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Showing posts from December, 2020

UK jobless rate highest since 2016 as second COVID-19 lockdown hits

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  Britain’s unemployment rate hit its highest in nearly five years in the three months to November, when coronavirus cases began to rise for a second time and most of the country returned to a partial lockdown. Redundancies touched a record high, taking the unemployment rate to 5.0%, its highest since mid-2016, according to official data, although the increase was slightly weaker than economists’ forecasts. There were some signs of a limited recovery in December, when lockdown measures eased, although a deterioration is likely in early 2021 as a tougher lockdown shut schools and closed most non-essential businesses to the public. Tax data for December showed a 52,000 increase in the number of staff on company payrolls from November, but there were 828,000 fewer workers on payrolls than in February. Economists said the data showed the jobs market was holding up better than many forecasters had feared.Unemployment has been kept down by the government’s Job Retention Scheme, which support
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Supermarket chain Tesco offers to help with Britain’s vaccine programme

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  Supermarket chain Tesco has offered to help administer coronavirus vaccines in Britain as politicians set ambitious targets for the nationwide inoculation campaign. The retailer said its cold chain transport subsidiary, Best Food Logistics, had offered its network of refrigerated lorries and warehouses for the distribution of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine, which needs to be stored at temperatures between 2°C and 8°C. Empty hotels and conference centres also offered their venues as makeshift vaccination clinics, newspaper  The Telegraph  reported.AstraZeneca said it had the capacity to deliver two million doses of the vaccine to the UK each week. Hopes are high that 24 million of the most vulnerable UK residents could be immunised by Easter, which will fall on April 4. The government has yet to respond to the offers of help from the private sector. But Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday he was confident the National Health Service could handle the mammoth task
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After a harrowing 2020, Asia tiptoes into the New Year

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  As Asia says goodbye to 2020 - a tumultuous year that saw the planet roiled by a deadly pandemic - celebrations will be smaller, shorter and more muted amid fears of coronavirus flare-ups. In Beijing, the capital of the world’s most-populous country, an annual New Year light show at the China Central Television Tower scheduled for Thursday through Sunday has been called off. The Beijing Yonghe Lama Temple, a tourist site, has also cut the number of visitors allowed by half since Thursday. Many Chinese tourists are staying home or taking shorter domestic trips. The coronavirus emerged a year ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and has since spread globally, infecting more than 82 million people and killing more than 1.7 million. In Wuhan, where the pandemic is thought to have originated, thousands are expected to gather at several popular landmarks across the city centre for the countdown to 2021. Some said they were being cautious, but weren’t particularly worried.“Safety is the
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India likely to start the new year with a Covid vaccine, hints DCGI

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Representational image.(REUTERS) India is likely to get a vaccine against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the New Year, hinted the country’s apex drug regulator during a webinar on the science behind the vaccine development that enabled it to reach from the lab to the people in less than 12 months. “We will have a Happy New Year with something in hand, that’s all I can hint at,” said VG Somani, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), on Thursday. The subject expert committee (SEC) under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) will meet on January 1 to consider the emergency-use authorisation application of three companies—Pfizer, Serum Institute of India that is to manufacture the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. This will be the second meeting of the SEC with the companies to examine the data that has been produced so far. Somani said that the approval process was fast-tracked in view of the pandemic by quickly processing all applications, a
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California finds new coronavirus variant after first US case in Colorado

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  California Governor Gavin Newsom said his state had found its first known case of the new variant of the coronavirus, after   the first US case was announced in Colorado . Mr Newsom discussed the case, which was discovered in Southern California, during an online conversation with the country's leading infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, on Wednesday. “I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd. It’s to be expected,” Dr Fauci said. Mr Newsom did not provide any other details about the person who was infected with the mutated version of the virus in the country's most populous state.The Colorado and California cases have sparked questions about how the  variant circulating in the UK  arrived in the US and whether it was too late to stop it. Top experts say it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the country. The confirmed case in Colorado is a National Guardsman in his 20s who had not been travelling, officials said.He has mild symptoms and is iso
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5 new cases of mutant UK virus found; total reaches 25

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  A total of 25 people in the country have tested positive for the new UK variant genome of SARS-CoV-2 so far, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday. These 25 people include the 20 who were found positive with the mutated strain on Tuesday and Wednesday. "All 25 persons are in physical isolation in health facilities," the health ministry said.  Among the new five cases, the mutated UK strain was detected in four at the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune and one new case was sequenced at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, it said. Comprehensive contact tracing has been initiated for co-travellers, family contacts and others. "The situation is under careful watch and regular advice is being provided to the states for enhanced surveillance, containment, testing and dispatch of samples to INSACOG labs," the ministry said on Tuesday, The presence of the new UK variant has already been reported by Denmark, the Netherlands, Austra
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भोलिदेखि अनलाइन श्रम स्वीकृति खुल्ने

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  काठमाडौं ।  भोलिबाट अनलाईन पुन : श्रम स्वीकृति खुल्ने भएको छ। वैदेशिक रोजगार विभागले एक सूचना जारी गर्दै अनलाईन प्रणालीबाट पुन : श्रम स्वीकृतिको कार्य भोलि (शुक्रबार)बाट खुला गर्ने जानकारी दिएको हो। ‘श्रम स्वीकृति लिन चाहने बैदैशिक रोजगारीमा कार्यरत नेपाली नागरिकहरुले म्यादी जीवन बीमा र कल्याणकारी कोषको रकम भुक्तानी गरी अनलाईन माध्यमबाट नै श्रम स्वीकृतिको आवेदन दिई श्रम स्वीकृति प्राप्त गर्न सकिने गरी अनलाईन प्रणालीबाट पुन : श्रम स्वीकृतिको कार्य १७ गतेबाट सूचारु हुने छ।’ सूचनामा भनिएको छ।
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Pakistan to purchase 1.2m Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm

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A healthcare worker takes a nasal swab sample from a woman at a Covid-19 testing facility at a hospital in Karachi. — AP Pakistan will purchase 1.2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm, a minister said on Thursday. “The Cabinet Committee has decided to initially purchase 1.2 million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinopharm, which will be provided free of cost to frontline workers in the first quarter of 2021,” Pakistani Minister for Science and Technology said on Twitter.The announcement comes after China approved a Covid-19 vaccine developed by an affiliate of state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm on Thursday, its first approved shot for general public use. The approval, announced by China’s National Medical Products Administration, comes after the UAE this month became the first country to roll out the vaccine to the public.
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यमनको विमानस्थलमा प्रधानमन्त्री लक्षित बम विष्फोट, २६ जनाका मृत्यु

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  यमनको दक्षिणी शहर अदनस्थित एक विमानस्थलमा बम विस्फोट हुँदा २६ जनाको मृत्यु भएको छ। ५० जनाभन्दा धेरै घाइते भएका छन्। बीबीसीका अनुसार मारिनेहरूमा अधिकांश सरकारी अधिकारी र कर्मचारी रहेका छन् । सो जहाजले छिमेकी देश साउदी अरबबाट नयाँ सरकारका सदस्यहरूलाई लिएर आएको थियो। जहाज अवतरण हुनासाथ विमानस्थलमा ठूलो विस्फोट भएको थियो। बुधबार भएको हमलाको एक भिडियो सार्वजनिक भएको छ, जहाँ हमला भएको स्पष्ट देखिएको छ। मन्त्रिपरिषद्का नवनियुक्त सदस्यहरूलाई स्वागत गर्न विमानस्थलमा धेरै मानिसहरू उपस्थित भएका थिए। त्यहाँका सूचनामन्त्रीले यो हमलाको जिम्मेवार हुथी विद्रोही समूह रहेको बताएका छन्। यमनका प्रधानमन्त्री मीन अब्दुल मलिक सइदले आफू र मन्त्रिपरिषद् सदस्यहरू सकुशल रहेको बताएको बीबीसीले जनाएको छ । यमनको एउटा समाचार वेबसाइट अल-मस्दरले श्रम मन्त्रालयका उप-सचिव मारिएका र दुई जना उप-मन्त्री घाइते भएका उल्लेख गरेको छ । हुथी विद्रोहीलाई इरानले सहयोग गरिरहेको आरोप लाग्ने गरेको छ। हुथी विद्रोहीले यमनको अधिकांश पश्चिमी हिस्सामा नियन्त्रण गर्दै अरब समर्थित राष्ट्रपति अब्दुरब्बु मन्सुर हादीलाई देश छाडी भाग्न बाध्य प
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Doctor drives three hours to get Covid-19 vaccine to rural Michigan hospital

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  A Michigan doctor and his silver pickup truck are playing a key role in getting   the Covid-19 vaccine   to remote parts of the state. Dr. Richard Bates drove almost 150 miles earlier this month to take a cooler carrying 130 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine from the  MidMichigan Medical Center  in Midland to their hospital in Alpena -- a city of about 10,000 people on Lake Huron's Thunder Bay.The trip takes almost three hours each way and Alpena's about 70 miles from the interstate, so much of the drive is on two-lane roads. Bates is an OB-GYN doctor and the regional vice president of medical affairs at MidMichigan Health, which received a shipment of 2,925 doses of the vaccine on December 16. Inside the multi-state network that is getting vaccines to rural America He was on the road hours after a UPS truck made the delivery, and the first doses were  administered in Alpena later that day . It was just two days after an  ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Q
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China Approves First Covid Vaccine for Use in General Population

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  China’s drug regulator approved the country’s first coronavirus vaccine for general public use, a sign of confidence in the experimental shots that the nation plans to roll out within and beyond its borders. China’s National Medical Products Administration gave its approval to a Covid-19 vaccine developed by state-owned  China National Biotec Group Co. , or CNBG, officials told reporters in Beijing Thursday. With the approval, the vaccine -- which has been authorized for emergency use in China since mid-year along with other frontrunner shots -- will be made commercially available, meaning it can be administered to the general population. Regulators from the U.S. to Singapore have approved shots over the past month, among them vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc, but those have been largely for emergency use, a status China granted to its developers months ago.The go-ahead for broader use underscores China’s determination to be a major player in supply
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US logs more than 3,900 Covid-19 deaths in new daily record

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  Medics assess a woman for Covid-19 symptoms before taking her to a hospital in Yonkers, New York. — AFP More than 3,900 people died of Covid-19 in the US on Wednesday, according to a count released by Johns Hopkins University, a new daily record for fatalities from the virus. The Baltimore-based university said 3,927 people had died of the coronavirus in the 24 hours before 8.30pm (0130 GMT Thursday) in the US, the worst-hit country in the world, while 189,671 new cases had been recorded. That brought the US total to 19,715,899 infections and 341,845 deaths since the pandemic began. The country’s leading infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, warned on Sunday that the worst of the pandemic was likely yet to come, with the death toll rising at an alarming rate in the winter months and after major holiday gatherings. The country has begun a mass campaign of vaccinations and 2.8 million people have already received jabs, but that is well behind the 20 million inoculations the admini
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NYE2021: UK widens lockdowns as new Covid variant surges

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  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered millions more people to live under the strictest Covid-19 restrictions from Thursday to counter a new variant of the virus that is spreading at a “sheer pace” across the country. Case numbers have risen sharply in Britain in the last two weeks, driven in part by a new strain that is up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original. The government, which reported another 981 deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours, said three quarters of England’s population would be in the top tier of restrictions from 0001 on Thursday, covering 44.1 million people. In those areas, hospitality venues and non-essential shops are closed and households cannot mix. “We must face the reality that the sheer pace of the spread of this new variant requires us now to take even tougher action in some areas,” Johnson told a news conference. He urged people to stay at home on Thursday night and avoid any public New Year’s Eve celebrations. The government also
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Year-end cheer: India closer to Covid-19 vaccine after UK’s Oxford nod

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A researcher in a laboratory at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, England, works on the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. (AP) The UK approved on Wednesday the coronavirus vaccine developed by University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, paving the way for its rollout at a time when the country is in the grip of its worst wave of infections, and offering an important endorsement that will likely be taken into account in India, where authorities reviewed the inoculation later in the day. While the UK said it will begin administering the first shots from next week, Indians will likely need to wait a little longer since the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) – which is vetting the data from safety and efficacy trials – said it is yet to reach a decision and a further meeting will be convened on Friday. The SEC decision is likely to factor in the approval by UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Age
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Argentina Approves AstraZeneca Vaccine for Emergency Use

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  Argentina became the second country in the world and the first in Latin America to approve AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccine was given approval for emergency use over the course of the next year, according to a  statement  by Argentina’s health regulator ANMAT. The shot presents an adequate “risk-benefit” balance and will be available only with a medical prescription, it added. Argentina, alongside Mexico, reached an  agreement  in August to produce the vaccine for Latin America. The countries will make 150 million to 250 million initial doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Biotechnology company mAbxience will produce the active substance in Argentina and Mexican laboratory Liomont will complete the process of formulation before the finished vaccine is shipped across the region.Argentina has also approved Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and started vaccinating health workers earlier this week. The AstraZeneca vaccine, which earlier Wednesday received i
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Big Economic Stimulus Works. And That's a Problem

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  If the global financial crisis taught economic policy makers anything, it was go early and go hard. The cost of hesitating proved too great. Now the world’s most powerful central banks have expanded bond purchases to about $17 trillion — equivalent to the gross domestic product of China and the U.K. combined — to keep borrowing costs low and boost Covid-ravaged economies. This helped prevent a health emergency from morphing into a financial meltdown. But with growth reviving and vaccines in the works, officials from Washington to Wellington now face an unexpected consequence: They may have been too successful for their own good.  For all the pre-pandemic talk about central banks being out of ammunition, ​​​​​​they were able participants in the nascent recovery. The Federal Reserve took the lead, rapidly  slashing interest rates to zero and reviving quantitative easing . These actions were followed by aggressive measures in South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, India and Indo
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UK jobless rate highest since 2016 as second COVID-19 lockdown hits

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  Britain’s unemployment rate hit its highest in nearly five years in the three months to November, when coronavirus cases began to rise for a second time and most of the country returned to a partial lockdown. Redundancies touched a record high, taking the unemployment rate to 5.0%, its highest since mid-2016, according to official data, although the increase was slightly weaker than economists’ forecasts. There were some signs of a limited recovery in December, when lockdown measures eased, although a deterioration is likely in early 2021 as a tougher lockdown shut schools and closed most non-essential businesses to the public. Tax data for December showed a 52,000 increase in the number of staff on company payrolls from November, but there were 828,000 fewer workers on payrolls than in February. Economists said the data showed the jobs market was holding up better than many forecasters had feared.Unemployment has been kept down by the government’s Job Retention Scheme, which support
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PM inducts new ministers in Cabinet

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  Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli appointed eight new Cabinet ministers and one minister of state today, first time after he recommended dissolution of the House of Representatives on December 20. President Bidhya Devi Bhandari administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly appointed ministers. Portfolios of ministers Name of the minister Portfolio Top Bahadur Raymajhi Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Manichandra Thapa Drinking Water and Sanitation Prabhu Sah Urban Development Prem Bahadur Ale Forest and Environment Ganesh Thagunna Federal Affairs and General Administration Gauri Shankar Chaudhary Labour, Employment, and Social Security Juli Kumari Mahato Women, Children, and Senior Citizens Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal (portfolio changed) Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation Hridayesh Tripathi (portfolio changed) Health and Population Lilanath Shrestha (portfolio changed) Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe (portfolio changed) Land Management, Cooperati
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Covid-19: Preparations on to vaccinate 250-300 million Indians on priority

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A research scientist at India's Serum Institute, the world's largest maker of vaccines. India is gearing up to vaccinate at least 250-300 million people, including about 30 million health care and frontline workers, against  Coronavirus disease (Covid-19)  by July next year, for which it will be looking at procuring about 500-600 million vaccine doses. The Centre is regularly following up with the states to devise measures to successfully launch the Covid-19 vaccination drive across the country that is likely to start in the first quarter of next year when the vaccine is expected to be made available for use. Initially, the approvals to manufacturers are likely to be under the emergency use authorisation, and later after analysing full phase-3 clinical trials data, there will be marketing approvals in place for use by general public.A crucial part of the strategy is to get the exact list of people who need to be vaccinated on priority. States were asked to draw up a list of the
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