Tag: COVID vaccine

  • Which vaccine has the lowest death rate?

    Which vaccine has the lowest death rate?

    Singapore has released a breakdown of the impact of different Covid-19 vaccines. The recipients of Moderna vaccine showed the lowest death rate.

    The country found 11 deaths per 100,000 among people who received Sinovac shots and 7.8 deaths among those with Sinopharm. This number went down to to 6.2 deaths for those with mRNA shots from Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and only one fatality in those who were administered the vaccines from Moderna.

    Singapore’s Health minister Ong Ye Kung told parliament that out of the 802 people who lost their lives to Covid-19 last year in the city-state, 70% of them weren’t fully vaccinated.

    Singapore has fully immunized 87 per cent of its 5.7 million residents, with 47 per cent having also received booster doses. Singapore has the world’s highest vaccination rate.

  • ‘Omicron shouldn’t be categorised as mild’: WHO

    ‘Omicron shouldn’t be categorised as mild’: WHO

    The infectious virus Omicron is a less severe disease than the globally dominant Delta strain, but should not be categorised as “mild”, WHO Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus clarified.

    While giving the statement in Geneva, he said that just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising and killing people, reports Reuters.

    Janet Diaz, WHO lead on clinical management said that when Omicron was first detected, early studies showed that there was a reduced risk of hospitalisation.

    According to her, the impact on the elderly is one of the big unanswered questions about the new variant as most of the cases studied so far have been in younger people.

    Currently, healthcare systems are overwhelmed, and governments are struggling to deal with the new variant which has killed millions of people worldwide.

    The vaccine process is quite slow in many countries. According to Ghebreyesus, 109 countries will miss the WHO’s target for 70 per cent of the world’s population to be fully vaccinated by July.

    Pakistan recorded 1293 cases on Friday and the positivity rate stands at 2.52 per cent.

  • 46% of Pakistanis are fully vaccinated against Covid-19

    National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) Cheif Asad Umar has revealed 46 per cent of Pakistan’s eligible population has been fully vaccinated against coronavirus.

    In a tweet, the federal minister said, “Amongst the federating units, Islamabad leads with 77 per cent fully vaccinated persons. Punjab is at 51 per cent, Gilgit-Baltistan 46 per cent, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 45 per cent, Balochistan 42 per cent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 41 per cent, and Sindh at 37 per cent.”

    Umar also confirmed that 63 per cent of the country’s population has been administered the first dose of the vaccine.

    The country reported over 500 covid cases in a day on Friday, positivity rate stands at one per cent.

    Health experts have linked the rise in Covid-19 cases with the Omicron variant as nearly 89 cases of the new strain have been reported alone in Karachi.

  • WHO looking forward to oral, nasal Covid-19 vaccines

    The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist said Tuesday she was looking forward to the “second generation” of Covid-19 vaccines, which could comprise nasal sprays and oral versions, AFP reported.

    Soumya Swaminathan said such vaccines could have benefits over the current crop as they would be easier to deliver than injections and could even be self-administered.

    Swaminathan said there were 129 different candidate vaccines that have got as far as clinical trials and are being tested on humans — while a further 194 are not yet in the phase in their development and are still being worked on in laboratories.

    “This covers the entire range of technologies,” she told a live interaction on WHO social media channels.

    “They’re still in development. I’m sure some of them will prove to be very safe and efficacious and others may not.”

    “There could be advantages to some of the second-generation vaccines… clearly if you have an oral vaccine or an intra-nasal vaccine this is easier to deliver than an injectable.”

    Soumya Swaminathan added, “Ultimately we’ll be able to choose the ones that are most appropriate. If not for Covid-19, we’re going to use these platforms for other infections in the future.”

    “If there’s a local immune response then it will take care of the virus before it even goes and establishes itself in the lungs and starts causing a problem,” she said.

    WHO has only given emergency use authorisation to seven Covid-19 vaccines: those created by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm, Sinovac and last week Bharat Biotech.

    “None of the vaccines are 100%. Nobody has ever claimed that the vaccines are going to be 100% protective. But 90% is a wonderful amount of protection to have, compared to zero,” Swaminathan said.

    “Till now, with the vaccines that we have approved, there has not been any signal which has been so worrying that we need to say, well, we need to re-think this vaccine.”

    More than 7.25 billion vaccine doses have been administered around the world, according to an AFP count

  • ‘Pakistan witnessing lowest positivity rate since we started measuring Covid’: Asad Umar

    Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar took to Twitter to announce that Pakistan recorded the lowest Covid positivity ratio since the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) started measuring the statistics of the pandemic.

    “Alhamdulillah, we now have [the] lowest positivity ratio since we started measuring covid. Also, have [the] lowest patients on critical care & [the] lowest daily mortality in a year. [The] positive impact of vaccination showing but vaccination drive must continue.”

    According to the latest statistics given by NCOC, the current positivity ratio of the virus is 1.34 per cent.

  • Pakistan’s lowest daily Covid-19 death count of 2021

    Pakistan has reported the daily death toll from Covid-19 below 10 for the first time in this year, National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data showed on Monday.

    According to the latest statistics of NCOC, nine people succumbed to the virus during the past 24 hours across the country and 698 positive cases were reported.

    The positivity rate now stands at 1.65 per cent and for the tenth consecutive day, it is less than 2 per cent.

    The infections are decreasing day by day in Pakistan, with 593 new cases reported on average each day, reports Geo News.

    Last week, active cases in Pakistan dropped below the 25,000 mark after approximately seven months.

    Pakistan has administered at least 100,741,762 doses of Covid vaccines so far.

  • All educational institutions to start normal classes from Monday: Asad Umar

    All educational institutions to start normal classes from Monday: Asad Umar

    Educational activities across the country will resume from Monday (October 11) next week. Due to Covid, educational activities across the country were affected for over a year.

    Asad Umar announced that the decision has been taken in view of a drop in the Covid-19 cases and a stepped-up national vaccination campaign by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

    “Based on the reduced level of disease spread and the launch of the school vaccination program, it has been decided in today’s NCOC meeting to allow all educational institutions to start normal classes from Monday the 11th of October” tweeted Umar.

    The country reported less than 1,000 daily coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours for the first time in over three months.

    The latest data from NCOC shows that Pakistan reported 912 cases after 45,619 tests. The country last recorded a daily case count below 1,000 on July 6 at 830 cases.

  • ‘Human rights activist’ yells at restaurant chef who asked for her vaccination certificate

    A woman at Okra Test Kitchen in Karachi yelled at a chef who reportedly asked her for her Covid vaccination certificate.

    The video shows the woman, who was not even wearing a mask, filming the chef and arguing with him. The woman can be heard saying, “Who are you to ask me about my medical record?” She also accused the chef of being in violation of the Constitution of Pakistan because he was asking for her medical records.

    The woman called herself a “human rights activist” while exiting the venue.

    Twitterati were quick enough to call out the woman for misbehaving with the chef.

    https://twitter.com/road_runner1234/status/1446009881404772356?s=20

  • Unvaccinated people to face new restrictions in next 24 hours: NCOC

    Unvaccinated people to face new restrictions in next 24 hours: NCOC

    Strict restrictions will be enforced for non-vaccinated individuals from October 1, 2021. National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) announced vaccination certificates will be made “mandatory for domestic travellers from October 1”.

    Confirming the news, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) spokesperson said: “From October 1, only vaccinated passengers will be able to travel on all domestic and international flights of PIA,” reports Geo News.

    “Vaccination certificates will be checked at the airport upon receipt of the boarding card,” he said.

    People won’t be allowed to use railway and airline services without showing their vaccination cards.

    People who do not get vaccinated will not be able to enter wedding halls, shopping malls, hotels and guest houses from tomorrow [October 1].

    On the other hand, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said that pregnant women should also get vaccinated.

    He reiterated that children’s vaccination is also necessary to continue educational activities.

  • Government announces reopening of cinemas in eight cities of Pakistan

    Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has announced that cinema halls and multiplexes will reopen in eight cities of Pakistan from October 1st.

    The decision was taken in the meeting chaired by Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special initiatives Asad Umar. It was decided in the meeting that that Covid related restrictions will be eased in the cities that have achieved the targeted vaccination rate. The cities who have targeted vaccination rate includeds, Gilgit, Skardu, Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Quetta, and Peshawar.

    “We are relaxing restrictions in these eight cities from October 1,” Asad Umar said in a press conference. “The rest of the cities and districts will have to implement on the same restrictions that are currently in place, till October 15,” he added.