Drinking soda, sweetened drinks may up chronic kidney disease: Study

Mar 6: The spread of the new coronavirus is shining the spotlight on a little-discussed gender split: men wash their hands after using the bathroom less than women, years of research and on-the-ground observations show.

Health officials around the world advise that deliberate, regular handwashing is one of the best weapons against the virus which causes a flu-like respiratory illness that can kill and has spread to around 80 countries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's online fact sheet "Handwashing: A corporate activity," cites a 2009 study that finds "only 31% of men and 65% of women washed their hands" after using a public restroom.

Social media comments about men's handwashing lapses forced an august British institution to caution visitors about bathroom behaviour this week.

After author Sathnam Sanghera complained on Twitter about "grown," "educated" men in the British Library toilets not washing their hands, the library responded, putting up additional signs reminding patrons to wash their hands in men's and women's bathrooms.

Thanks to "visitor feedback," a spokesman told Reuters, "we have increased further the number of posters in public toilets so that visitors are reminded of the importance of good hygiene at exactly the point where they can wash their hands."

Men and women approach handwashing after using the restroom differently, according to multiple surveys and field studies.

"Women wash their hands significantly more often, use soap more often, and wash their hands somewhat longer than men," according to a 2013 Michigan State University field study conducted by research assistants who observed nearly 4,000 people in restrooms around East Lansing, Michigan.

The study found 14.6% of men did not wash their hands at all after using the bathroom and 35.1% wet their hands but did not use soap, compared to 7.1% and 15.1% of women, respectively.

"If you stand in the men's bathroom at work, and watch men leave, they mostly don't wash their hands if they used the urinal," said one New York City public relations executive, who did not want to be identified for fear of alienating his colleagues.

Since the virus's spread, he's seen an uptick in men's handwashing at work, he noted. "I, for the record, do wash my hands all the time," he added.

Female medical staff in critical care units "washed their hands significantly more often than did their male counterparts after patient contact," a 2001 study published in the American Journal of Infection Control found.

Middle-aged women with some college education had the highest level of knowledge about hand hygiene, a survey published in 2019 by BMC Public Health, an open access public health journal, found.

Early information about coronavirus infection in China shows that men may be more susceptible to the disease. Just over 58% of the more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients reported in China through Jan. 29, 2020, were male, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows.

Researchers have not linked the difference to hand hygiene.

17-year-old Pratyusha Jha, wakes up scrambling for newspapers these days to look for any news about her pending board exams and is anxious about what the future has in store for her.

Similar concerns are shared by Bipin Kumar, a class 12 student, who says the announcement of board exams from July 1 to 15 brought limited clarity as the larger questions remain unanswered.

The COVID-19 lockdown, came with a different set of concerns for class 12 students, whose board exams were postponed midway following the outbreak of coronavirus, putting on hold their future plans as well.

"Everyday I have been looking for news about the exams and about entrance exam dates. I feel unfortunate that this happened during the year I was supposed to take the big college leap. I don't want my future decisions to be shaped by this very year as what I opt to study now will remain with me lifelong," Pratyusha told PTI.

Ending some uncertainty for students, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' on Friday announced that the pending class 10 and 12 board exams will be held from July 1 to 15. While class 12 exams will be conducted across the country, the class 10 exams are only pending in North East Delhi where they were affected due to the law and order situation.

"The anxiety doesn't end here, there is no date sheet yet. What will be the modalities of exams, how will we reach centres, what protocols have to be followed, there is no clarity on that. My friends and I keep calling our school teachers and also the CBSE helpline to seek some clarity," Bipin Kumar said.

Vaibhav Sharma, a class 12 student in Gurgaon said, "There is no clarity yet. I wanted to apply for DU, but now that the exams are taking place in July when will the results be declared, when will cut offs be announced. If I don't get a good college here, will I be able to travel to different cities for admission, nothing is known yet."

Similarly, for the students in northeast Delhi, the wait for the exams has become a "test of patience" as they were postponed first in the area due to law and order situation, and later due to the coronavirus outbreak, resulting in a four-month-long wait for the exams.

"It has become an endless wait and now I don't feel like studying too. Right from childhood, we are taught that board exams are too crucial and have to be focussed at least two years in advance. But now, it is a different picture altogether," Rani Kumari, a resident of Chandbagh said.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed and exams postponed since March 16 when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Later, a nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which has now been extended till May 17.

The board was not able to conduct class 10 and 12 exams on eight examination days due to the coronavirus outbreak. Further, due to the law and order situation in North East Delhi, the board was not able to conduct exams on four examination days, while a very small number of students from and around this district were not able to appear in exams on six days.

The board had last month announced that it will only conduct pending exams in 29 subjects which are crucial for promotion and admission to higher educational institutions. The modalities of assessment for the subjects for which exams are not being conducted will be announced soon by the board.

The schedule has been decided in order to ensure that the board exams are completed before competitive examinations such as engineering entrance JEE-Mains, which is scheduled from July 18-23, and medical entrance exam NEET, which is scheduled on July 26.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued guidelines to universities that new academic session for freshers will begin from September while for the existing students from August.

UN, Jul 14: There will be no return to the "old normal" for the foreseeable future as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and too many countries were still headed in the wrong direction, the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned.

"The virus remains public enemy number one, but the actions of many governments and people do not reflect this," Xinhua news agency quoted WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at as saying a regular briefing on Monday.

He noted that mixed messages from leaders are undermining trust, which is the most critical ingredient of any response, while the only aim of the virus is to find people to infect.

Things are going to "get worse and worse and worse", he warned, unless governments communicate clearly with their citizens and roll out a comprehensive strategy focused on suppressing transmission and saving lives, while populations follow the basic public health principles of physical distancing, hand washing, wearing masks, coughing etiquette and staying home when sick.

COVID-19 has been gaining its momentum lately.

According to Tedros, Sunday saw a record of 230,000 cases reported to WHO, of which almost 80% were from just 10 countries and about half from just two countries.

"But it does not have to be this way," he said, asking every single leader, government and individual "to do their bit to break the chains of COVID-19 transmission and end the collective suffering".

To control the disease and get on with people's lives, Tedros said, three things are required. The first is to focus on reducing mortality and suppressing transmission; the second is to focus on an empowered, engaged community that takes individual behaviour measures in the interest of each other.

And the third is a strong government leadership and coordination of comprehensive strategies that are communicated clearly and consistently.

"We weren't prepared collectively, but we must use all the tools we have to bring this pandemic under control. And we need to do it right now," he added.

At the WHO briefing on Monday, health experts also said there was evidence to suggest that children under the age of 10 were only very mildly affected by Covid-19, while those over 10 seemed to suffer similar mild symptoms to young adults.

To what extent children can transmit the virus, while it appears to be low, remains unknown.

On Tuesday, the number of global coronavirus cases cross the 13 million mark, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The total number of cases currently stood at 13,070,097, while the fatalities rose to 572,411, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US accounted for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 3,363,056 and 135,605, respectively, according to the CSSE.

Brazil came in the second place with 1,884,967 infections and 72,833 deaths.