Lucknow, Feb 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Monday arrested four members of the 'Halal Council of India' for allegedly extorting money under the guise of halal certification.

The arrested individuals have been identified as Maulana Mudassir, Habib Yusuf Patel, Mohd Anwar Khan, and Mohammed Tahir.

The STF also recovered four Aadhar cards, four PAN cards, three mobile phones, four ATM cards, three driving licenses, two voter cards, and cash worth Rs 21,820 from their possession.

According to police, the Halal Council of India used to charge Rs 10,000 per certificate while it had no authority to issue such certificates.

The police said that illegal collections were made under the guise of providing such certification and the STF is probing into the utilisation of these funds.

'Halal certification' is usually considered as an assurance that a product adheres to Islamic principles. The Uttar Pradesh government in November 2023 imposed a ban on the "manufacture, sale, storage, and distribution of halal-certified products" within the state.

Source: IANS

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Chandigarh, July 10 (SocialNews.XYZ) With seasonal rivers in Ambala, Panchkula and Yamunanagar districts have hit the danger mark after the excessive rainfall, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday issued directions to maintain vigil to handle exigency comprising evacuation in low-lying areas.

Presiding over a virtual meeting with all Deputy Commissioners to take stock of the situation, the Chief Minister asked them to keep a close vigil on every situation, along with timely drainage of water and smooth traffic movement.

“Apart from making adequate arrangements to tackle any situation, timely delivery of food packets in the waterlogged areas should also be ensured,” said Khattar.

The Chief Minister also gave special directions to the Deputy Commissioners of Ambala, Panchkula, and Yamunanagar districts that they should ensure that no one goes near the rivers.

“The water level of Yamuna, Ghaggar and other small rivers is increasing continuously and hitting the danger mark because of continuous rains in Himachal Pradesh. Therefore, quick evacuation arrangements should be made to ensure that people living in the low-lying areas are timely evacuated,” said Khattar.

The Chief Minister directed the Panchkula Deputy Commissioner to solve the problems faced by the people after a bridge in the Mandawala bridge, located some five km from Baddi, collapsed.

He directed him to coordinate with the Himachal authorities to arrange another route.

At the meeting, the Deputy Commissioner of Ambala said in the past three days 493 mm of rain has been received, due to which the water level in rivers has drastically increased. The water level of the Ghaggar, which was 16,500 cusecs, has increased to 21,000 cusecs.

Similarly, the water level of the Tangri river has also increased to 21,000 cusecs from its natural level of 13,000 cusecs. The water level of the Markanda river is in the safe zone at 50,000 cusecs and is expected to increase in the coming days.

In Yamunanagar also, in view of the increasing water level of the Yamuna river, the process of evacuating the areas has been implemented.

The Deputy Commissioner of Kurukshetra said in 1978 the water level in the Markanda river was recorded at 256.4 metres. At present the water level is at 255 metres.

Source: IANS

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Raichur (Karnataka), March 30 (SocialNews.XYZ) The principal of a school has been arrested on charges of sending lewd messages to a tenth grade student and misbehaving with her in this district of the state, police said on Thursday.

According to police, the incident had taken place in the limits of Shakthinagar police station. The accused principal, who is on the verge of retirement, managed to get the phone number of the victim and chatted with her.

Later, he started sending lewd messages and vulgar forwards to her mobile. He also started making calls to the victim and discussing sensual matters. The girl had told police that the accused had asked her not to address him as sir, but to treat him like a boyfriend.

He had sent multiple messages to her forcing her to spend time with him at his residence. The accused would address the girl as "darling". He had also threatened to harm her in the tenth board if she didn't cooperate, police said.

After the girl confided in her parents about the torture by the accused, they had thrashed him and handed him over to the police. The police have booked him under the POCSO, sexual harassment, atrocity charges and investigating the case.

Source: IANS

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Lucknow, March 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) Lucknow has reported eight Covid-19 cases, the highest one-day spike this year, according to data provided by the Lucknow Chief Medical Officer.

According to health officials, two cases in Aliganj, three in Tudiyaganj, two in Chinhat and one in Kaiserbagh tested positive for the infection on Wesdnesday.

With this, the active Covid cases in Lucknow has gone up to 18, said Yogesh Raghuvanshi, District Health Education Officer.

All new patients are in home isolation even as the Health Department has constituted 17 rapid response teams to deal with the rising cases.

Manoj Agrawal, Chief Medical Officer of Lucknow, said, "Testing/sampling is being facilitated at hospitals for those with symptoms of Covid. Hospitals have also been alerted to arrange beds, medicine and medical staff for Covid duty."

Abhishek Shukla, Secretary General of the Association of International Doctors, said, "Due to the recent rains, the chances of infection spreading are higher due to high moisture levels. Therefore, people should strictly adhere to the Covid protocol."

Source: IANS

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Hong Kong, Jan 29 (SocialNews.XYZ) About 71 per cent of people with long Covid required medical treatment or were unable to work for six months or more, according to a new study.

Some 18 per cent of patients -- most of whom were younger than 60 -- had still not returned to work more than a year after their initial infection, according to the study by the largest workers' compensation fund in New York.

At least 65 million people are thought to have long Covid, according to a latest review of 200 Covid-19 studies published in Nature Reviews Microbiology journal earlier this month.

The US-based researchers estimate that the condition is present in 10 per cent of the 651 million Covid-19 cases that have been documented worldwide, reports South China Morning Post.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) published a standardised clinical case definition of long Covid in 2021, but experts say diagnosis is still a challenge.

Most Asian countries do not track the number of long Covid patients.

Experts believe that the best protection from long Covid is vaccination.

Another study this month warned that Covid-19 patients have an elevated risk of death for at least 18 months after they got infected.

Covid patients were more likely to develop numerous cardiovascular conditions compared to uninfected participants, which may have contributed to their higher risks of death, according to the study of nearly 160,000 participants published in Cardiovascular Research, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

"The findings indicate that patients with Covid-19 should be monitored for at least a year after recovering from the acute illness to diagnose cardiovascular complications of the infection, which form part of long Covid," said Professor Ian CK Wong of the University of Hong Kong, China.

Compared to uninfected individuals, the likelihood of Covid-19 patients dying was up to 81 times higher in the first three weeks of infection and remained five times higher up to 18 months later.

Source: IANS

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Beijing, Jan 27 (SocialNews.XYZ) Chinas health authorities have said the Covid-19 wave is past its peak, with rapid decline in both severe cases and deaths in hospitals, but experts remain wary of the governments official data, the media reported.

According to China's Center for Disease Control (CDC), the number of critically ill patients in hospital peaked in the first week of January, then rapidly declined by more than 70 per cent, says the Guardian report.

The number of deaths also reached its highest level that week, the CDC data revealed.

Prof Chi Chun-huei, director of the centre for global health at Oregon University, said local officials were incentivised, via punishments and rewards, to under-report infection figures during the zero-Covid policy.

Now that policy was gone, they were incentivised to exaggerate infection rates and under-report deaths, the Guardian reported.

"Most international experts know this very well, China's statistics are very unreliable," he said.

Covid cases have swept across China in recent months, escalating rapidly after the government suddenly ended its zero-Covid policy in early December 2022.

Last week a senior health official said 80 per cent of people had been infected in this wave, although it was not clear where the figures came from.

According to the data, there were 128,000 critically ill Covid patients in Chinese hospitals on January 5, the highest number reached during this wave.

It described a peak inside hospitals over the western new year, with almost 10,000 new critically ill cases a day from December 27 to 3 January, the Guardian reported.

By January 23,the total number of critically ill cases had dropped by 72 per cent to about 36,000.

The number of deaths in hospitals reached their highest point on January 4, with 4,273 recorded, before falling 79 per cent by January 23 to 896.

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 26 (SocialNews.XYZ) Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday unveiled the Covid-19 vaccine, iNNCOVACC in the presence of Union Minister of State (IC) for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh.

iNNCOVACC is the world's first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine to receive approval for the primary 2-dose schedule, and as a heterologous booster dose. It is developed by Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) in collaboration with Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a PSU under the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

Expressing his elation at the event, Mandaviya said that over 65 per cent of vaccines supplied in the world are from India.

Congratulating the BBIL team and the Department of Biotech for bringing about the world's first nasal vaccine, he stated that "being the world's first intra-nasal Covid-19 vaccine, this marks a glorious tribute to the call for Atmanirbhar Bharat."

The Union Health Minister added that India's vaccine manufacturing and innovation capability is appreciated all over the world as it has made a mark in producing quality and affordable medicines.

Congratulating BBIL for innovating another vaccine in collaboration with BIRAC, Jitendra Singh said that "India has taken a lead in developing vaccines and medicines for diseases common in the developing world."

He also stated that ZyCoV-D, the world's first and India's indigenously developed DNA based vaccine for Covid-19 to be administered in humans including children and adults 12 years and above, was also developed in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology in the Ministry of Science & Technology under 'Mission Covid Suraksha' through BIRAC.

iNCOVACC is a cost effective Covid-19 vaccine which does not require syringes, needles, alcohol wipes, bandage, etc, saving costs related to procurement, distribution, storage, and biomedical waste disposal, that is routinely required for injectable vaccines.

It utilises a vector-based platform, which can be easily updated with emerging variants leading to large scale production, within a few months. These rapid response timelines combined with the ability of cost effective and easy intranasal delivery, makes it an ideal vaccine to address future infectious diseases.

A rollout of iNCOVACC is expected to begin in private hospitals that have placed advance orders. Initial manufacturing capacity of several million doses per annum has been established, this can be scaled up to a billion doses as required. iNCOVACC is priced at Rs 325 per dose for large volume procurement by State Governments and Government of India.

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Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 25 (SocialNews.XYZ) While the Covid-19 vaccines are saving lives, serious side effects, inducing inflammation in the heart, have been reported after vaccinations, along with other premature non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

However, new research now claims the reported adverse events are low in number.

According to the WHO, more than 850 million cases and over 6.6 million deaths from Covid have been reported worldwide.

Currently, the death rate has been reduced due to the decreased pathogenicity of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, but the major factor in the reduced death rates is the "administration of more than 12.8 billion vaccine doses globally".

According to a paper published in open-access scientific journal MDPI, the scientific community must investigate the entire spectrum of Covid-19 vaccine-induced complications so that necessary safety measures can be taken, and current vaccines can be re-engineered to avoid or minimise their side effects.

"We describe in depth severe adverse events for premature metabolic, mental, and neurological disorders; cardiovascular, renal, and autoimmune diseases, and reproductive health issues detected after Covid-19 vaccinations and whether these are causal or incidental," the researchers wrote.

In any case, "it has become clear that the benefits of vaccinations outweigh the risks by a large margin", they added.

However, pre-existing conditions in vaccinated individuals need to be taken into account in the prevention and treatment of adverse events.

Diabetes and Covid-19 have a bidirectional relationship. In addition to causing new onset or worsening pre-existing diabetes, diabetes and hyperglycemia are linked to a worse prognosis in Covid-19 patients.

However, despite the likelihood that severe hyperglycemia is exceedingly uncommon in Covid-19 vaccine recipients, "it is essential for clinicians to be aware of these side effects and anticipate severe hyperglycemia in individuals exhibiting post-vaccination symptoms such as excessive urination, excessive thirst, vision problems, and fatigue," the team wrote.

In the context of cardio-vascular diseases (CVDs), since a causal relationship has not been demonstrated between Covid-19 vaccination and the onset of hypertension, and patients with hypertensive crisis rarely need hospitalization, Covid-19 vaccinations show substantial benefits compared to its risks.

"Regarding arrhythmia, although a case of paroxysmal ventricular arrhythmia was reported for the BNT162b2 vaccine, no causal association was found," said the researchers.

Moreover, exposure to Covid-19 presents a significantly higher risk of developing arrhythmia. The trend of Covid-19 vaccine-related myocarditis, on the other hand, is comparable to that of other viral infections, with a greater prevalence among teenagers and young adult males.

Most notably, the risk of myocarditis and hospitalisation in this group of vaccinated individuals is lower than that in unvaccinated Covid-19 patients, said the paper.

Regarding neurological disorders, mass vaccinations have confirmed that the risks of acquiring severe neurological complications are by far much lower for individuals vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccines than individuals who tested positive for Covid-19, it added.

NCDs, also known as chronic diseases, are non-transmissible diseases of often long duration. Examples of NCDs include mental health conditions, stroke, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease.

Source: IANS

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Hong Kong, Jan 24 (SocialNews.XYZ) Around 92 per cent of the population in the Chinese capital of Beijing will have Covid by January 31, a new study published in peer-reviewed journal Nature Medicine has revealed.

Nearly 76 per cent of people in Beijing had contracted Covid-19 as of December 22.

It was expected to reach 92 per cent by January 31, according to researchers from the University of Hong Kong, reports South China Morning Post.

For the study, the researchers tracked the reproduction rate of Omicron variant BF.7 in Beijing in November and December, after China eased its zero-Covid policy.

There was a surge in cases across the country after the policy changes.

The study estimated that the reproduction rate jumped from 1.04 on November 11 to 3.44 a week later - meaning that "one person with the virus could infect 3.44 others".

Their modelling had shown an estimated peak of 1.03 million daily cases on December 11.

"Surveillance programmes should be rapidly set up to monitor the spread and evolution of Sars-CoV-2 infections, and further work should be done to track the transmissibility, incidence and infection rate of the epidemic," the researchers wrote.

The number of people with severe Covid-19 infections had peaked on January 5.

The country reported about 13,000 Covid-related deaths in hospitals between January 13 and 19.

China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that 681 hospitalised patients died of respiratory failure, and 11,977 died of other diseases combined with a Covid infection.

Source: IANS

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Seoul, Jan 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) South Korea reported 9,227 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, the lowest number in more than three months, health authorities said, amid a slowdown in infections and less testing over the Lunar New Year holiday.

The new cases, including 60 from overseas, brought the total caseload to 30,008,756, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

The nation, with a population of 51.6 million, also reached the grim milestone of 30 million, three years after its first Covid-19 case was reported on January 20, 2020.

Monday's tally marked the lowest since October 10, 2022, when the country reported 8,973 new cases.

The country added 26 Covid-19 deaths, bringing the death toll to 33,235. The number of critically ill patients came to 450, slightly down from 460 the previous day, the KDCA said.

On Friday, the government said it will lift a mask mandate for most public indoor spaces January 30, but people will still be required to wear masks on public transportation and in medical facilities.

The government has also been closely watching overseas visitors amid the recent surge in infections in China following Beijing's lifting of its zero-Covid policy in December.

Source: IANS

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Beijing, Jan 22 (SocialNews.XYZ) Eight in 10 people in China have now been infected with Covid-19, a prominent government scientist has claimed.

Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the present "wave of epidemic has already infected about 80 per cent of the people" in the country of 1.4 billion people, CNN reported.

His claim came amid concerns the travel rush that takes place around the Lunar New Year holiday period -sometimes dubbed the 'world's largest human migration' - could spread the virus to the countryside and cause a second wave of infections, CNN reported.

But Wu, speaking on his personal social media account, said this scenario was unlikely as so many people had already caught it.

"In the next two to three months, the possibility of a large-scale Covid-19 rebound or a second wave of infections across the country is very small," Wu said.

China's Ministry of Transport estimates over 2 billion passenger trips will take place during the 40-day Lunar New Year season as people across the country return to their hometowns for family reunions for the first time without domestic travel restrictions since the start of the pandemic over three years ago, CNN reported.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that more than 26 million passenger trips were taken on the eve of Lunar New Year.

That is only half of the number of travelers from the same day in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but 50.8 per cent higher than 2022, it said.

More than 4.1 million people traveled by train and 756,000 people by air for holiday reunions on the day before the start of Lunar New Year, CCTV added.

The country's road transport system registered more than 20 million passenger trips on the same day, 55.1 per cent higher than the number from 2022, CNN reported.

As of Friday, China's transport system had handled over 560 million passenger trips in the first 15 days of the 40-day ongoing Spring Festival travel rush via rail, highway, water, and air, up 47.9 per cent from the same period last year, according to CCTV.

Previously, research by the National School of Development at Peking University had suggested more than 900 million people, or 64 per cent of the Chinese population, were "likely" to have been infected with Covid-19 as of January 11, CNN reported.

The university's research also suggested the epidemic peaked across much of the country on December 20, about 13 days after China began easing its Covid restrictions.

By the end of December, infections had peaked everywhere in the country, according to the research.

Chinese health authorities have made similar claims, saying on Thursday that visits to clinics for fever and Covid hospitalisations in China have declined since their peaks in late December and early January respectively.

According to the authorities, the number of Covid patients needing critical care in hospitals has also peaked.

Nearly 60,000 people with Covid died in Chinese hospitals between December 8 and January 12 after China abruptly scraped its "zero-Covid" policies, according to government data, CNN reported.

According to an internal estimate from the nation's top health officials, in the first 20 days of December almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid.

Source: IANS

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Toronto, Jan 22 (SocialNews.XYZ) People with hybrid immunity are the most protected against severe illness and reinfection, a new study has found.

Results from global data show vaccination and a prior Covid-19 infection offer the best defence against severe illness and reinfection, according to a University of Calgary research group.

Hybrid immunity occurs when someone has had at least the full series of vaccines and has a prior infection, in any order.

The study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases will help public policy makers understand the optimal timing of vaccinations.

"The results reinforce the global imperative for vaccination. A common question throughout the pandemic was whether previously infected people should also get vaccinated. Our results clearly indicate the need for vaccination, even among people who have had Covid-19," said Dr Niklas Bobrovitz, first author on the study.

In the study, investigators were able to look at immune protection against Omicron after a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (the virus that causes Covid-19), vaccination, or hybrid immunity.

"Protection against hospitalization and severe disease remained above 95 per cent for 12 months for individuals with hybrid immunity," said Dr Lorenzo Subissi, WHO-Scientist and senior author on the study.

The systematic review and meta-analysis find that protection against Omicron infection declines substantially by 12 months, regardless of whether you've had an infection, vaccinations, or both.

It means that vaccination is the best way to periodically boost your protection and to keep down levels of infection in the population.

While the findings demonstrate that vaccination along with a prior infection carries the most protection, the scientists warn against intentional exposure to the virus.

"You should never try to get Covid-19," said Bobrovitz.

"The virus is unpredictable in how it will affect your system. For some, it can be fatal or send you to hospital. Even if you have a mild infection, you risk developing a long Covid."

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 21 (SocialNews.XYZ) Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Saturday joined the growing debate on the serious side-effects of Covid-19 vaccines, saying he had "major side effects from my second booster shot".

In a tweet, he said that he "felt like I was dying for several days".

"Hopefully, no permanent damage, but I dunno," the billionaire said, adding that "first mRNA booster was ok, but the second one crushed me".

He said that he had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with no bad effects, "except my arm hurt briefly".

Musk's admission about the side-effects of Covid vaccines came as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla evaded difficult questions about the effectiveness of the company's vaccine during the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davis.

Bourla refused to answer any questions and instead repeatedly responded with phrases such as "Thank you very much" and "Have a wonderful day".

Musk also revealed that his cousin, who is young and in peak health, "had a serious case of myocarditis" and "had to go to the hospital" after the Covid vaccine jab.

The debate over the side-effects of Covid vaccines is gaining ground worldwide, including in India.

In India, the government earlier this week re-affirmed the after-effects of different Covid-19 vaccines, but refuted a report based on an IANS RTI plea pertaining to the potential ramifications of these jabs as "ill-informed" and providing "erroneous" information.

"As is the case with all other vaccines, those who get vaccinated with different Covid-19 vaccines may experience mild symptoms like injection site tenderness, pain, headache, fatigue, myalgia, malaise, pyrexia, chills, arthralgia etc. Rarely, few individuals may experience severe adverse events depending upon certain predisposing conditions," according to an official statement.

Source: IANS

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Taipei, Jan 19 (SocialNews.XYZ) Chinese cyber authorities have announced an internet censorship crackdown to ensure there are no "gloomy sentiments" caused by pandemic "rumours" during the lunar new year festival, according to a media report.

It comes as health forecasting firm Airfinity estimated that more than 600,000 people have likely died since zero-Covid restrictions were lifted in December 2022 -- 10 times more than Chinese authorities have officially declared, The Guardian reported.

The month-long 'Spring Festival online improvement' programme will target those spreading what authorities deem to be "rumours" about the spread of Covid and patient experiences, the report said.

The national cyber administration specified "in-depth rectification of false information and other issues to prevent gloomy sentiments".

It specifically cited the investigation and punishment of "online rumours related to the epidemic" and "fabricating patient experiences", as well as producing or sharing fake virus treatments. The announcement said the work would "prevent misleading the public and causing social panic".

Social media has been awash with personal stories of people contracting Covid, struggling to source medication or healthcare, and losing elderly relatives to the disease. The personal experiences of many jarred with the official narrative that the outbreak was under control and the response "science led", prompting unusual levels of online criticism against the government, The Guardian reported.

The ruling Communist party government is hypersensitive to foreign criticism of its Covid response and accusations that it is not being transparent with data. Early warnings about the outbreak by Chinese doctor Li Wenliang were initially dismissed and punished as rumour. More recent reporting on the mass outbreak following the lifting of restrictions was branded a "China-bashing carnival" in state media, The Guardian reported.

Source: IANS

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Lucknow, Jan 18 (SocialNews.XYZ) Uttar Pradesh has received a fresh supply of 42,700 Covidshield vaccine doses after a gap of 13 days.

The stock reached Uttar Pradesh Medical Supplies Corporation Limited from the Union government that released it immediately for vaccination.

District immunization officer Dr M.K. Singh said: "With fresh supplies, Covid-19 vaccination will start from Wednesday at 34 centres, including KGMU, SGPGI and RMLIMS and 12 district hospitals and 19 urban and rural community health centres."

He said that both advanced registration through online mode and walk-in registration facility will be available at the vaccination site.

Candidates would have to carry a identification card Aadhaar Card, ration card, PAN card, voter card, passport, driving licence) for vaccination.

"It has been revealed from various researches that Covid-19 does not take severe form after getting vaccination and it reduces the chances of passing on infection to others. Therefore, everyone above the age of 18 years must get vaccinated," he said.

Vaccination had come to halt in government centres earlier this month due to shortage of vaccines.

Source: IANS

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Yangon, Jan 17 (SocialNews.XYZ) Myanmar had vaccinated more than 37.67 million people for Covid-19 as of Saturday, the ministry of health's latest data showed.

The figures comprised over 30.86 million people aged 18 and above and more than 6.8 million people aged under 18 years old, the ministry was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

The health ministry confirmed three new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the tally to 633,753 on Monday.

Myanmar recorded a total of 19,490 deaths from Covid-19 and 614,221 recoveries as of Monday, according to the ministry.

The Southeast Asian country detected its first Covid-19 cases in March 2020.

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 17 (SocialNews.XYZ) The nearly 60,000 Covid-related deaths China reported for the first five weeks of its current outbreak, the largest the world has ever seen, may underestimate the true toll by hundreds of thousands of fatalities, experts were quoted as saying in a media report.

China's abrupt pivot from Covid Zero in early December (2022) unleashed a surge of omicron infections and led to 59,938 virus-related deaths in the nation's hospitals through January 12, Bloomberg news agency reported, citing the figures disclosed by the National Health Commission.

While the number swamps the few dozen deaths previously recorded in the official tally - which drew widespread criticism both at home and abroad, including from the World Health Organization (WHO) - experts say it's still likely to be an underestimate given the enormous scale of the outbreak and the mortality rates seen at the height of omicron waves in other countries that initially pursued a Covid Zero strategy, the news agency reported.

"This reported number of Covid-19 deaths might be the tip of the iceberg," Zuo-Feng Zhang, chair of the department of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at University of California, Los Angeles was quoted by the news agency as saying.

While the figure is roughly in line with what Zhang estimated might be coming from the country's hospitals, he said it's only a fraction of the total Covid deaths across the country.

Using a report from the National School of Development at Peking University that found 64 per cent of the population was infected by mid-January, he estimated 900,000 people would have died in the previous five weeks based on a conservative 0.1 per cent case fatality rate. That means the official hospital death count is less than 7 per cent of the total mortality seen during the outbreak, the news agency reported.

The official toll translates to 1.17 deaths daily for every million people in the country over the course of five weeks, according to a Bloomberg analysis. That's well below the average daily mortality rate seen in other countries that initially pursued Covid Zero or managed to contain the virus after relaxing their pandemic rules.

When omicron hit South Korea, daily deaths quickly climbed to nearly seven for every 1 million people. Australia and New Zealand saw mortality nearing or topping four per million a day during their first winters with omicron. Even Singapore, which had a well-planned and gradual shift away from its zero tolerance approach, had deaths peak at about two per million people daily.

"These figures would suggest that China is having a very mild wave, with very few deaths per case," Louise Blair, head of vaccines and epidemiology at the London-based predictive health analytics firm Airfinity, was quoted by the news agency as saying. "It would be the lowest of any country/region abandoning a zero Covid policy."

It could be that many of the country's deaths occurred in nursing care facilities or at home, explaining some of the undercount, Blair said, as China's latest disclosure only counted hospital deaths. Reports of overwhelmed crematoriums around the country suggest excess mortality is at a high level.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently spoke with Ma Xiaowei, the director of China's National Health Commission, about the Covid-19 situation in the country. "WHO appreciates this meeting, as well as the public release of information on the overall situation," the United Nations' health agency said in a statement.

Chinese officials have provided information to the WHO on a range of topics, including outpatient clinics, hospitalisations, patients requiring emergency treatment and critical care, and hospital deaths related to Covid-19 infection.

The WHO is currently analysing the information, which covers early December 2022 to 12 January 2023, and allows for a better understanding of the epidemiological situation and the impact of this wave in China.

Source: IANS

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Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 16 (SocialNews.XYZ) Covid restrictions, like those stipulated during the pandemic time, will be in force in Kerala with immediate effect for a month, it was announced on Monday.

All will have to wear masks and maintaining of social distancing is also a must at all places.

A government order to this effect came out on Monday evening which states that the fresh steps are being undertaken to prevent Covid from spreading.

Among the guidelines include wearing of masks at all places including in all types of vehicles.

The order stipulates placing of sanitisers at shops and all public places besides soap and water.

Of late, the state government has done away with the practise of releasing Covid figures and hence no one knows the exact number of Covid positive patients in the state and the level of spread, if any in the state.

Source: IANS

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By Quaid Najmi

Mumbai, Jan 16 (SocialNews.XYZ) It's official. The government's two top watchdogs have admitted to 'multiple side-effects' of Covid-19 vaccines that were jabbed in over a billion Indians in the past more than two years.

The startling revelations are made by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) in an RTI reply to Pune businessman Prafful Sarda.

India has permitted AstraZenaca and Serum Institute of India, Pune's 'Covishield' and SII's own 'Covovax'; vaccines of three Hyderabad-based companies -- the government-run Bharat Biotech Ltd.'s 'Covaxin', Dr. Reddy's Lab imported 'Sputnik V', Biological E. Ltd.'s 'CorBEvax', and later, Cadila Healthcare Ltd., Ahmedabad's 'ZyCov-D' only for teenagers (12-17 age).

In a specific query by Sarda on the side-effects of all these jabs, the ICMR'S PIO Dr. Leyanna Susan George and CDSCO's PIO Sushanta Sarkar, have cited a plethora of ramifications arising out of all these vaccines comprising their FAQs.

Covishield takes the lion's share of its after-effects on the jabbed janta -- injection site tenderness or pain, multiple red spots or bruises beyond the injected site, persistent vomiting without reasons, severe or persistent abdominal pains or headaches with or without vomiting, shortness of breath, chest pains, pain in limbs or swelling on pressing of calf/arms, weakness/paralysis of limbs of any particular side or parts of the body, including cranial nerves, unprecedented seizures, pain in eyes, blurred vision or diplopia, change in mental status, encephalopathy or depressed level of consciousness.

Covovax side-effects are injection site pain/tenderness/induration, fatigue, malaise, headaches, fever, soreness of muscles, joint pains, nausea of vomiting, chills, body-ache or extreme pain in limbs, Asthenia (weakness or lack of energy), Injection site pruritus (itching, rash, red skin, hives), enlarged lymph nodes, back pains, and rarely dizziness or drowsiness.

Covaxin displays mild symptoms AEFIs like injection site pain/swelling, headaches, fatigue, fever, bodyache, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, giddiness, tremors, sweating, cold and cough.

Sputnik V manifests with chills, fever, arthralgia, myalgia, asthenia, headaches, general discomfort, injection site pain/swelling/hyperaemia, or nausea, dyspepsia, loss of appetite, or occasional enlarged regional lymph nodes.

CorBEvax shows effects like fever/pyrexia, headaches, fatigue, body pains, myalgia, nausea, or arthralgia, urticaria, chills, lethargy, besides injection site pain/erythema, swelling, rash, pruritis or irritation.

"The replies by ICMR-CDSCO are blatantly shocking. Though the government has declared that "vaccination is totally voluntary", why was the compulsion created indirectly by barring people from travelling in buses, trains, flights, inter-state movements, going out to hotels, restaurants, multiplexes, malls, etc. This trapped more and more panicked people into getting themselves jabbed without knowing the after-effects," said Sarda sharply.

He urged the government to release data on whether adequate publicity on all these possible side-effects was done through media, by hospitals, vaccination centres, and if the health ministry initiated any public safety campaigns for the gullible masses, now that vaccine-related deaths are being reported in India and worldwide.

Sarda cited how India had donated crores of free vaccines -- leading to an uproar in 2021 -- to many poor countries worldwide and questioned whether all the potential complications of the jabs were brought to the notice of the people in those nations.

"All the global agencies have set the benchmark that only those vaccine candidates that show an efficacy of at least 50-60 per cent will be considered. Most of the vaccines have shown an efficacy of 70-90 per cent within the short period of two or three months of observation. More than 100 crore people have received at least a single dose of Covid-19 vaccine and the proportion of side effects is very low," the government has assured.

After the initial mass-vaccinations, mostly free was completed, from August 2022, the government has permitted conditional market sales of Covishield and Covaxin but the others -- Sputnik V and CorBEvax -- remain specifically for "restricted emergency use", as per the RTI.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) Healthcare workers across China are seeing large numbers of people who have been re-infected with the Omicron variant of Covid-19, putting a further strain on the country's beleaguered healthcare system, media reports said.

"The incidence of re-infections with Omicron has increased significantly," an attending physician surnamed Chen at the No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of the Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine said, RFA reported.

"Some data show that around 100,000 people out of three million cases were reinfections, which is about 3 per cent," Chen said.

Reports of infection rates of around 70 per cent across much of China in recent days would mean an estimated 900 million people in China have been infected at least once with Omicron. If Chen's figure were to be extrapolated nationwide, that would mean the country is also seeing around 10 million reinfections, RFA reported.

A healthcare worker surnamed Li in the northern city of Shijiazhuang said medics are now seeing a wave of secondary infections, due to the damage wreaked by Covid-19 on the immune system.

"We're hearing about a very large number of re-infections in out-of-town areas, due to the damage done to the immune system by the first infection with Covid-19," Li said. "People are presenting with pain that is five to 10 times worse than what they had during their first infection."

A doctor in the same city who declined to be named said patients are presenting with re-infections as early as one month after recovering from their first, and with immunity that has been weakened by the virus itself, RFA reported.

Her account was backed up by healthcare workers at hospitals in the northern city of Taiyuan and in the central province of Hunan, it reported.

Top internal medicine expert Zhang Boli warned the general public in an interview with the Science and Technology Daily newspaper to be on their guard against re-infection.

Virologists have long warned of the potential for re-infection with the Omicron variant of Covid-19. A study by researchers at London's Imperial College described Omicron as being highly capable of re-infecting people, even if they are triple-vaccinated, RFA reported.

Study lead author Rosemary Boyton said in June 2022 that getting infected with Omicron "does not provide a potent boost to immunity against re-infection with Omicron in the future".

Meanwhile, a November 10, 2022 study in the scientific journal Nature found that "re-infection (with Covid-19) further increases risks of death, hospitalisation and sequelae in multiple organ systems," both during the initial disease and in the months that follow.

Hundreds of millions of people are currently heading back to their ancestral homes ahead of Lunar New Year on January 22, sparking fears of a rural wave of Covid 19 infections peaking sometime in March, RFA reported.

Source: IANS

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Taipei, Jan 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) Private services offering Chinese travellers access to mRNA vaccines are attracting droves of mainlanders to Hong Kong and Macau seeking a booster shot that their government has refused to approve, according to a media report.

As part of its dismantling of the country's zero-Covid policy last month, China's government also lifted quarantine and other border restrictions, The Guardian reported

It prompted a wave of interest in overseas travel, particularly for the upcoming lunar new year holiday later this month. However, there also appears to be a large contingent chasing the mRNA bivalent vaccines, the report said.

Throughout the pandemic, the Chinese government has allowed only domestically produced vaccines for its citizens, refusing to approve foreign-made jabs. Health experts and medical studies have raised concerns about the efficacy of China's vaccines, which use an inactivated virus, compared with the mRNA vaccines available elsewhere, The Guardian reported.

The appetite for the overseas vaccine is difficult to quantify, but a rash of services offering travel packages and self-funded shots in Hong Kong and Macau have sprung up in recent weeks. Clinics in Thailand and Singapore have also reported increased interest from Chinese travellers, the report said.

The BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA vaccine is free for the residents of Hong Kong and Macau. On Thursday, the Hong Kong government announced it would no longer provide free shots of any vaccine for non-residents from next week, in response to the "recent increase in demand".

On Chinese social media platforms, C3Hong Kong Life, a travel service for mainlanders, advertised bookings from 8 January for people to travel to Hong Kong and get the shot for HK$1,680.

It offered a full vaccination travel package providing "expert guidance, vaccine appointments, round-trip itinerary arrangements, border pickup and other services".

The Macau University of Science and Technology has a website for people to book a vaccine shot for prices beginning at HK$1,360. All appointments - about 100 a day - are booked until mid February, The Guardian reported.

Staff at one cross-border travel agency, xBorder, said they had facilitated "a lot" of people travelling to Macau - where entry restrictions were looser than Hong Kong - in the last quarter of 2022, and were getting a lot of interest from people wanting to go to Hong Kong.

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) As countries like China and Japan bear the maximum brunt of the global Covid surge, India has survived the immediate threat and according to health experts, majority of the population has got either natural immunity or vaccine-induced immunity to all coronavirus strains currently active in the country.

Given the exposure of the Omicron variant in India in the last one year, there is hardly any possibility of any significant public health problem to be caused by Covid in near terms.

"We will not see any surge in serious cases of Covid-19 in India in the near future. However, we need to prepare and strengthen our epidemic response system by taking lessons from the last two years," Dr. Harshal R. Salve, Professor at Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS, New Delhi, told IANS.

While China saw a massive surge in Covid and hospitalisation, especially in the month of December, Japan that is reeling under the eighth wave of the pandemic, has reported record coronavirus-related deaths almost every single day.

According to Dr Anita Mathew, Infectious Disease Specialist at Fortis Hospital in Mulund, Mumbai, in the last two and half years, India has seen three waves of Covid-19 with different variants like Delta, Omicron and its subvariants in circulation, which caused an "endemicity".

"Along with that, we also had a robust vaccination programme in place that helped us reduce the severity of infection, and it helped control further spread of the disease. We have over 95 per cent of the population with primary doses of vaccine and 30 per cent have got a booster," Dr Mathew told IANS.

In India, we have a large population that has already been infected with Covid, thus the combination of infection and vaccination has developed a certain amount of herd immunity, said heath experts.

"Thus, we have not yet seen any worrying situation of either wave of outbreaks or severe disease. Whereas, in China, the zero-Covid policies and strict regulations for the first couple of years are an exception in this respect, which is probably why there is a sudden surge of infections there," she explained.

The current variant in China is not the new one; it's a part of the Omicron family and India is likely to see a wave only if we have a new subvariant that "we haven't been exposed to in the past,a said the doctor.

According to Dr. Ravindra Gupta, Head of Department, Internal Medicine at C.K. Birla Hospital in Gurugram, Covid wave resurgence in China and other countries has evaded India so far.

"It could be an effect of negative Covid tests being made compulsory by the government travelling from the impacted countries. The other reason, and most likely, is the herd immunity that has developed in our country due to effective mass vaccination against Covid. However, we should still be cautious and vigilant," said Dr Gupta.

Source: IANS

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Taipei, Jan 12 (SocialNews.XYZ) People in China have been warned against travelling to visit their elderly relatives during the lunar new year holiday, as Covid spreads rapidly through cities and into regional and poorer areas, the media reported.

Prof Guo Jianwen, a member of the state council's pandemic prevention team, urged people "don't go home to visit them" if elderly relatives had not yet been infected, The Guardian reported.

"You have all kinds of ways to show you care for them, you don't necessarily have to bring the virus to their home," Guo said on Thursday.

The holiday period, which begins on January 21, was supposed to be a return to festivities and travel after the lifting of most restrictions in December but instead it is coinciding with a wave of infections.

Health authorities said this week the peak of infections had passed in several big provinces and cities including Beijing and Shanghai.

But there are serious concerns for regional areas where health resources are more limited and older people are more likely to be unvaccinated.

"The situation in rural China is very murky," said Chen Xi, an assistant professor specialising in ageing and public health at Yale University.

"We have strong reasons to believe rural China will get much worse as the spring festival approaches," The Guardian reported.

There have been reports from people in rural areas across China of mass infections, deaths, and healthcare woes, including areas where authorities say infections are yet to peak, The Guardian reported.

Villagers in Guangdong province reported shortages of medication and oxygen supplies.

In Shaanxi, a musician who played at funerals reported being busier than ever, while a woman returning to her small Hunan village decried at least six new customary funeral sheds - temporary structures built for people to mourn an individual.

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 10 (SocialNews.XYZ) The global acceptance of Covid-19 vaccines increased from 75.2 per cent in 2021 to 79.1 per cent in 2022, according to a survey in 23 countries (including India) that represent more than 60 per cent of the world's population.

The willingness of parents to vaccinate their children also rose slightly, from 67.6 per cent in 2021 to 69.5 per cent in 2022.

However, vaccine acceptance decreased in eight countries and almost one in eight vaccinated respondents, particularly younger men and women, were hesitant about receiving a booster dose, according to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Worryingly, almost one in eight (12.1 per cent) vaccinated respondents were hesitant about booster doses. This hesitancy was higher among the younger age groups (18-29).

Led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and the The City University of New York's Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, the study underlines a wide variability among countries and the need for tailored communication strategies in addressing vaccine hesitancy.

"The pandemic is not over, and authorities must urgently address vaccine hesitancy and resistance as part of their Covid-19 prevention and mitigation strategy," says Jeffrey V. Lazarus, Head of the Health Systems Research Group at ISGlobal.

The 23 highly-populated countries that were hit hard by the pandemic part of the study were Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and the US.

The data reported here correspond to the third survey conducted between June and July 2022.

Of the 23,000 respondents, 79.1 per cent were willing to accept vaccination. The finding represented an increase of 5.2 per cent from June 2021.

However, eight countries observed increased hesitancy (from 1 per cent in the UK to 21.1 per cent in South Africa).

"We must remain vigilant in tracking these data, containing Covid-19 variants and addressing hesitancy, which may challenge future routine Covid-19 immunisation programmes," said Ayman El-Mohandes, senior author.

The survey also provides new information on Covid-19 treatments received.

Globally, ivermectin was taken with the same frequency as other approved medications, even though the WHO and other agencies do not recommend its use to prevent or treat Covid-19.

Also, almost 4 per cent respondents reported paying less attention to new Covid-19 information than before and having less support for vaccine mandates.

"Our results show that public health strategies to enhance booster coverage will need to be more sophisticated and adaptable for each setting and target population," says Lazarus.

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 9 (SocialNews.XYZ) Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) sentinel sites referred 324 Covid-19 positive samples for sequencing to 22 INSACOG labs between December 29 to January 7, and the results revealed presence of all Omicron variants like BA.2 and its sub-lineages including BA.2.75, XBB (37), BQ.1 & BQ.1.1 (5), etc, in the community, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.

However, no mortality or rise in transmission were reported in the areas where these variants were detected, it said.

The Union Health Ministry has initiated random testing of international travellers arriving at various airports from December 24. Since then, 13,57,243 international passengers arrived in India on 7,786 flights at various airports out of which 29,113 randomly selected passengers were tested by RT-PCR.

A total of 183 samples were found positive which were subsequently sent for whole genome sequencing to 13 INSACOG labs. Sequencing of 50 samples revealed Omicron and Omicron sub-lineages including recombinant variants. XBB (11), BQ.1.1 (12) and BF7.4.1 (1) were the main variants detected in these samples of international passengers.

Source: IANS

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Beijing, Jan 9 (SocialNews.XYZ) The top adviser shaping China's coronavirus response insists winter was the best time for the country to reopen from zero-Covid when considering vaccination uptake and waning immunity, according to his interview with state broadcaster CCTV, the media reported.

Liang Wannian, the leader of the Covid-19 expert response team under the National Health Commission, acknowledged that the opening-up had harmed the elderly population in China, causing many deaths and severe cases, because the virus had spread too widely and too fast, South China Morning Post reported.

But he stressed that, contrary to popular belief, opening up in winter was better than in summer because the protection provided by vaccination last summer was not strong enough but if delayed until next summer, the immunity of Chinese would have waned.

"At that time (last summer), we were not able to achieve the desired level of protection for the entire elderly population. The overall national vaccination rate for the elderly was relatively low, so we took advantage of these window periods to further strengthen the vaccination of the elderly population," Liang told CCTV on Sunday.

Even the coming summer was not ideal given the waning immunity from vaccination, he said.

"June and July is the best time, with few respiratory diseases, but in June and July it is also the time when the protection of active immunity from vaccination in our elderly population is decreasing," Liang said, South China Morning Post reported.

Liang defended the timing of the reopening and said by the end of 2022 developments in the pandemic and within China's population were an opportunity to adjust its policy.

"The pathogen's harm has decreased, and China's immunity level increased, including its vaccination rate, especially among the elderly," he said. "Furthermore, we have been preparing resources, including drugs and measures to help severe cases," South China Morning Post reported.

Source: IANS

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London, Jan 9 (SocialNews.XYZ) Almost 90 per cent of people in China's third most populous province have now been infected with Covid-19, a top local official has said, as the country battles an unprecedented surge in cases, media reported.

Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission for central Henan province, told a press conference that "as of January 6, 2023, the province's Covid infection rate is 89 per cent," The Guardian reported.

With a population of 99.4 million, the figures suggest about 88.5 million people in Henan may now have been infected.

Visits to fever clinics peaked on December 19, Kan said, "after which it showed a continuous downward trend."

The opening of China's borders on Sunday was one of the last steps in the dismantling of the country's zero-Covid regime, which began last month after historic protests and has led to a huge wave of infections.

Covid cases are expected to soar further as the country celebrates lunar new year later this month, with millions set to travel from big cities to visit vulnerable older relatives in the countryside, The Guardian reported.

In the first wave of pre-holiday travel, official data showed 34.7 million people travelled domestically on Saturday - up by more than a third compared with last year, according to state media.

Source: IANS

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London, Jan 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) China has taken down more than 1,000 social media accounts - some with millions of followers - that criticised the government's Covid policies.

Social media platform Weibo said it had suspended or banned accounts for what it described as personal attacks against Chinese Covid specialists, The BBC reported.

Weibo did not specify which posts had prompted the action.

China scrapped its strict zero-Covid policy in December and has seen a rapid surge of infections and deaths.

Online criticism has until recently largely focused on the strict enforcement of Covid regulations, including lockdowns that required people to stay at home in isolation for weeks.

But recent posts have taken aim at experts who have defended the sudden decision to drop restrictions, despite supporting them just weeks ago, The BBC reported.

Weibo said it had spotted almost 13,000 violations, including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers. Temporary or permanent bans have been handed to 1,120 accounts.

"It is not acceptable to hurl insults at people who hold a different point of view, or publish personal attacks and views that incite conflicts," Weibo said in a statement.

Any kind of move that is destructive to the [Weibo] community would be handled in a serious manner", BBC reported.

Since China abandoned key parts of zero-Covid following historic protests against the policy, there have been reports of hospitals and crematoriums being overwhelmed.

But China has stopped publishing daily cases data and has announced only 22 Covid deaths since December using its own strict criteria.

On Saturday, China marked the first day of the 40-day period of Lunar New Year, known as the world's largest annual migration of people.

The Ministry of Transport said it expects more than two billion passengers to travel over the next 40 days, an increase of 99.5 per cent year-on-year and reaching 70 per cent of trip numbers in 2019, The BBC reported.

This has led to widespread concerns that the festival may see another wave of infections, especially in rural areas that are less well-equipped with ICU beds and ventilators.

From Sunday, China will drop a requirement for travellers coming from abroad to quarantine, meaning many Chinese will be able to travel abroad for the first time in almost three years, The BBC reported.

Source: IANS

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Beijing, Jan 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) As China opened borders and resumed travel on Sunday, billions of local travellers are set to make overseas trips in the next few days, triggering Covid surge concerns in various countries as they put restrictions in place for flights coming from China.

Global Times reported that the downgrading management of Covid-19 officially took effect on Sunday and the inbound quarantine for international arrivals was cancelled.

"The order numbers for international flights recorded a year-on-year growth of 628 per cent, reaching the highest since March 2020, data from online travel agency LY.com showed," said the report.

Among the surging orders, the numbers of inbound and outbound flights account for 48 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region became the top destination for inbound tickets on Sunday, with flight orders from Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland rose 62 per cent from the previous day.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced that international flights can directly land in Beijing without being redirected to other entry points.

Some 18 international flights, majorly from Hong Kong, were expected to arrive in Beijing on Sunday.

Shenzhen and Hong Kong will review the first phase of border reopening in a week. On the basis of consensus reached by both sides, arrangement of the second phase will be announced.

According to China's Ministry of Transport, more than two billion passengers are expected to take trips over the next 40 days.

China on Saturday marked the first day of "chun yun", the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel.

European Union officials are "strongly" recommending that all member states insist on negative Covid tests from Chinese arrivals before they travel, reports BBC.

France, Spain and Italy have already introduced testing but others such as Germany had been monitoring the situation.

England, outside the EU, requires pre-flight testing on China arrivals.

The US has imposed mandatory Covid-19 tests on travellers from China beginning January 5.

India has mandated a Covid-19 negative test report for travellers arriving from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.

Air travellers to Canada from China must test negative for Covid-19 no more than two days before departure.

China is currently seeing a surge in the Covid cases, with reports of hospitals and crematoriums being overwhelmed.

Source: IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) India recorded 163 fresh Covid cases in the last 24 hours, said the Union Health Ministry on Sunday.

This is a marginal decline from the 214 cases reported the previous day.

The active caseload has declined to 2,423 cases, accounting for 0.01 per cent of the country's total positive cases.

The weekly positive rate currently stands at 0.11 per cent, while the daily positive rate stands at 0.10 per cent.

The recovery of 247 patients in the last 24 hours took the cumulative tally to 4,41,46,781. Consequently, India's recovery rate stands at 98.80 per cent.

Also in the same period, a total of 1,56,040 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall tally to over 91.21 crore.

With 58,938 vaccines administered in the last 24 hours, India's Covid-19 vaccination coverage exceeded 220.13 crore as of Sunday morning.

Source: IANS

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Washington, Jan 7 (SocialNews.XYZ) As millions of Chinese head home for the Lunar New Year celebrations on January 22 and hospitals struggle amid a nationwide wave of COVID-19 cases, concerns are growing for the country's rural healthcare systems, which have far fewer resources than the big city hospitals to treat the elderly and vulnerable, according to media reports.

Officials have warned of a fresh surge in coronavirus cases brought to rural areas by city residents traveling back home to welcome in the Year of the Rabbit, state broadcaster CGTN reported.

"We are extremely worried about the potential COVID-19 surge in rural areas as people are visiting homes after three years of strict measures that prevented people from going home," Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration under the National Health Commission, had told journalists on January 3, RFA reported.

Villages in general lack adequate medical care or preventive measures, with many rural counties only served by a single hospital, two at the most, news site Guancha.cn quoted Wuhan University sociologist Lv Dewen as saying.

But some rural doctors told Radio Free Asia that the rural COVID-19 wave, which started last month in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, is already well under way.

A doctor working at the Gaoping township clinic in the central province of Hunan, serving a local population of some 40,000, said the clinic is already stretched with an influx of coronavirus cases.

"I haven't had a day off in two weeks," said the doctor, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

"If we get sick with a fever, we carry on working if we're not too bad."

Source: IANS

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Washington, Jan 6 (SocialNews.XYZ) The internal border between the former British colony of Hong Kong and the rest of China will open for the first time in three years on Sunday, with tens of thousands of people expected to undergo Covid-19 test required to move back and forth between the two sides, according to a media report.

The move comes after China last month abandoned the rolling lockdowns, mass surveillance and quarantine camps of its zero-COVID policy in a bid to kickstart its flagging economy, RFA reported.

Authorities there will be lifting travel bans and opening its ports and airports across the country at the same time.

"This doesn't just pose a deadly threat to the 1.4 billion people in China; it will also affect its neighbors," Hong Kong current affairs commentator To Yiu-ming wrote.

"Hong Kong won't be able to bear the brunt [of an expected influx of people from mainland China] unless it uses its pandemic policy to protect the interests of Hong Kongers."

"Although the exact numbers are unknown, the outbreak in China has been enough to cause social panic, because it is obvious to everyone that the medical system is on the verge of collapse, with funerals and cremations booked to capacity," To said, RFA reported.

He said now appears to be a very bad time to open China's borders.

"What's even more incredible is ... they are opening the borders at a time when COVID-19 is ravaging the country, with many reports of ground-glass opacity in patients' lung scans," he said, in a reference to a higher likelihood of pneumonia, RFA reported.

"It's natural that people are trying to escape and seek assistance... and for them, it's a great time to come to Hong Kong to seek medical treatment or buy medicine," he wrote.

While quarantine-free travel across the border will resume, it will be done in a "gradual and orderly manner," China's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said in a statement on Thursday.

Under the new rules, anyone entering the rest of China from Hong Kong will need to show a negative PCR test from the past 48 hours, with this requirement waived for those coming in from Macau who haven't traveled outside the city in the previous seven days, RFA reported.

Anyone who declares they have a fever on their customs health declaration form will be tested for COVID-19, but otherwise will be waved through. Anyone found to have mild sickness or an asymptomatic infection will be asked to self-isolate on arrival and seek medical treatment, but this is only a recommendation, the statement said.

Source: IANS

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Tokyo, Jan 6 (SocialNews.XYZ) Japan on Friday reported 456 Covid-related deaths, an all-time high as there was no stopping for the coronavirus that has killed thousands in just a span of one month in the country.

There were concerns that the Covid infection and death numbers would only go up with the New Year festivities.

The country reported 245,542 coronavirus cases, up 18,638 from Thursday and Tokyo reported 20,720 new cases, down 15, reports Japan Today.

The number of infected people hospitalised with severe symptoms in Tokyo was 53, up four from Thursday, health officials said. The nationwide figure was 659, up nine from Thursday.

In December 2022, Japan registered a record 7,688 deaths due to Covid, surpassing the earlier monthly high of 7,329 logged in August during the previous coronavirus wave.

According to Mainichi Japan, the death toll rose sharply since November with the onset of the eighth wave.

While the severity rate has dropped with the Omicron strain of the coronavirus, the variant's increased transmissibility means that infections have risen by an order of magnitude, the report mentioned.

The number of people dying from Covid-19 over the last three months in Japan is nearly 16 times higher than during the same period last year.

Over the four-month period from August 31 to December 27 this year, people in their 80s represented 40.8 per cent of the deaths.

"Those in their 90s and above accounted for 34.7 per cent, and those in their 70s made up another 17 per cent. In total, people in these three age brackets accounted for 92.4 per cent of the fatalities," the report mentioned.

Source: IANS

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Kolkata, Jan 6 (SocialNews.XYZ) Amid fresh Covid-19 scare, the West Bengal health department is worried over the increasing reluctance of people to go for booster vaccine dose shots.

Rough figures compiled by the state health department show reluctance and most people take booster doses unnecessary.

The figures also reveal how the public sincerity in going for the first dose declined marginally for the second dose and finally nosedived in case of the booster dose.

A state health department official said that over seven crore people went for the first dose, which slid down for the second dose. However, when it came to third and booster dose the number fell to just 1.5 crore.

As a result several doses of vaccines at the state health department's family welfare stores at Bagbazar in north Kolkata have expired. A state health department official said that up to December last year 80,000 doses of COVAXIN expired and more will expire by the current month of January.

Renowned physician from the city, Dr Arindam Biswas, however, does not want to blame only the public reluctance in the matter.

"There is a major reason that prompted this reluctance and the reason is economical. Unlike the first two doses, the third and the booster dose was not provided free by the government. So many people, who do not even earn enough to have two meals a day, preferred to stay away from the booster dose.

"Now coming to the point of nasal vaccine, the government introduced it at a very late stage, and that too has restricted its supply to private hospitals only. Finally, it seems that the government's drive to create awareness among the people is also low. So, in my opinion if the government is really keen that people shed their reluctance about the third dose, it should introduce provisions for providing them free also," Biswas added.

Source: IANS

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Washington, Jan 6 (SocialNews.XYZ) China has denied allegations that it is hiding Covid infection or death figures, saying the severe illness and death in the country compares favourably with other nations, the media reported on Friday.

According to South China Morning Post, Beijing's embassy in Washington, DC, countered allegations after several countries, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), criticised China for withholding actual Covid figures, requesting the country to come clean on the infection surge and hospitalisations.

"China has always shared its information and data responsibly with the international community," Liu Pengyu, spokesman for Beijing's Washington embassy, said in a news briefing.

Chinese scientists are "now working with WHO to have further discussions about the data," he said, adding that in the last month, "we have two exchanges with the WHO".

Last week, Mike Ryan, the WHO's emergencies director said that the current figures being published from China under-represented the numbers of hospital admissions, ICU admissions and "particularly in terms of death".

The WHO had said that the curbs on travellers from China by various countries is "understandable" in the absence of comprehensive information from the ground.

"In the absence of comprehensive information from #China, it is understandable that countries around the world are acting in ways that they believe may protect their populations," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said in a tweet.

China's National Health Commission (NHC) has stopped publishing daily Covid-19 case data, handing over the charge to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as nations, including India, ask the country to share actual Covid data on an urgent basis.

However, it will still take days for the CDC to activate the epidemic monitor reporting system and allow the organisation to collect and report infection data effectively.

Source: IANS

The post Not hiding Covid infections or death figures, claims China appeared first on Social News XYZ.