Triple Talaq verdict: Centre won't rush to enact a new law

New Delhi, Fevb 10: Of the countries most at risk of importing coronavirus cases, India ranks 17th, researchers have found on the basis of a mathematical model for the expected global spread of the virus that originated in China's Wuhan area in December 2019.

So far, India has reported three coronavirus positive cases -- all from Kerala.

Among the airports in India, the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi is most at risk, followed by airports in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi, according to the model.

The new model for predicting global novel coronavirus cases has been developed by researchers from Humboldt University and Robert Koch Institute in Germany.

"The spread of the virus on an international scale is dominated by air travel," said the study.

"Wuhan, the seventh largest city in China with 11 million residents, was the relevant major domestic air transportation hub with many connecting international flights before the city was effectively quarantined on January 23, 2020, and the Wuhan airport was closed. By then the virus had already spread to other Chinese provinces as well as other countries," it added.

The researchers said that it is possible to estimate how likely it is that the virus spreads to other areas by looking at air travel passenger numbers.

"The busier a flight route, the more probable it is that an infected passenger travels this route. Using these probabilistic concepts, we calculate the relative import risk to other airports. When calculating the import risk, we also take into account connecting flights and travel routes that involve multiple destinations," said the study.

The top 10 countries and regions at risk of importing coronavirus cases are: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia, according to the model.

While Thailand's national import risk is 2.1%, it is 0.2% for India, found the research.

The foundation of the model is the worldwide air transportation network (WAN) that connects approximately 4,000 airports with more than 25,000 direct connections.

The model accounts for both, the current distribution of confirmed cases in mainland China as well as airport closures that were implemented as a mitigation strategy.

This network theoretic model is based on the concept of effective distance and is an extension of a model introduced in the 2013 paper "The Hidden Geometry of Complex, Network-Driven Contagion Phenomena" published in the journal Science.

The current outbreak of the 2019-nCoV virus started in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China. While the first cases were reported as early as December 8, 2019, the outbreak gained global attention on December 31, 2019, when the World Health Organization was alerted to "several cases of pneumonia" by an unknown virus.

The new virus was soon identified as a novel coronavirus and named 2019-nCOV. It belongs to the family of viruses that include the common cold and viruses such as SARS and MERS. On January 20, 2020, it was confirmed that the coronavirus can be transmitted between humans, greatly increasing the risk of a global spread.

The death toll due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China has increased to 811 on Sunday, surpassing that of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003.

Although about 20 countries have confirmed cases, China has accounted for about 99 per cent of those infected. The first foreign victims of the virus both died on Saturday in Wuhan.

Thiruvananthapuram , May 10: Issuing latest order in view of coronavirus outbreak, the Kerala government has ordered complete shut down on all Sundays.

"With a view to prevent the spread of COVID-19, improve the quality of life, reduce the carbon emissions, protect the environment and greenery of the State, the following protocol would be observed on Sundays across the State. Sundays will be observed as total shut down days until further orders," the order read.

Following activities will be permissible on Sundays:

A) Shops selling essential items

B) Collection and distribution of milk

C) Supply of Newspaper, media, hospitals, medical stores, medical labs and related institutions

D) No social gathering is permitted except for marriages and funerals

E) Departments, agencies and activities connected with the containment of COVID-19

F) Movement of goods vehicles

G) Agencies in the field of waste disposal

H) All manufacturing and processing activities of continuous nature and ongoing construction activities will be permitted

I) Take away counters of the hotel from 8 a.m to 9 p.m, online delivery up to 10 pm

J) Walking and cycling will be permitted.

K) In addition, the following roads mentioned in Annexure will be closed for motorised traffic except for movement of essential goods and emergency vehicles from 5 am to 10 am. During this time, non-motorised traffic such as walking and cycling will be permitted.

L) Movement of persons on Sundays are allowed only for health emergencies, Government servants on emergency duties and persons engaged in activities connected with Covid-19 containment, persons involved in the activities from (a) to (k) above, priests and other religious persons responsible for conducting rituals in worship places.

M) Any other movement of persons, if any in exigencies, shall only be with the travel passes obtained from District Collector or Police authorities concerned.

New Delhi, Jul 1: Jet fuel or ATF price on Wednesday was hiked by 7.5 per cent, the third increase in a month, while petrol and diesel rates were unchanged for the second day in a row.

Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price was hiked by Rs 2,922.94 per kilolitre (kl), or 7.48 per cent, to Rs 41,992.81 per kl in the national capital, according to a price notification by state-owned oil marketing companies.

This is the third straight increase in ATF prices in a month. Rates were hiked by a record 56.6 per cent (Rs 12,126.75 per kl) on June 1, followed by Rs 5,494.5 per kl (16.3 per cent) increase on June 16.

Simultaneously, non-subsidised cooking gas LPG rates were increased by Re 1 to Rs 594 per 14.2-kg cylinder in the national capital. Prices were up by Rs 4 in other metros mostly because of different local sales tax or VAT rate.

On the other hand, petrol and diesel prices were unchanged for the second day in a row.

This, after diesel rates scaled a new high after prices were hiked 22 times in just over three weeks.

In Delhi, a litre of petrol comes for Rs 80.43 per litre, while diesel is priced at Rs 80.53 per litre.

Rates vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.

While the diesel price had been hiked on 22 occasions since June 7, petrol price had been raised on 21 occasions.

The cumulative increase since the oil companies started the cycle on June 7 totals to Rs 9.17 for petrol and Rs 11.14 for diesel.