Imran Khan a 'chaprasi', Islamabad is run by terrorists: Subramanian Swamy

Feb 22: A 20-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, travelled 400 miles(675 km) north to Anyang where she infected five relatives, without ever showing signs of infection, Chinese scientists reported on Friday, offering new evidence that the virus can be spread asymptomatically.

The case study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offered clues about how the coronavirus is spreading, and suggested why it may be difficult to stop.

"Scientists have been asking if you can have this infection and not be ill? The answer is apparently, yes," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.

China has reported a total of 75,567 cases of the virus known as COVID-19 to the World Health Organization (WHO) including 2,239 deaths, and the virus has already spread to 26 countries and territories outside of mainland China.

Researchers have reported sporadic accounts of individuals without any symptoms spreading the virus. What's different in this study is that it offers a natural lab experiment of sorts, Schaffner said.

"You had this patient from Wuhan where the virus is, travelling to where the virus wasn't. She remained asymptomatic and infected a bunch of family members and you had a group of physicians who immediately seized on the moment and tested everyone."

According to the report by Dr Meiyun Wang of the People's Hospital of Zhengzhou University and colleagues, the woman travelled from Wuhan to Anyang on Jan. 10 and visited several relatives. When they started getting sick, doctors isolated the woman and tested her for coronavirus. Initially, the young woman tested negative for the virus, but a follow-up test was positive.

All five of her relatives developed COVID-19 pneumonia, but as of Feb. 11, the young woman still had not developed any symptoms, her chest CT remained normal and she had no fever, stomach or respiratory symptoms, such as cough or sore throat.

Scientists in the study said if the findings are replicated, "the prevention of COVID-19 infection could prove challenging."

Key questions now, Schaffner said, are how often does this kind of transmission occur and when during the asymptomatic period does a person test positive for the virus.

As many as employees of Zee News have tested positive for the coronavirus, Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary said on Monday. Most of them are asymptomatic, he said, tweeting an official statement from Zee News about the situation.

The organisation said that on May 15, one of its employees tested positive for the coronavirus. Following this, the company started testing employees who may have come in contact with the employee. Twenty-seven more were found to be infected.

“Fortunately most of them are asymptomatic and are not complaining of any discomfort,” Zee News said. “We believe this is because of early diagnosis and proactive intervention.”

The news network said all guidelines and protocols have been followed, and its office, newsroom and studios have been sealed for sanitisation. The Zee News team has been shifted to an alternative facility.

“At the moment, Zee Media Corporation has 2,500 employees, by far the largest in the private sector,” the company said. “We are committed to the safety of each one of them.”

Chaudhary also claimed that “those who are infected had the option of sitting at home and sharing memes”. “They came to work because they are committed professionals.”

Following this, some social media users claimed that Zee News employees found infected with Covid-19 were still at work. In response, Chaudhary alleged that a malicious campaign was being conducted to distort his statement. He said no infected employee had come to work, and all the contacts of the employee who tested positive on May 15 had been tested and quarantined.

Over the past two months, journalists from several media organisations have tested positive for the coronavirus. On April 21, 26 employees of a Tamil news channel based in Chennai tested positive for the coronavirus. The previous day, over 50 journalists from Mumbai were found infected, after samples of over 170 journalists were tested.

On May 7, a newspaper journalist died of the coronavirus in Agra. Some states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi, have tested journalists for Covid-19.

Aligarh, Jan 14: Uttar Pradesh Minister Raghuraj Singh has courted a major controversy after he said that people who raise slogans against Prime Minster Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath "would be buried alive".

The minister said this on Sunday while addressing a rally in Aligarh to muster support for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019.

"If you raise slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, I will bury you alive," he threatened.

He was apparently referring to protests held by students of Aligarh Muslim University against the CAA during which they allegedly raised slogans against the Prime Minister and the chief minister.

The minister further said: "These one per cent people are opposing the CAA. They stay in India, eat up our taxes and then raise 'murdabad' slogans against the leaders. This country belongs to people of all faiths, but slogan shouting against the Prime Minister or chief minister is unacceptable."

He also launched an attack on India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. "What was Nehru's caste? He did not have a 'khaandan'," he claimed.

Raghuraj Singh is minister of state in the labour ministry in Uttar Pradesh.