Health & Fitness
Delhi Air Quality Slips To “Very Poor”, Day After “Unusual Improvement”
The air quality index (AQI) was recorded at 320 in the “very poor” category, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
NEW DELHI: People in the national capital woke up to a hazy morning today, as monitoring stations recorded air quality in the “very poor” category, a day after the city witnessed an ‘unusual improvement’ in the conditions, the officials said.
The overall air quality index (AQI) was recorded at 320 in the “very poor” category, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
Anand Vihar recorded “severe” air quality. The AQI in 23 areas was registered in the “very poor” category, while the situation was “poor” in 12 areas.
The level of PM2.5 (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres) was recorded at 179, and the PM10 level was recorded at 338.
In the NCR region, Ghaziabad recorded the worst air quality with an AQI of 398. Greater Noida and Noida’s air quality was registered in the “very poor” category. Faridabad and Gurgaon recorded moderate air quality, according to CPCB data.
An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’.
According to the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR), Delhi’s air quality will remain in the “poor” category, amid a gradual increase in the pollution level, for the next two days.
“The increase in pollution can be attributed to a decline in wind speed as compared to past two days. All other meteorological factors were already unfavourable,” the SAFAR said in a report.The air quality over the weekend showed an “unusual improvement” due to late night fast wind speed, SAFAR had said yesterday.
Source: NDTV
Entertainment
Munmun Dutta shares transformation photos, says she is ‘feeling the change’
Munmun Dutta who is most popular for portraying the part of Babita iyer in TMKOC has taken instagram to share her change pictures.
She shared a split of two photographs showing the distinction in her look prior to going through the program, and after it. She wrote in the subtitle that the interaction is as yet in progress and she is anticipating her wellness venture.
View this post on Instagram
Munmun in her caption wrote, “Great part was, at long last after not turning out for right around 4 months, I got once more into the propensity for working out routinely once more. Long approach to accomplish the god-like physique however I am on target and persuaded to do as such. It will be an excursion and I am anticipating it.”
As of late, Munmun had purchased another level in Mumbai and shared photographs of it via online media. She said that purchasing the new house was a “little glimpse of heaven” second for her.
Health & Fitness
Life expectancy in India drops by 2 years due to Covid pandemic: Report

A statistical analysis conducted by Mumbai’s International Institute for Population Studies shows that life expectancy in India has dropped by roughly two years due to Covid-19 pandemic.
According to IIPS assistant professor Surayakant Yadav, the life expectancy at birth for men and women has declined from 69.5 years and 72 years in 2019 to 67.5 years and 69.8 respectively in 2020, reports Times of India.
‘Life expectancy at birth’ is defined as the average number of years that a newborn is expected to live if the mortality pattern during their birth remains constant in the future.
The study was conducted to analyse the effect of the Covid pandemic on the mortality patterns across the country, as thousands of lives were lost due to the deadly pandemic waves.
The study also found out that the Covid toll was reported to be the highest for men in the age group of 35-69. The excess deaths in this age bracket due to Covid led to a sharp drop in life expectancy.
The IIPS based its study on the data collected by the 145-nation Global Burden of Disease study and the Covid-India Application Programme Interface (API) portal.
Yadav further added, “The Covid impact has wiped out the progress we made in the last decade to increase the life expectancy figure. India’s life expectancy at birth now is the same as it was in 2010. It will take us years to catch up.”
However, IIPS director Dr K S James added that epidemics in the past in countries, including Africa, massively impacted life expectancy, but it recouped in a few years.
Source : IndiaToday
Health & Fitness
3rd Covid Wave Unlikely To Mirror Devastating 2nd Wave: Top Medical Body

Rapid scale-up of vaccination efforts, says the study, could play an important role in mitigating the present and future waves of the disease.
New Delhi: A potential third wave of Covid infections seems unlikely to be as severe as the second wave, says a modelling study by a team of scientists from the Indian Council Of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Imperial College London, UK. Rapid scale-up of vaccination efforts, says the study, could play an important role in mitigating the present and future waves of the disease.
India’s first wave of SARSCoV-2 infection began in late January 2020 with a peak attained in mid-September. This phase was relatively mild compared to the second wave that followed, from mid-February 2021 onwards, exhibiting a more explosive spread across the country. A major factor driving this second wave is the emergence of more-infectious variants of SARS-CoV-2, principally B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant) and B.1.617.2 (Delta variant), of which the latter has played a dominant role in recent months.
Third waves have emerged in other countries – like the UK and the USA – and are driven by a range of factors, says the study.
The results suggest that a third wave, if it should occur, is unlikely to be as severe as the second wave, given the extent of spread that has already taken place in India, it adds.
“Consequently, for a virus to cause a major third wave in the face of this pre-existing immunity, extreme scenarios for the abrogation of that immunity are required, or for that matter, for the transmission fitness of any novel virus,” says the article in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.
For the wave to be as devastating, at least 30 per cent of the population who had been infected earlier must entirely lose their immunity, or an emerging variant of the virus must have a reproductive rate (R) over 4.5, that is, each infected person should be spreading to at least 4-5 others and these must occur almost immediately after the second wave ends, according to the study.
The emergence of a third wave in India could be substantially mitigated by the expansion of vaccination, says the study, adding the rollout of vaccine should be in such a way as to cover 40 per cent of the population with two doses over a period of three months following the end of the second wave, which is on the decline currently.
Crowding, use of mask and physical distancing during social interactions are all key factors shaping transmission rate and therefore population-level spread, the study cautions.
“Lockdown-release mechanisms could be a plausible driver for a third wave in India, depending on how effectively lockdowns have controlled transmission during the second wave particularly when instated at an early stage of the second wave and prior to attainment of peak,” says the study.
The analysis, says scientists, is intended to be illustrative and not predictive.
“In the present approach, we considered essentially a uniform waning rate over the spectrum of severity. Second, the basic reproduction number (equivalently, the rate-of-transmission) was assumed to remain constant during each wave,” said the scientists explaining the methodology used in the study.
Source : NDTV
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