The COVID-19 pandemic has entered its third year, with no signs of ebbing. Till the last week of December, the novel coronavirus was raging in almost 200 countries and had killed more than 5.3 million people. Such is the impact of the pandemic that the average life expectancy has plummeted in several countries. Researchers at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra’s Centre for Research in Health Economics in Barcelona, Spain, estimate in their study published in Scientific Reports in February 2021, that over 20.5 million years of life have been lost due to COVID-19 in 81 countries. In India, life expectancy has reduced by nearly two years, as per an October 2021 study by the International Institute for Population Studies under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The fear and turmoil have deepened since the arrival of Omicron—by far the most mutated and transmissible of all the five variants of concern identified in the history of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The severity of disease by the variant may be low but the sheer number of cases could once again overwhelm unprepared health systems,” warns Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (who), adding: “It might have already made its way through most countries. We have learned by now that we underestimate this virus at our peril.” In hardly a month since South Africa first informed who about this new variant on November 24, 2021, some 91 countries have reported its presence. The subsequent uncertainty among countries and the public was similar to when COVID-19 first struck the world in late December 2019.
Esta historia es de la edición January 01, 2022 de Down To Earth.
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Esta historia es de la edición January 01, 2022 de Down To Earth.
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INVISIBLE THREAT
Significant presence of microplastics in Puducherry’s agricultural soil raises concerns for soil and crop health
Feeding off each other
VEGETARIAN MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE WEST GREW WITH MUTUAL SUPPORT AND VALIDATION
India's unhealthy patent amendments
Despite strong pleas, the Modi regime has changed the rules to impose a cost on those who challenge faulty patents
URBAN DISCOMFORT
Poorly planned, heat-trapping infrastructure, along with dwindling natural spaces, turn up the temperatures in major Indian cities
BLAZING SUN IS ON
Rising temperatures are testing the limits of human tolerance to heat. With their predominantly built-up landscape, urban areas offer no respite. A study by the Centre for Science and Environment on the morphology and heat patterns of nine Indian cities over the past decade shows how these urban centres are turning into heat islands with a potentially serious impact on human health. An analysis by Rajneesh Sareen, Mitashi Singh and Nimish Gupta, with Shagun in Haryana and Kiran Pandey
"H5N1 may be more severe than COVID-19"
In early April, the US confirmed the first case of avian influenza in livestock, along with cow-to-human transmission of the virus disease.
A PSYCHEDELIC HIGH
Driven by surge in global trials and low success rate of current medications in treating mental health problems, researchers call for home-grown clinical trials of psychedelic drugs
Locked out
Two years after becoming the only state to be excluded from the Centre's ruralemployment guarantee scheme, villages in West Bengal grapple with distress migration and debt traps
'Protection from climate change part of right to life'
The Supreme Court of India, on April 5, recognised that citizens have a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change, saying it is intertwined with the fundamental rights to life and equality. Here are the key arguments articulated by the three-judge bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra in their judgement
Weaving dreams
Tribal communities in West Bengal slowly embrace traditional weaving to ensure sustainable livelihood