Category: Life & Style

Maya Angelou, a poet, and activist become the first Black woman to appear on the US quarter coin. The new version of the coin was unveiled on Monday by the US.

The American Women Quarters Program, which was signed into law in January 2021, will also be the first figure commemorating. Angelou, author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Amnesty International hopes to honor Angelou in the future.

According to the press release from the agency, the US mint has started shipping the first few coins with Angelou’s likeness on the American quarter, a 25-cent piece.

Mint Deputy Director Vetri Gibson said, “It is my honor to present our nation’s first circulating coin dedicated to celebrating American women and their contributions to American history”. He further added that each of the quarter coins of 2022 is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishment to celebrate the historic coin program. He said that Maya Angelou was featured on the reverse of the first coin series whose words are used to inspire and uplift.

Between 2022 and 2025, the program directs the US Mint to issue quarters each year that features five different female American trailblazers.

In a new lockdown to curb the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus, millions of residents in central China are home confined. A mass testing drive has been launched by the government to control the situation. 14 million residents are ordered to undergo testing. According to the reports, all the non-essential businesses are also shut down.

Beijing is looking forward to hosting the Winter Olympics next month with its “zero-Covid” strategy. The city is under high alert due to the new outbreak with targeted lockdowns, lengthy quarantines, border restrictions.

These measures have kept the number of cases far lower in the country as compared to the virus hotspots in the United States and Europe. However, Beijing is battling with local flare-ups in multiple cities.

The new strain presents a challenge in Anyang. Since Saturday, the total caseload has touched the 84 mark, and two active cases are currently found in Henan province. The residents of the city are ordered not to leave their homes or go on a drive.

Three cities in Henan are battling with outbreaks including the provincial capital Zhengzhou. This forced the shutting down of local schools and kindergarten, and dine-in restaurants.

On Sunday, according to the African Union’s health watchdog by AFP, Africa has recorded more than 10 million coronavirus cases. The African Centres for Disease Control (CDC) released the data showcasing the 55 member states of the African Union with more than 10,028,508 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The CDC confirms recording the death toll of 231,157. Several countries on the continent have enforced new restrictions following the discovery of the highly contagious Omicron variant in South Africa in late November. However, due to poor access to jabs and some vaccine hesitancy, vaccine uptake in Africa, home to nearly 1.2 billion people, has been low.

The new Omicron variant has surged cases in nine nations including Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Among these nations, South Africa remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 infection. It records the overwhelming majority of thousands of new cases per day for every new variant.

Namibia’s doctor Shangula said that the cases are going up but hospitalization of the covid cases is low. The new variant Omicron has quickly become the dominant variant across the African region.

According to the professor of biological science at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology, Leondios Kostrikis said that a new strain of COVID-19 was found. This new strain is the combination of the Delta and Omicron variants.

On Friday in a televised interview he said, “there are currently omicron and delta co-infectious and we found this strain that is a combination of these two”. The new variant is named “deltacron” as the study suggests omicron-like genetic signatures are found within the delta genomes.

Professor and his team have so far studied 25 cases whose statistical analysis shows the relative frequency in which the combined infection is higher in patients’ hospitalization due to covid-19 when compared to those who are not being hospitalized.

On Jan 7, the reports of the 25 deltacron cases were sent to GISAID, the international database that tracks changes in the virus. Professor further added that they will see in the near future if this strain is more pathological or it will prevail or is more contagious.

According to his personal view on the new variant, he said that it will also be displaced by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Due to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant, Hong Kong is on alert and has decided on taking some stringent measures to curb the spread of the disease in the state. On Wednesday, the Hong Kong government barred flights from India and seven other nations for at least two weeks which is one of the most important steps to prevent the spread of the disease.

Hong Kong has currently reported 114 cases of Omicron and all of them have been imported. However, the Special Administration Region (SAR) is currently witnessing the local spread of the disease too after a long time. The new variant Omicron has challenged the “zero Covid” policy which was maintained in both Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

Travellers from eight countries- India, the U.S, the U.K, Canada, Pakistan, Philippines, and Australia have been barred from entering Hong Kong. Additionally, there have been some strict measures for the countries from where the flights are open. The restrictions for other international passengers include quarantining after arrival, mass testing, and quarantining of close contacts to ensure that all safety precautions are taken and to bring the cases to zero.   

The major countries like U.S, U.K and Australia are at the worst position in terms of the effects of the new Omicron variant. According to news agency Reuters, the U.S broke the record with reporting over million Covid-19 cases.

The rapid increase in the Covid cases have also led to a sharp rise in hospitalization in the U.S with over 50% increase over the past week. More than 100,000 people have been hospitalised which has been the highest record of the year. The U.S is the worst hit due to the Omicron variant and has reported almost 978,856 new cases on Monday. However, the death rate has not witnessed any surge and is stable for now.

The situation in the U.K is also not very good. The number of hospitalizations has also increased in the U.K as it recorded 200,000 fresh cases outnumbering the previous count. According to AFP (a news agency), the U.K President Boris Johnson said that the hospitals in U.K are working on the “war footing” as there is an acute shortage of hospital staff.

France too is facing a huge crisis due to the pandemic with 270,000 new cases recorded on Tuesday. President Emmanuel Macron is pressing on spreading the vaccination among the citizens as soon as possible.

The United States on Monday again shook the world by reporting almost 1 million cases in one day as the true data of Covid-19 cases over the holiday season came into the limelight. As the highly mutated Omicron variant of Covid-19 is spreading fast like wildfire across the nation, the disease had spread rapidly during the holiday season but the government delayed the reporting of these cases which worsened the situation. The data collected on Monday was double the number reported just four days ago of 590,000 cases. The John Hopkins University collected the data which relies on the local governments for information which delays the reporting of the number of cases.

Many U.S citizens are relying on the tests that they are taking at home, which is not even reported by the local governments which proves that the actual number of cases must be much more than what is being currently reported. The actual record surely must be higher than what is being reported in the U.S which means that the situation is quite serious in the nation.

However, the rising cases are not yet proved to be ‘severe’ or ‘fatal’ in nature. Till now, the newly infected citizens are isolating themselves at home. The schools, colleges, air travel, shopping complexes are shut down amid the rising cases and the hospitals are on the alert to receive more cases.

As the entire world is battling the spread of the highly infectious Covid-19 variant Omicron, there is another variant diagnosed in France ‘IHU’ which is said to be even more mutated than Omicron and is more infectious than the former. There are 12 persons who have already been infected with this new variant and if not controlled in time, it will likely spread like wildfire and would be another huge global issue to tackle.

The researchers at the Institute IHU Mederranee Infection discovered this new variant of Covid-19, therefore, it is named ‘IHU’. According to the reports, the IHU or B.1.640.2 variant has 46 more mutations than the Omicron variant which means that it has a higher probability to spread rapidly in the world than Omicron which has already caused a disaster in the world. The researchers said that these data prove the unpredictability of the emergence of more SAARC Covid-19 variants in the coming years and their introduction in a given geographical area. However, it is not necessary that these new Covid-19 variants would be deadly as it has not been proven yet. The detection of 12 cases of IHU variant in France has raised the alarm over there with the government thinking of taking strict actions to curb the spread of this variant.

The United States Food and Drug Administration stated on Monday that the third dose of Pfizer and BioTech Covid-19 vaccine would be available even for children from 12 to 15 years of age. It also shortened the interval for booster shot eligibility from six months to five months. Seeing the worsening situations, it even authorized the third shot for children aged 5 to 11 years of age who are immunocompromised.

The FDA’s decision came following the rapid rise in the Covid-19 cases all across the globe including the U.S.A where the new Omicron variant is causing a big hazard with the number of cases increasing rapidly. As many children have returned back from their schools and colleges, they are likely to catch infections, and to avoid this situation, it is important for them to get vaccinated as early as possible. The Director of FDA Peter Marks said that “based on the FDA’s assessment of currently available data, a booster dose of the currently authorized vaccines may help provide better protection against both the Delta and Omicron variants. The U.S government has been urging its citizens to get the booster shot for since long, and it has now decided to impose further push to get its citizens, including children fully vaccinated with all three vaccine shots.  

The Philippines has witnessed the biggest Covid-19 surge of all time as the daily infections have reached two month high in January 2022. The Health Department says that the number of cases is likely to rise even more in the coming days after they found out that the highly contagious and mutated Omicron variant that is spreading steadily in other parts of the world has reached the country.

Following the rapidly rising cases in the Philippines, its government has decided to expand its restrictions in Manila from Wednesday onwards. The Presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles said that the provinces of Bulacan, Kavite, and Rizal that surround Manila are under high restrictions alert due to the steady increase of Covid-19 cases in these areas. He said that the restrictions are likely to continue till mid-January and the unvaccinated citizens have to stay at home unless they have some emergency. Restaurants, Salons, Parks, and Churches would operate but at a lower capacity. However, physical commencement of classes and sports activities would be banned. The order came a day after Manila went ahead with the Alert at Level 3.