Philippine President Duterte “has decided to remain in the country to attend to pressing domestic concerns in light of the surge of Covid-19 cases”…reports Asian Lite News
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will not attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders’ summit scheduled on Saturday in Jakarta, Indonesia, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Thursday.
In a statement, the DFA said Duterte “has decided to remain in the country to attend to pressing domestic concerns in light of the surge of Covid-19 cases”, reports Xinhua news agency.
The Philippines now has over 962,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases, including 16,265 deaths.
The DFA said Duterte has designated Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin as his “special envoy” to the summit that will discuss ASEAN’s “collective efforts in addressing threats and challenges to peace and stability in the region”.
“This special leaders’ meeting will address urgent matters in the region, including recovery efforts, the situation in Myanmar, ASEAN community-building efforts, external relations, and regional and international issues,” the DFA statement added.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Central government is also planning to press the Indian Air Force (IAF) into airlifting oxygen containers and equipment from other nations…reports Asian Lite News
India is deliberating on importing oxygen containers and equipment from friendly foreign nations to address the oxygen crisis faced by the country in the middle of the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Central government is also planning to press the Indian Air Force (IAF) into airlifting oxygen containers and equipment from other nations.
“The deliberations are still on,” said a source, adding that the places from where these containers and other equipment could be airlifted have been identified.
Oxygen cylinders
The source said that the problem India is facing in importing oxygen is transportation due to an acute shortage of containers to carry the life saving gas. The government is in talks with all the stakeholders in this matter.
With the second wave of Covid-19 hitting India hard, the Centre has roped in the Indian Air Force to airlift oxygen cylinders, regulators, and essential medicines as the National Capital Region faces shortage of oxygen cylinders and medicines.
The IAF has started airlifting personnel, doctors and nursing staff to help the government battle the pandemic.
Sources said that the IAF has airlifted doctors and nursing staff from Kochi, Mumbai, Vizag and Bengaluru for setting up of a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Covid hospital in Delhi.
The IAF transport fleet is supporting the fight against Covid-19(Twitter)
The force has also airlifted oxygen containers from the DRDO in Bengaluru for the Covid centres in Delhi.
On Tuesday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had directed all the defence establishments to set up more Covid-19 hospitals, use emergency powers and bring in retired personnel to tackle the crisis.
A roadmap on how military infrastructure can be used to ramp up the fight against Covid-19 was also discussed in a Covid preparedness review meeting chaired by the minister.
The DRDO had stated that it has set up a Covid hospital in Delhi with 250 beds, and the capacity will be increased to 500 and then to 1,000, if required.
Rajnath Singh had instructed that more fully functional Covid hospitals should be set up in Lucknow, Patna, Varanasi and Ahmedabad within 8-10 days and also at other places where they are required.
The IAF transport fleet is supporting the fight against Covid-19(Twitter)
He said that the ESIC Hospital, which was converted to a Covid hospital in Patna, has started functioning with 500 beds. He added that work is on at a war footing to set up a 450-bed hospital in Lucknow, a 750-bed hospital in Varanasi and a 900-bed hospital in Ahmedabad.
There were also discussions on roping in retired military doctors and nursing staff for assistance if they are willing to volunteer.
The minister had also suggested to utilise the services of vaccinated retired armed forces personnel to assist the civil administration and state governments to deal with the current situation.
The facility under the Garuda brand name is owned by AI company Thalamus Irwine….reports Asian Lite News
India’s first Artificial Intelligence-enabled Covid-19 testing facility for international passengers has commenced operations at Terminal 3 of the IGI Airport in New Delhi.
The facility under the Garuda brand name is owned by AI company Thalamus Irwine.
According to the company, the facility is run by an AI-system using computer vision technology and a paper-free backend for processing mass volumes of international passengers.
Presently, destination countries require an ‘Antigen Test’ negative report to allow the passengers inside their jurisdictions.
Industry players such as Lufthansa, KLM and Air France, among others, have had success using the facility.
After the test, passengers get their results in 10-15 minutes on their mobile phones.
As per the company, the passengers of an entire international flight can be tested within a couple of minutes by using the ‘scalable node architecture’, ‘complete digital systems for patient entry’, ‘AI driven process improvement’ and ‘SoP management’.
Besides, IGI Airport’s HOI app allows for seamless management of patient flow to the facility.
In terms of the technology, the system even monitors the SoPs and ensures employees and users are maintaining high levels of security and compliance standards in the sample processing room.
It cited that the facility eliminates majority of the bottlenecks associated with the need to test multiple passengers in quick succession.
The Cloud based infrastructure also ensures independence from physical storage on premise.
Furthermore, the facility offers several firsts such as AI based monitoring of every move the staff makes, so as to monitor the safety protocols such as adherence to SoPs during sample collection etc.
In case the SoPs are flouted, the system intervenes by alerting the employees to correct their behaviour and also informs the store manager.
Health worker collect swab sample testing for Covid-19 at CP in new Delhi on Monday March 22, 2021.(Photo:Wasim Sarvar/IANS)
In addition, the AI ensures there aren’t discrepancies between the results entered by the employees with those generated by the system.
Notably, the system acts as a second layer of protection to eliminate incorrect entry of data.
“This centre has been designed bearing in mind the current requirement for fulfilling last minute testing needs of the travellers, where the volume is large and time is of the essence and there is absolutely no possibility of downtime,” said Thalamus Irwine CEO Rishabh Sharma.
“Credit goes to DIAL’s visionary leadership in embracing technology as the frontier tool in ensuring bottlenecks can be eliminated and passengers can get a hassle free service towards creating a safer air traffic,” Sharma added.
At present, India has banned scheduled international flights. However, passengers can still travel to and from few countries under the various ‘Air Bubble’ agreements that have been entered by the Centre.
The move on Wednesday came as the pandemic appears moderately under control in the country, with active coronavirus cases falling,…reports Asian Lite News
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s cabinet has unveiled a roadmap for easing Covid-19 restrictions starting from April 26.
The move on Wednesday came as the pandemic appears moderately under control in the country, with active coronavirus cases falling, reports Xinhua news agency.
The new measures will remain in force until July 31, the date to which the government has extended the state of emergency declared last year at the outbreak of the crisis.
The yellow areas in the government’s three-tiered system would be re-introduced starting from April 26, adding to the orange and red ones, so that Italian regions will again shift periodically from one to another according to local contagion levels.
In the low-risk yellow regions, restaurants and all other food shops will be allowed to serve lunch and dinner outdoors until June 1.
From June 1, indoor services will be allowed, but only until 6 p.m.
Outdoor team sports will resume from April 26, while swimming pools from May 15, and fitness centres from June 1, according to the plan.
All competition sports will resume from June 1, with spectators allowed up to 25 per cent of the full capacity of the facility, but not exceeding 500 people indoors or 1,000 outdoors.
Theatres, cinemas, and other leisure venues will reopen on April 26, with the same cap for capacity.
Under the decree, exhibitions and fairs would restart from June 15, while thermal baths and amusement parks from July 1.
Regions in orange or red will remain subject to the current level of restrictions consistent with medium- or high-risk contagion.
Currently, only three regions — southern Apulia, northern Aosta Valley, and Sardinia Island — were red zones.
From April 26 to June 15, people in the yellow regions will be allowed one visit a day to relatives or friends, four adults maximum plus children.
Starting April 26, the current ban on inter-regional travels would not apply to yellow regions. Moving to and from orange and red zones will be possible for those with a “green Covid-19 card” indicating a swab test valid over 48 hours, full vaccination or recovery from the disease in the last six months.
After a robust discussion among the various parties, the cabinet also confirmed the current 10 p.m.-5 p.m. curfew to stay in force at least till June 1.
In May, the reopening roadmap might be adjusted according to the pandemic situation, local media reported.
Italy has so far registered 3,904,899 cases and 117,997 deaths, according to the Health Ministry.
Some 16.1 million vaccine doses have been administered and 4.7 million people fully inoculated, according to latest government statistics.
The decision comes as nearly 3 lakh new COVID-19 cases and over 2,000 deaths were reported in India on Wednesday, a record-high since the pandemic broke out last year….reports Asian Lite News
France will impose a 10-day quarantine for travellers arriving from India in the coming days to prevent the spread of a COVID-19 variant found in India, the country’s government spokesperson announced on Wednesday.
This comes as nearly 3 lakh new COVID-19 cases and over 2,000 deaths were reported in India on Wednesday, a record-high since the pandemic broke out last year.
The United Kingdom has added India to its travel “red list” earlier this week, on a precautionary basis after reporting several cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India
UK Health minister Matt Hancock on Monday said that the UK has put in place the new variant assessment platform allowing any country in the world to use our genomic sequencing capability if they want to sequence positive cases in order to discover what is happening in their countries.
As per the union health ministry, as many as 2,95,041 new COVID-19 cases and 2,023 deaths were reported in India, taking the total cases to 1,56,16,130, including 21,57,538 active cases.
As many as 1,32,76,039 recoveries have been reported so far, out of which 1,67,457 were reported in the last 24 hours. The death toll stands at 1,82,553
“The success of our vaccination program has demonstrated what the UK can achieve when we bring together our brightest minds,”said Boris Johnson…reports Asian Lite News
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced a new taskforce to find “promising new medicines” to treat coronavirus.
Under the government plans, Britons who test positive for Covid-19 or are exposed to the virus could be sent antiviral tablets or capsules, to take at home as early as autumn this year, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The success of our vaccination program has demonstrated what the UK can achieve when we bring together our brightest minds,” the prime minister said at a Downing Street press briefing.
“Our new Antivirals Taskforce will seek to develop innovative treatments you can take at home to stop Covid-19 in its tracks,” he said.
The UK's new Antivirals Taskforce will identify innovative COVID-19 treatments to reduce transmission and speed up recovery.
We aim to have at least 2 effective take-home treatments by the end of the year.
According to the British government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance, antiviral drugs “could help protect those not protected by or ineligible for vaccines. They could also be another layer of defense in the face of new variants of concern.”
Meanwhile, Johnson said as Britain is continuing to make progress in the fight against coronavirus, “we cannot delude ourselves” that the virus has gone away.
He noted that the majority of scientific experts are of the view that there will be another wave at some stage this year and Britons must learn to live with the virus.
However, he said there was nothing in scientific data to suggest Britain would have to deviate from the roadmap out of lockdown.
In England, all shops reopened from April 12, along with hairdressers, beauty salons and other close-contact services.
Close to “99 million doses of vaccines last week went into high- and upper-middle-income and some low- and middle-income countries,said WHO official…reports Asian Lite News
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that only 1 per cent of the 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were administered last week went in the lowest-income countries.
Close to “99 million doses of vaccines last week went into high- and upper-middle-income and some low- and middle-income countries, but only one percent of that went to the lowest-income countries”, Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the WHO Director-General on Organizational Change said at a press conference on Monday.
Asked whether more vaccines should be produced, Aylward said that “we need to be careful thinking that we can simply build additional capacity”, because “that capacity is still going to the wrong places”, reports Xinhua news agency.
The world body said that it is working with manufacturers to help increase vaccine capacity for the COVAX Facility, a WHO-led initiative to distribute vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.
Aylward said it will “take weeks and months” to increase vaccine supplies and “in the meantime, we’ve got to take some urgent and important decisions about how we are going to use the vaccines that exist today”.
Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist of the WHO, explained at the same press conference that the “immediate need” of COVAX is to increase vaccine supplies by working with manufacturers and suppliers on suppressing “roadblocks and obstacles”, as well as ensuring that export bans “don’t interfere with the process of vaccine manufacturing”.
People wearing face masks work at a shopping mall in Farwaniya Governorate, Kuwait
The curfew hours will remain unchanged, from 7 p.m. and 5 a.m., starting from Thursday until the end of Ramadan…reports Asian Lite News
Kuwait will extend the ongoing partial curfew until the end of Ramadan as part of the country’s efforts to curb the further spread of Covid-19, the government announced.
According to a decision made at a regular meeting of the government on Monday, the curfew hours will remain unchanged, from 7 p.m. and 5 a.m., starting from Thursday until the end of Ramadan.
Minister of Health Bassel Al-Sabah said at the meeting that there is an increase in deaths and infections with more people in intensive care units (ICUs).
The decision may be re-assessed with the regular review of the pandemic situation, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah said after the meeting.
The government also urged residents and citizens to assume social responsibility and get the Covid-19 vaccine, saying it is the only way to reduce deaths and infections as well as pressure on ICUs.
On April 1, the Kuwaiti government decided to further shorten the curfew by one hour to last between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m., and allow walk inside residential areas between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. from April 8 to April 22. Also read:Egypt, Kuwait discuss reconciliation with Qatar
Ursula von der Leyen received the vaccine a day after announcing that Pfizer/BioNTech will deliver additional 50 million vaccine doses…reports Asian Lite News
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has received her first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“After we passed 100 million vaccinations in the EU, I’m very glad I got my first shot of Covid-19 vaccine today,” she said in a tweet on Thursday.
“Vaccinations will further gather pace, as deliveries are accelerating in the EU. The swifter we vaccinate, the sooner we can control the pandemic,” she added.
The European Union’s executive chief received the vaccine a day after announcing that Pfizer/BioNTech will deliver in the second quarter of this year an additional 50 million vaccine doses, originally scheduled for the fourth quarter, reports Xinhua news agency.
On Wednesday, von der Leyen stressed that the EU member states should focus on vaccines that have “proven their worth”, in an indirect reference to the AstraZeneca jab.
Shortage in the supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and concerns over its “possible link to very rare cases of unusual blood clots with low blood platelets” have somewhat stalled the fast vaccination pace.
