Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
Washington, Jun 13: America's first-ever Hindu lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has said that in this chaotic time, one can find certainty, strength, and peace in Bhagavad Gita.
In her message during a virtual commencement address, the 39-year-old Congresswoman from Hawaii said that it is a chaotic time and no one can say with certainty what tomorrow looks like.
"... but we find certainty, strength, and peace in the practice of Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga taught to us by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita," Tulsi Gabbard told the 'Class of 2020 for Hindu students''.
Her address came amidst protests in the US against the killing of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
The country has been swept by protests since George Floyd's custodial death on May 25 with thousands of people mounting pressure for changes to the law enforcement practices.
The first-ever virtual Hindu commencement was organised by the Hindu Students Council on June 7, which drew thousands of viewers on Facebook and YouTube Live, all coming together in solidarity during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the contagion has infected over 76,00,000 people and killed more than 4,25,000 across the world. The US is the worst affected country with over 2.04 million cases and more than 1,14,000 deaths.
The COVID-19, which originated in China''s Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered the world economy with the International Monetary Fund saying that the global economy is bound to suffer a "severe recession".
Scientists are racing against time to find a vaccine or medicine for its treatment.
Hundreds of graduates from the US, Canada, the UK, India and Australia attended to commemorate their graduation in a unique way - by celebrating their shared Hindu values.
Professor Subhash Kak served as the ceremony's Grand Marshall.
"As you think about this new chapter in your lives, ask yourself what is my purpose in life? It is a deep question that if you can recognise now that your purpose is to serve God and God''s children, practicing Karma Yoga, then you can lead a truly successful life," Tulsi Gabbard said.
"Success is not defined by temporary material things, trinkets, glittery objects or accomplishments - but a deeply successful and happy life centered around service," she added.
The Iraq war veteran ended her presidential campaign in March and offered her full support to former vice president Joe Biden, 77, who is all set to challenge Republican incumbent Donald Trump, 73, in November elections.
The commencement address focused heavily on themes from the Bhagavad Gita, a timeless historical text that many Hindus consider their moral framework.
Professor Kak, Regent Professor at Oklahoma State University and 2019 Padma Shri recipient, read out the names of the graduating students.
"I exhort you - the graduating students - to be the leaders of the new world where education is less of the mind of a vessel to be filled with information (usually forgotten after the semester is over), and more of a flame that is lit as envisioned by our Vedic sages," he said.
The student speakers were from many university campuses, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, and Stanford.
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The programme included offerings of Hindu prayers, recitation of a traditional graduation message from the Upanishads, and a symbolic conferral of degrees to high school and college graduate.
Founded in 1990, Hindu Students Council is North America''s largest pan-Hindu youth organisation.
Italian researchers have claimed that they have successfully developed a vaccine to contain coronavirus (COVID-19) which is likely to work on humans, a report said.
Luigi Aurisicchio, CEO of Takis, the firm developing the medication, said that a coronavirus candidate vaccine has neutralised the virus in human cells for the first time, the Arab News reported.
"This is the most advanced stage of testing of a candidate vaccine created in Italy. Human tests are expected after this summer," Aurisicchio was quoted as saying to Italian news agency ANSA.
"According to the Spallanzani Hospital, as far as we know we are the first in the world so far to have demonstrated neutralisation of the coronavirus by a vaccine. We expect this to happen in humans too," he added.
The researchers experimented with the vaccine on mice that had successfully developed antibodies that blocked the virus from infecting the cells. They further observed that the five vaccine candidates generated a large number of antibodies, and selected two with the best results.
All of the vaccine candidates currently being developed are based on the genetic material of DNA protein "spike", the molecular tip used by the coronavirus to enter human cells.
They are injected with the so-called "electroporation" technique, which consists of an intramuscular injection followed by a brief electrical impulse, helping the vaccine break into the cells and activating the immune system, the report said.
Researchers believe that this makes their vaccine particularly effective for generating functional antibodies against the "spike" protein, in particular in the lung cells, which are the most vulnerable to coronavirus.
"We are working hard for a vaccine coming from Italian research, with an all-Italian and innovative technology, tested in Italy and made available to everyone," Aurisicchio was quoted by the Arab News report.
"In order to reach this goal, we need the support of national and international institutions and partners who may help us speed up the process," he noted.
The total number of COVID-19 infections, fatalities and recoveries since the pandemic began has risen to 213,013 in the country.
May 20: The novel coronavirus is behaving differently in patients in northeast China who have contracted it recently compared with early cases, indicating it is changing as it spreads, a prominent doctor said.
China, which has largely brought the virus under control, has found new clusters of infections in the northeastern border provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang in recent weeks, raising concern about a second wave.
Qiu Haibo, an expert in critical care medicine who is part of a National Health Commission expert group, said the incubation period of the virus in patients in the northeast was longer than that of patients in Wuhan, the central city, where the virus emerged late last year.
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"This causes a problem, as they don't have any symptoms. So when they gather with their families they don't care about this issue and we see family cluster infections," Qiu told state broadcaster CCTV in a programme broadcast late on Tuesday.
Patients in the northeastern clusters were also carrying the virus for longer than earlier cases in Wuhan, and they were taking longer to recover, as defined by a negative nucleic acid test, he said.
Patients in the northeast also rarely exhibited fever and tended to suffer damage to the lungs rather than across multiple organs, he said.
He said the virus found in the northeastern clusters was probably imported from abroad, which could account for the differences.
He did not say where he though they might have come from but both Jilin and Heilongjiang border Russia.
China reported five new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, down from six a day earlier.
Four of the new cases were local transmissions and one was imported by a traveller coming from abroad, the commission said in a statement, compared with three imported cases reported the previous day.
China's total number of coronavirus infections stands at 82,965, while the death toll 4,634.
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