Reimburse money spent on CM's rallies: Shobha tells Congress

The current physical distancing guidelines provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may not be adequate to curb the coronavirus spread, according to a research which says the gas cloud from a cough or sneeze may help virus particles travel up to 8 metres. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted that the the current guidelines issued by the WHO and CDC are based on outdated models from the 1930s of how gas clouds from a cough, sneeze, or exhalation spread.

Study author, MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba, warned that droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet, or 7-8 metres, carrying the pathogen.

According to Bourouiba, the current guidelines are based on "arbitrary" assumptions of droplet size, "overly simplified", and "may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions" against the deadly pandemic.

 She explained that the old guidelines assume droplets to be one of two categories, small or large, taking short-range semi-ballistic trajectories when a person exhales, coughs, or sneezes.

However based on more recent discoveries, the MIT scientist said, sneezes and coughs are made of a puff cloud that carries ambient air, transporting within it clusters of droplets of a wide range of sizes.

Bourouiba warned that this puff cloud, with ambient air entrapped in it, can offer the droplets moisture and warmth that can prevent it from evaporation in the outer environment.

"The locally moist and warm atmosphere within the turbulent gas cloud allows the contained droplets to evade evaporation for much longer than occurs with isolated droplets," she said.

"Under these conditions, the lifetime of a droplet could be considerably extended by a factor of up to 1000, from a fraction of a second to minutes," the researcher explained in the study.

The MIT scientist, who has researched the dynamics of coughs and sneezes for years, added that these droplets settle along the trajectory of a cough or sneeze contaminating surfaces, with their residues staying suspended in the air for hours.

"Even when maximum containment policies were enforced, the rapid international spread of COVID-19 suggests that using arbitrary droplet size cutoffs may not accurately reflect what actually occurs with respiratory emissions, possibly contributing to the ineffectiveness of some procedures used to limit the spread of respiratory disease," Bourouiba wrote in the study

New Delhi, Mar 25: The exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) and the first phase of the Census 2021 will not be held as scheduled due to the 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, officials said on Tuesday.

Both the exercises were supposed to be carried out from April 1 to September 30.
Due to the prevailing situation, the NPR and Census exercises have been deferred till further orders, a senior home ministry official said.
The Prime Minister has announced a 21-day lockdown across the country from Tuesday night due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Bengaluru, Jul 22: On Wednesday morning starlet and Bigg Boss 3 contestant Jayashree Ramaiah sent social media into a tizzy with an update that read, “I quit. Goodbye to this f*****g world and depression.” Friends and acquaintances immediately began reaching out to the actor asking her to return their concerned calls and desist from taking any extreme steps.

“Jayashree has been battling depression for a while now. She had family issues and was also concerned about the lack of work,” shares actor Ashvithi Shetty. The Ramachari twins were in touch with Jayashree since they met at a celebrity cricket match four years ago. “She has shared several times about how low she’s been and I would try to cheer her up. But the problem was that she’d keep changing her phone number so often that it became difficult to keep track of how she was doing,” states Ashvithi.

Around four months ago, Jayashree moved into her own home and mentioned to her that she was happy with this new development in her life. “But she went retreated again and a few days ago, I messaged her on social media and she said she was doing fine. So I was shocked to see this update on Wednesday morning,” avers the actor. Repeated calls finally elicited a message from Jayashree that she was getting admitted to the hospital. “But I also got contradictory information that she had been discharged and had been taken to the hospital again but she was refusing to go inside. I am awaiting more clarity on the issue,” sums up Ashvithi.