned from WHO’s coordination of the global response to COVID-19, but would stop short of looking into contentious issues such as the origins of the respiratory virus.

    Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne had earlier welcomed the apparent majority support for the motion, saying her government wanted the inquiry to be impartial, independent and comprehensive.

    Australia is seen as a leader in rallying global support for an inquiry, attracting Chinese criticism that it is parroting the United States and inviting a Chinese boycott of exports and services.

    Australian government critics have argued that Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative administration should have gathered allies before antagonising Australia’s most important trading partner.

    The trade dispute is the first time Beijing has used access to its huge markets as leverage in its campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak. But it has used the tactic regularly against governments from Norway to Canada in political disputes over the past decade.

    Punishment for transparency over virus?

    China’s Ministry of Commerce announced tariffs of around 80% on Australian barley from Tuesday, a crop the Chinese argue is subsidised by the Australian government.

    China banned beef imports from Australia’s four largest abattoirs a week ago over labeling issues.

    Many observers say the trade disputes are punishment for Australia’s demand for transparency over the pandemic.

    Trade Minister Simon Birmingham on Tuesday described the tariff decision as deeply disappointing, but welcomed the endorsement of a coronavirus inquiry by the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, in Geneva.

    Our government welcomes the cooperation and support from countries right around the world, Birmingham told Nine Network television.

    Australian barley farmer Andrew Weidemann said the tariff barrier stops the trade completely with Australia’s biggest customer.

    Weidemann estimated the tariffs would cost the Australian economy more than 500 million Australian dollars ($326 million).

    It’s a really bitter pill to swallow, Weidemann said. It’s a real dent in our economy and it will have a big impact.

    In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China is looking into trade issues between the sides in accordance with related laws and World Trade Organization rules.

    He said the international consensus is that anti-epidemic cooperation remains a top priority, and it is not time to immediately activate the review and investigation into origins of the virus.

    Birmingham said Australia is prepared to take China to the World Trade Organization over both the beef and barley issues.

    Chinese officials routinely refuse to confirm a trade disruption is related to a political clash but make it clear Beijing wants concessions.

  • Coronavirus | Xi defends China’s ‘open’ virus response

    President pledges to make any potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by China a ‘global public good’

    AFP

    Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday Beijing has been “transparent” throughout the coronavirus crisis, and offered to share a vaccine as soon as one was available — as well as $2 billion in aid.

    Governments including the U.S. and Australia have called in recent weeks for an investigation into the origins of the virus, which has become a flashpoint in deteriorating tensions between Washington and Beijing.

    Both U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have accused China of a lack of transparency over the issue, and repeatedly pushed the theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese maximum-security laboratory.

    Addressing the first-ever virtual gathering of the WHO’s annual assembly, Mr. Xi said China has “always had an open, transparent and responsible attitude”, and had shared information on the virus in a timely manner.

    Chinese scientists have said the virus emerged from a market that sold wild animals in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December, though officials have more recently cast doubt about its origins.

    Authorities in Wuhan have come under fire for reprimanding and silencing doctors who raised the alarm about the virus late last year. China is also accused of having delayed confirmation that the virus was transmissible between humans.

    China has strenuously denied accusations of a cover-up, insisting it has always shared information with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other countries in a timely manner.

    The assembly was set to discuss a resolution tabled by the EU that calls for an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the international response to the coronavirus crisis.

    WHO-led probe

    Speaking via videolink with a painting of the Great Wall in the background, Mr. Xi said China supports a “comprehensive evaluation” of the global response to the pandemic after it “has been brought under control” and that the probe should be led by the WHO.

    The inquiry should “sum up experiences and improve shortcomings” and “adhere to the principles of objectivity and fairness”, Mr. Xi told the World Health Assembly.

    WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pledged at the assembly to launch an independent probe to review the coronavirus pandemic response “at the earliest appropriate moment”.

    With the world racing to find a drug to stop the pandemic, Mr. Xi pledged to make any potential vaccine developed by China a “global public good” once it was put into use.

    This move would be China’s contribution to achieving accessibility and affordability of a vaccine in developing countries as well, Mr. Xi said.

    China says it has five potential vaccines in clinical trials.

    A top Chinese health official said last week that more vaccine candidates are in the pipeline and awaiting approval for human trials.

    Experts say it will take at least 12 to 18 months to develop an effective vaccine, or even longer.

    Mr. Xi also told the assembly that China will provide $2 billion in international aid over two years to help with COVID-19 response and economic development in affected countries, especially in the developing world.

    “China will work with members of the Group of 20 nations to implement the debt relief initiative for the poorest countries,” he said.

    Mr. Xi also said China would work with the United Nations to set up a “global humanitarian response depot” in China and facilitate the international movement of medical supplies.

  • Moving into summer months, India could get hit very hard, says U.S. virologist Peter Hotez

    U.S. virologist expresses concern about India’s crowded urban areas in low-income neighbourhoods where people are forced to live in proximity

    As the world continues to grapple with the debilitating human toll and economic consequences of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Hotez, Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine and a Professor at the Departments of Paediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, speaks about the state of play in the battle against the novel coronavirus.

    What is the current situation in the U.S., where President Donald Trump recently said fatalities could reach 1,00,000. Why did the numbers spin out of control this way and is there hope that the curve can be flattened?

    There is quite a bit of concern here. It really took off because the virus probably entered the U.S. earlier than we suspected. A national emergency was not declared until the middle of March. It is likely that the virus entered the U.S. in early February, back-tracing it. That means that transmission went on for about six weeks before any efforts for social distancing were implemented. We know from the models that it produces tragedy and makes the difference between having thousands of patients in your intensive care units and local hospitals, versus having just a handful.

    What treatment options could have a scalable impact? We are hearing hopeful accounts of Remdesivir…

    Vaccines offer the greatest promise for protecting large populations at risk, like in India. The problem with vaccines is also that they are the highest bar to achieve because with a vaccine you are generally injecting healthy individuals to prevent them from getting sick. So, you have to be absolutely pristine, in not only showing that the vaccines work, but also your safety profile. That is what takes time. In the meantime, there are some new, promising treatments on the horizon.

    I am very excited, for instance, about convalescent plasma. It is a relatively low-tech solution which involves identifying individuals who have recovered from their COVID-19 and have antibodies. The problem is that it is hard to scale because it requires you having a base of patients with the illness.

    In India, while the number of infections continue to rise, the government moved aggressively to impose a nationwide lockdown. Could the fact that we are not seeing the sort of fatality numbers that you did in the U.S. be down to India facing a different coronavirus strain?

    I do not think it is going to turn out to be a coronavirus strain issue. It is possible that this is a new virus pathogen. But I think it is most likely because India did implement some social distancing early on. So, India may have mitigated the worst aspects of this.

    But I would say that we should not be complacent, because I am still worried for India. The reason for that is that you are moving into the summer months and we know that sometimes in tropical countries, the global south, or in places like South Asia, Africa, Australia and South America, sometimes for influenza the seasonality is inverted. I think you have to assume the potential for things to get much worse as you head towards July and August. I am particularly worried about India’s crowded urban areas in low-income neighbourhoods, where people are forced to live in proximity, including in Mumbai. I am holding my breath because I still do think India could get hit very hard.

    Should we be worried about reports from New York about COVID-19-positive children succumbing to symptoms that resemble Kawasaki disease?

    It caught us a bit off-guard because in China we did not hear much about paediatric syndromes. Our understanding was that children were mostly handling the virus pretty well, not getting very sick, with the exception of about 10% of infants. These symptoms first came out of the United Kingdom and then we saw them in New York, a syndrome that looks like vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, linked to this virus, maybe later on in the course of the illness. This Kawasaki-disease-like syndrome is still not common — there have been about 100 cases in New York.

    We are also seeing, unfortunately, a lot of cases in the U.S. among adults, of clotting defects, which we are trying to understand. We are seeing lots of different types of thromboses, or clotting of the blood, leading to blockage, which in turn lead to strokes, pulmonary emboli, and may be associated with coronary artery thrombosis, giving people heart attacks.

    If there is one broad lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic for developing countries such as India, is it to be better prepared for future events of this sort in terms of creating a sufficient pandemic preparedness?

    This is not unique to India. Every nation on the planet has to learn some lessons from this. But things will change after this pandemic. India has an enormous amount to offer. I continue to be impressed by the quality of some of the universities in India.

    I am impressed with its capacity for innovation, especially around vaccines. India is an example of what a country can do even despite its levels of poverty, in terms of over-achieving and having an impact in terms of pandemic preparedness.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • WHO a puppet of China, says Trump

    Trump said the WHO was against the imposition of a ban on travel from China in late January

    PTI

    U.S. President Donald Trump once again on Monday attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO), saying the UN health body was a ‘puppet’ of China.

    Trump claimed that more people would have died from coronavirus in the country had he not imposed a ban on travel from China, which was ‘opposed’ by the health agency.

    “They (WHO) are a puppet of China. They’re China-centric, to put it nicer,” Trump told reporters at the White House. The United States pays them $450 million a year; China pays them $38 million a year, Trump said in response to a question.

    Trump said the WHO was against the imposition of a ban on travel from China in late January.

    “The World Health Organization was against it. They were against me doing the ban. They said you don’t need it, it’s too much, it’s too severe, and they turned out to be wrong,” he said.

    Trump said Democratic Party’s presidential nominee and former vice-president Joe Biden was too against the ban. “Sleepy Joe Biden said the same thing. He said I was xenophobic. I was xenophobic because I said you can’t come in if you come from China. You can’t come into our country, very early. And Biden said I was xenophobic,” he said.

    “If I didn’t do that ban, you would have lost hundreds of thousands of more people in this country. It was a very important ban. People don’t like talking about the ban, but it was very important,” the U.S. President said, claiming that it was only he who wanted it. “We did it and saved thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of lives probably.”

  • Potential Oxford vaccine fails to prevent coronavirus spread in monkeys, but protects from pneumonia

    This vaccine is among the eight that are ahead in terms of being tested in humans for efficacy

    A high-profile potential vaccine for COVID-19 being tested by researchers at Oxord University failed to protect vaccinated monkeys from being infected by the virus. However, the test animals appeared to be protected from pneumonia.

    The vaccine candidate, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, being tested is a weakened form a common cold virus (adenovirus) that affects chimpanzees but has been neutered to prevent replication in humans.

    Reports of the candidate vaccine’s performance in monkeys (rhesus macaque) have prompted researchers to test the vaccine’s potency in humans. Its promise has also led to Indian vaccine manufacturer, the Pune-based Serum Institute announcing plans to manufacture a four to five million doses by end-May in India. It is one of seven global institutions that will manufacture the vaccine being developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group.

    However, detailed results of the trials in monkeys available on pre-print server bioRxiv suggest that, based on these results, the vaccine may not be the panacea to protecting people from being infected and passing on the infection to others. The research paper is yet to be peer-reviewed.

    Rajesh Gokhle, Faculty, National Institute of Immunology and former head of the CSIR-Insitute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, who has read the paper, said that in an “ideal” world, no company would continue testing the vaccine in humans based on the available data in monkeys.

     

    “We have presence of the virus in the upper respiratory tract (of the animals). It is possible that these can come down again to the lower respiratory tract (and cause pneumonia). Ideally, if you’ve been inoculated with the vaccine, you should be able to substantially clear out the virus,” he told The Hindu.

    The researchers, in their paper acknowledge the presence of virus in the upper respiratory tract. “Despite this marked difference in virus replication in the lungs, reduction in viral shedding from the nose was not observed,” they note.

    They explain it as being possibly due to the unusually high amount of the virus that the monkeys were exposed to. Unusual, in that human beings were unlikely to be ordinarily exposed to those quantities of the virus.

    The researchers, led by Sarah Gilbert of The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford and Vincent Munster of the National Institutes of Health, United States, argue that the presence of virus was significantly reduced in BAL fluid (collected from the lungs) and lung tissue of vaccinated animals than in the animals that were not vaccinated.

    Moreover, virus specific neutralising antibodies were detected in those macaques vaccinated and no such antibodies were seen in those that didn’t get the vaccine.

    For their analysis they vaccinated six monkeys with the candidate vaccine and 3 were given a ‘control’ vaccine called ChAdOx1 GFP.

    Based on these results 1,110 people are taking part in human trial, half receiving the vaccine and the other half (the control group) receiving a meningitis vaccine. The dose of the vaccine was half that of what is being used for humans right now.

    This vaccine is among the eight that are ahead in terms of being tested in humans for efficacy.

    With inputs from The Hindu

  • 28 employees of Zee Media test Covid-19 positive, Newsroom Sealed

    IANS

    Zee Media said on Monday, 18 May that 28 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and its office, newsroom and studios here have been sealed.

    “The global pandemic has now become a personal story for Zee Media. Last Friday, one of our colleagues tested positive for COVID-19. As a responsible organisation, we initiated mass testing of all those who could have been in direct or indirect contact with the said individual,” Sudhir Chaudhary, Editor-in-Chief, Zee News said in a statement.

    “So far 28 of our team mates have tested positive. Fortunately, most of them are asymptomatic and not complaining of any discomfort. We believe this is because of early diagnosis and pro-active intervention,” the statement said.

    “We are following the best practices to break the cycle and contain the infection, in coordiation with all government and health authorities. All health protocols and official guidelines are being followed,” Chaudhary announced.

    “Our office, newsroom and studios have been sealed for sanitisation. The Zee News team has been shifted to an alternative facility for the time being,” he said.

    The testing of the rest of the employees will continue. The ICMR too has relaxed its testing norms to allow it to test asymptomatic individuals who might be COVID-19 positive and carriers of the disease.

    “This might lead to a greater number of COVID-19 cases being identified, isolated and treated. We believe this is the best way to fight the pandemic,” Chaudhary said.

    Since Noida has lot of containment zones, aggressive testing, isolation and treatment is the only way to ensure the safety of teammates, he added.

    At the moment, Zee Media Corporation Ltd has 2,500 employees, by far the largest in the private sector. “We are committed to the safety of each one of them,” the statement said.

    “These are challenging times but COVID-19 has not been able to shake the morale of the team. Zee Media is raring to go, as always. We assure our viewers that our fearless coverage will continue. Such challenges will not be able break our resolve to discharge our duties with utmost sincerity and unmatched passion. We wish all our employees a speedy recovery,” Zee Media announced.