Inbound flights from India will remain suspended until July 31, Etihad Airways confirmed. Earlier Emirates had made a similar announcement.

Etihad said on Twitter in reply to a customer query: “Following the latest UAE Government directives, passenger travel from India to the UAE and Etihad’s network has been suspended effective until 31 July 2021.”

There has been a travel ban on flights from India since April owing to the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country; the second wave had seen the spread of the highly transmissible ‘Delta’ variant virus.

But UAE nationals, holders of UAE Golden Visas and members of diplomatic missions who comply with the updated COVID-19 protocols, are exempt from the ban.

Emirates has also suspended flights to and from South Africa and Nigeria till July 31, 2021, in line with government directives.

Although Emirates briefly announced that international flights to Dubai will begin for vaccinated residents on June 23, the decision was revised and the ban was put in place till July 21. The airlines will keep tickets open for passengers who have encountered a flight cancellation.

However, Indian expats desperate to get back to their work in the UAE, have used other means to enter the country. They have taken flights to countries in the UAE green list – Uzbekistan, Serbia, Armenia, Ethiopia etc. – and spent the required 14-day quarantine in those countries before flying to the UAE.

Chauffeur service for economy passengers

Etihad has now rolled out a private chauffeur service for economy passengers to select destinations. They will be collected from Abu Dhabi International Airport and taken directly to their home, hotel or preferred destination in the emirate of Dubai. Indian cities do not figure in the list of destinations as of now.

The offer has come as a welcome news for holiday makers during the six-day Eid al Adha holiday beginning on July 19.

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The United Arab Emirates has overtaken Seychelles to become the world’s most vaccinated nation, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker. The UAE tests more people per capita than most nations and also has one of the lowest fatality rates in the world.

The UAE has so far administered 15.5 million doses in a two-dose regimen, covering 72.1 percent of its population.

Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker is the most up-to-date and comprehensive tally of vaccinations around the globe.

Abdul Rahman bin Mohammad bin Nasser Al Owais, Minister of Health and Prevention, said that this new global achievement adds to the country’s success and record of achievements in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted that it is an international recognition of the success of the UAE’s National Vaccination Campaign.

He acknowledged the vision of the country’s leadership and the efforts of the national health sector in achieving this target. Medical teams and frontliners are working as one team, upon the directives of the UAE’s leadership, to combat the virus, he added.

In June, the Integrated Transport Centre (ITC) of the Department of Municipalities and Transport announced that 7,166 public transport drivers were vaccinated against COVID-19 by end of May 2021 in a campaign launched in coordination with the Department of Health and Abu Dhabi Health Service Company (SEHA) in Abu Dhabi emirate.

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The vaccine is the third to be approved by Health Canada following the December approval of vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc with BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc.

“With Pfizer, Moderna, and now AstraZeneca, Canada will get more than 6.5 million doses before the end of March,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters. “And there will be tens of millions more doses to come between April and June.”

Canada has ordered 20 million doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca, and is due to receive 1.9 million through COVAX – the international initiative set up to provide equitable access to vaccines – in the first half of the year.

On Friday, Canada said it had secured an additional 2 million doses through its agreement with Verity Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc and the Serum Institute of India.

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An expert has told a news channel that the spike in the cornavirus cases in India could be linked to the super spreader events and not the mutations of the virus.

Dr V Ravi, Retired Professor of Neurobiology at NIMHAN and Nodal Officer for Genomic Confirmation of SARS-CoV-2, Government of Karnataka, quoted saying that the upsurge in the India coronavirus cases is triggered by super spreader events and then lack of tracking, testing to detect the spread.

“It is not true that we have our own Indian variant that has emerged with the amino acid mutations that have been seen in Maharashtra. These changes have been witnessed in other places as well. We have been doing genomic sequencing at NIMHANS. We have found both the 440 and the 484 mutations isolated in variants that have been circulating ever since the post lockdown period. There is no variant that has a propensity to spread higher than what has been identified in India,” he said.

On the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines on the new variants of the coronavirus, the report quoted experts as saying that there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that the vaccines will not be effective on the variants.

Amid a spurt in the coronavirus cases in India, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the existing Covid-19 guidelines will remain in force till March 31.

In a statement, the home ministry said while there has been a substantial decline in the active and new coronavirus cases, there is a need to maintain surveillance, containment, and caution so as to fully overcome the pandemic.

The states and union territories have also been advised to speed up the vaccination of the target population so as to break the chain of transmission and overcome the pandemic.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the move Sunday evening after an urgent meeting with other top lawmakers in the Cabinet.

She said they decided to take a cautious approach until they found out more about the outbreak, including whether the infections were of the more contagious variants.

The rest of New Zealand will also be placed under heightened restrictions although will not go into lockdown, Ardern said.

In a significant setback to New Zealand’s efforts to keep the coronavirus from spreading in the community, three people from one Auckland family have tested positive with the source of the infections unknown, health officials announced Sunday.

The news prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to cancel her plans and return to the capital Wellington for further briefings and decision-making.

New Zealand had successfully stamped out community spread of the virus, although new cases are regularly caught at the border among returning travellers, all of whom are required to spend two weeks in quarantine.

Officials said they’re keeping an open mind on how the Auckland mother, father and daughter caught the disease.

They said the mother works at an airline catering company, and officials are investigating whether there is a link to infected passengers.

“We are gathering all of the facts as quickly as we can, and the system that served us so well in the past is really gearing up to do so again,” said COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
He described the cases as new and active.

He said scientists are carrying out genome sequencing to see whether the cases are of the more transmissible variants, and also to see whether they match with any infected passengers.

New Zealand, with a population of 5 million, has reported a total of just over 2,300 cases and 25 deaths since the pandemic started.

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The new mid-stage trial will determine whether the vaccine is effective on people between the ages of 6 and 17, according to a statement from the university.

Around 300 volunteers will be enrolled and first inoculations are expected this month, Oxford said.

The two-dose Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has been hailed as a ‘vaccine for the world’ because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals.

AstraZeneca has a target to produce 3 billion doses this year and aims to produce over 200 million doses per month by April.

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White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement that it is imperative that the report be independent and free from “alteration by the Chinese government”, echoing concerns raised by the administration of former President Donald Trump, who also moved to quit the WHO over the issue.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy fired back with a strongly-worded statement, saying the United States had damaged multilateral cooperation and the WHO in recent years, and should not be “pointing fingers” at China and other countries that supported the WHO during the Covid-19 pandemic.

China welcomed the U.S. decision to reengage with the WHO, but Washington should hold itself to the “highest standards” instead of taking aim at other countries, the spokesperson said.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday said all hypotheses were still open about the origins of Covid-19, after Washington said it wanted to review data from a WHO-led mission to China, where the virus first emerged.

A WHO-led mission, which spent four weeks in China probing the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak, said this week that it was not looking further into the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab, which is considered highly unlikely.

The Trump administration had said it suspected the virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab, which Beijing strongly denies.

Sullivan noted that U.S. President Joe Biden had quickly reversed the decision to disengage from the WHO, but said it was imperative to protect the organization’s credibility.

China refused to give raw data on early Covid-19 cases to the WHO-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, according to one of the team’s investigators, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began.

The team had requested raw patient data on 174 cases that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, Retuers reported.

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Besides the new cases, 15,858 recoveries were reported in the country in the same period, the Ministry said.

The total count includes 1,35,926 active cases and 1,05,89,230 recoveries.

The COVID-19 death toll has reached 1,55,447 with 87 people succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours.

As many as 75,05,010 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the country so far.

A total of 20,40,23,840 samples have been tested for the coronavirus as of February 10. Of these, 6,99,185 samples were tested on Wednesday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) informed.

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At the same time, the government has said a total of 70,17,114 people have been vaccinated so far.

Along with the fresh coronavirus cases, states and union territories have also recorded 11,764 discharges, said the Union Health Ministry. The total number of recovered cases now stands at 1,05,73,372.

India now has 1,42,562 active Covid-19 cases. With 108 deaths, the country’s Covid-19 death toll has now gone up to 1,55,360.

ICMR has said a total of 20,40,23,840 samples have been tested for Covid-19 up to February 10. Of these, 6,99,185 samples were tested on Wednesday.

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AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective and should be deployed widely, including in countries where the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce its efficacy, a World Health Organization panel said on Wednesday.

The benefits of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University outweigh any risks and the shot should recommend for use, including in people aged 65 and older, the WHO panel said.

Earlier South Africa stopped part of its roll out of the AstraZeneca vaccine after data small trial showed it did not protect against mild to moderate illness from the 501Y.V2 variant of the coronvirus now dominant in the country.

The WHO said it expected by mid-February to finalise its review of the shot for emergency use approval under COVAX agreement.

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Moreover, with 117 deaths related to the novel coronavirus infection, total fatality in the country has surged to 1,53,587.

India currently has 1,77,266 active cases and 1,03,45,985 people have been recovered and discharged so far.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 19,30,62,694 samples have been tested for Covid-19 detection up to January 25 with 7,25,577 of them being tested on Monday.

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A total of 30,903 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. The test positivity rate is 10.88. A total of 92,89,304 samples have so far been sent for testing, including LAMP and antigen testing.
It has been confirmed that 17 deaths in the last few days have been caused by COVID-19. This brings the total death toll to 3,624. Further deaths will be confirmed after NIV testing in Alappuzha.

Seventy-three of the confirmed cases are from outside the State and 2,969 people were infected through contact. Contact source for 276 is not clear. The worst affected districts are Ernakulam 468, Kozhikode 418, Kollam 395, Thiruvananthapuram 223, Kottayam 278, Thrissur 289, Alappuzha 260, Malappuram 212, Palakkad 84, Idukki 108, Pathanamthitta 105, Kannur 68, Wayanad 58 and Kasaragod 3.

Forty-three health workers were affected by the disease. Health workers from Kannur 18, Kozhikode 6, Ernakulam 5, Thiruvananthapuram 4, Thrissur, Palakkad, Wayanad 2 each, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Idukki and Malappuram 1 each were affected.
The test results of 5,606 people who were diagnosed and treated were negative. Thiruvananthapuram 202, Kollam 1814, Pathanamthitta 253, Alappuzha 487, Kottayam 439, Idukki 357, Ernakulam 616, Thrissur 222, Palakkad 145, Malappuram 383, Kozhikode 390, Wayanad 63, Kannur 191 and Kasaragod 44 were found to be negative today. With this, 70,624 people have been diagnosed with the disease and are still undergoing treatment. 8,19,156 have so far been freed from COVID.
There are currently 2,14,211 people under surveillance in various districts of the state. Of these, 2,02,095 are under home / institutional quarantine and 12,116 in hospitals. A total of 1366 people were admitted to hospitals.
There is a new hot spot, Valiya Parambu (Continental Ward 1) in Kasaragod district. No area was excluded from the hotspot list. With this, there are currently a total of 408 hotspots.

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Dubai’s Supreme Committee for Crisis and Disaster Management said on January 22 that attendance at social events, including weddings and private parties, will be limited. The new order comes after a high number of incidents of non-compliance with COVID-19 precautionary measures and increasing cases of infection.

Only first-degree relatives – parents, siblings and children – will be allowed at weddings, and not more than 10 people can attend the function.

The ruling will come into effect on January 27. It applies to events in hotels as well as home gatherings.

The UAE reported 3,552 cases of the disease on January 22 taking the total number of cases to 270,810 after 170,694 tests were carried out across the country. While 3,945 patients recovered from the virus, taking the total number of recoveries to 243,267, ten people died on the day and the death toll has reached 776 in all.

Non-essential surgery has been suspended until February 19 in Dubai. The decision was an extension of the one made in March 2020 in order to protect at-risk patients and release equipment such as ventilators.

Live entertainment in hotels and restaurants in Dubai will be halted because of the surge in cases and breaches found during inspections, Dubai Tourism has noted. According to Dubai Media Office, the decision was made to ensure “public health and safety” and “all permits issued will be on hold effective immediately”.

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As the vaccines reached Brazil early on Saturday, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said, “Made in India vaccines arrive in Brazil.”

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro thanked PM Narendra Modi for the vaccines and said, “Namaskar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Brazil feels honoured to have a great partner to overcome a global obstacle by joining efforts. Thank you for assisting us with the vaccine exports from India to Brazil. Dhanyavaad.”

To this, PM Modi replied, “The honour is ours, President Jair M. Bolsonaro to be a trusted partner of Brazil in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic together. We will continue to strengthen our cooperation on healthcare.”

Bolsonaro referred to the Covid-19 vaccine from India as ‘sanjeevni booti’ from Ramayana.

The Indian ambassador to Brazil said, “Today is a historic day in India-Brazil relations. Brazil is the first country to get such a consignment. PM Modi said we’ll make vaccine available to all countries and we’ll continue to work towards that and I wish you good luck in your efforts.”

Two flights, each carrying 2 million doses of Covishield vaccine, departed from the Mumbai airport for Brazil and Morocco in the early hours of Friday.

India is one of the world’s biggest drugmakers, and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring coronavirus vaccines.

Since Wednesday, India has begun sending Covid-19 vaccines under grant assistance to Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles.

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COVID-19 was confirmed in the last 24 hours by seven people from the UK. COVID-19 has so far been confirmed by 63 people who recently came from the UK. Their samples have been sent to NIV Pune for further testing. A total of 9 people were diagnosed with the genetically modified virus.

A total of 66,259 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. The test positivity rate is 9.34. A total of 90,20,399 samples have so far been sent for testing, including LAMP and antigen testing.

It has been confirmed that 26 deaths in the last few days were due to COVID-19. This brings the total death toll to 3,506. Further deaths will be confirmed after NIV testing in Alappuzha.

Ninety-two of those diagnosed with the disease are from outside the State and 5,541 people were infected through contact. Contact source for 484 is not clear. Ernakulam 964, Kottayam 601, Kollam 585, Thrissur 512, Pathanamthitta 478, Malappuram 475, Kozhikode 444, Alappuzha 463, Thiruvananthapuram 269, Kannur 223, Wayanad 234, Palakkad 124, Idukki 111 and Kasaragod 58 were affected by the disease.
Sixty-nine health workers were affected by the disease. Kozhikode 17, Pathanamthitta 14, Kannur 10, Thiruvananthapuram 5, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad 4 each, Kasaragod 3, Kollam, Kottayam, Wayanad 2 each, Idukki and Malappuram 1 each were affected by the disease.
The test results of 4,296 people who were diagnosed and treated were negative. Thiruvananthapuram 341, Kollam 276, Pathanamthitta 1034, Alappuzha 203, Kottayam 126, Idukki 57, Ernakulam 463, Thrissur 329, Palakkad 198, Malappuram 367, Kozhikode 460, Wayanad 196, Kannur 175 and Kasaragod 71 were found to be negative today. With this, 70,259 people have been diagnosed with the disease and are still undergoing treatment. 7,83,393 people have so far been freed from COVID.

There are currently 2,09,175 people under surveillance in various districts of Kerala. Of these, 1,98,170 are under home / institutional quarantine and 11,005 in hospitals. A total of 1,060 people were admitted to hospitals. There are eight new hotspots. The new hotspots are NMKJ (Continent Zone Ward 5), Karadakka (2), Meencha (15), Thiruvananthapuram (12), Ala (12), Kulakada (8), Yerur (16) and Rajakumari in Kollam district.
Seventeen areas were excluded from the hotspot list. With this, there are currently a total of 410 hotspots.

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According to Fox News, the 68-year-old star’s movie ‘Honest Thief’ shot to the top of the box office in October amid a slew of theatre closures that prompted several movie studios to postpone their major blockbuster releases until at least 2021, and now, the action thriller ‘The Marksman,’ has also reached the top of the charts.

According to Variety, the film debuted at No. 1 with USD 3.2 million in ticket sales and is expected to close out the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend with USD 3.7 million across 1,975 locations. That means it’s a likely contender to finally unseat ‘Wonder Woman: 1984’ in its third week in theatres.

As reported by Fox News, the Gal Gadot-led superhero movie surprised everyone by performing well at the box office in December despite also releasing for free to HBO Max subscribers in a bid to cultivate viewership at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has made going to the theatre a difficult prospect for most Americans.

However, as Variety notes, alongside films like ‘Wonder Woman: 1984,’ ‘Honest Thief’ and Robert De Niro’s ‘The War With Grandpa,’ ‘The Marksman’ joins the club of lowest-grossing box office toppers in modern history thanks to only 65 percent of theatres in the U.S. being open for business.

Currently, ‘Wonder Woman: 1984’ is in a bit of a race for a second during the holiday weekend with ‘The Croods: A New Age’ edging close to its expected total of USD 2.6 million. Meanwhile, ‘News of the World’ with Tom Hanks is likely to finish fourth.

Fox News reports that ‘The Marksman’ sees Neeson playing an Arizona rancher who becomes the unlikely protector of a young Mexican boy who is being pursued by a cartel to assasinate him.

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The country’s death toll increased to 1,52,556 as 137 fatalities, the lowest in around eight months, were recorded in a span of 24 hours, the data showed.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,02,28,753 pushing the national COVID-19 recovery rate to 96.66 percent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.44 percent. The COVID-19 active caseload remained below three lakh.

There are 2,00,528 active COVID-19 cases in the country which comprise1.90 percent of the total caseload, the data stated. India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed 20 lakh on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, 18,78,02,827 samples have been tested up to January 18 with 7,09,791 samples being tested on January 19.

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Out of the total cases, active cases further dropped to 2.08 lakh while recoveries went up to 1,02 crore. With 145 deaths reported on January 17, the toll stands at over 1.52 lakh. Kerala recorded 5,005 new cases, more than 36 percent of all. Maharashtra reported 3,081 cases.

Now the total caseload in the country has mounted to 1,05,71,773. The active cases tally in India stands at 2,08,012 and total recovered/discharged cases at 1,02,11,342.

On January 17, active cases declined below 2 percent of the total cases reported in the country for the first time. Daily new COVID-19 cases have stayed below the 20,000 mark from the last 10 days.

Over 2.24 lakh priority group individuals have been vaccinated at the end of two days of India’s mega inoculation drive. Out of the beneficiaries, only 447 adverse events cases have been reported, 3 of them required hospitalization, with 2 being discharged already, the Union Ministry said.

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Priyanka thanked the warrioirs for serving the nation. She took to her social media and wrote, “Bravo India! Congratulations to Indian authorities, medical & health teams for starting off the massive Covid vaccination drive. Forever grateful to our frontline heroes who have been risking their lives this past year to save others”.

Bravo India! Congratulations to
Indian authorities, medical & health teams for starting off the massive Covid vaccination drive. Forever grateful to our frontline heroes who have been risking their lives this past year to save others 🙏🏻 🇮🇳 https://t.co/VA56OzVLUy

— PRIYANKA (@priyankachopra) January 16, 2021

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16 launched the pan-India rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination drive through video conferencing.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Priyanka was last seen in We Can Be Heroes, which garnered positive reviews from fans. She will be seen in the upcoming movie, The White Tiger, alongside Rajkummar Rao. The film will follow the story of an ambitious driver, Adarsh Gourav, of a rich Indian couple played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Rajkummar Rao. Apart from this, she recently wrapped up the shooting schedule of her next film Text For You in the UK.

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In the factsheet, US claims to have evidence that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in autumn of 2019, before the first identified case of the coronavirus outbreak, with symptoms consistent with the both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness. US maintain its claims that the virus may have escaped the controversial Wuhan lab.

According to the factsheet , the department says that the virus could have emerged from human contact with infected animals or through a laboratory accident. The report says, “Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure”.

US released the fact sheets as 13 international experts of the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in China to probe the origin of the coronavirus.

Major claims

The fact sheet highlights three major elements about the COVID-19 virus- illness inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology(WIV), Research at the WIV and Secret military activity at WIV.

The factsheet claim that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in 2019 before the first outbreak was reported. This raises the questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was “zero infection”among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses, the report says. It also mentioned about how accidental infections in Chinese labs have contributed to previous virus outbreak.

The US also claimed the involvement of Chinese military in secret military experiments in Wuhan lab since 2017.The report says, “The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017″. It added, “The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV”.

The US asserted that the WHO investigators must have access to the records of the WIV’s work on bat and other coronaviruses before the coronavirus outbreak.

“As part of a thorough inquiry, they must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses,” the US fact sheet said.

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Addressing the nation, PM Narendra Modi said, “India’s vaccines enjoy much credibility across the world . We’ve earned this via our track record. Most children in the world get their vaccine shots of those made in India. The world’s trust is on our Made in India vaccines will rise soon. These Indian vaccines are cheaper than foreign shots and easy to use. Some foreign doses are close to 5000/dose and to be stored in -70 degrees.”

PM lauded doctors and scientists who worked tirelessly to create the vaccine. He also stressed the importance of taking two doses of covid vaccine.

On the inaugural day, around 3,006 session sites across the country will be virtually connected. Around 100 beneficiaries would be vaccinated at each session.

India has two vaccine candidates so far — Covishield by Serum Institute of India and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved the vaccines for emergency use on January 2.

All states and UTs will have multiple session sites or centres at the district level. There will be a registration and waiting room, a vaccination zone and an observation room.

Once the beneficiary reaches the site at the designated time and date, they will produce identification documents. When they are verified, they will be sent to the vaccination room where they will receive the shot. After the shot, the beneficiary will have to wait in the observation room and will be under observation for 30 minutes. There are emergency kits and ambulances on site.

In the first phase, 30 crore health workers, frontline workers and senior citizens will be vaccinated. All the beneficiaries will be registered on the CoWIN app. Only beneficiaries who have registered on the app will be allowed to visit the centre

COWIN APP

The vaccination process will use the online digital platform developed by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that will help the authorities keep track in real-time of vaccination stocks, storage temperature and track the beneficiaries.

COVID-19 VACCINE HELPLINE

A 24X7 call centre has been established to answer queries about the coronavirus pandemic, vaccine rollout and the CoWIN software.

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