Corona Virus Archives - APADANA MEDIA

COVID Daily Death Toll in Iran Stands at 134

Apadana Central — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:51:14 +0000

The coronavirus pandemic claimed 134 lives in Iran over the past 24 hours.

Providing the latest statistics on the coronavirus infection, the Health Ministry’s spokeswoman said on Tuesday that the total number of people tested positive for COVID-19 in the country has surpassed 3,049,000 after the detection of 10,216 new cases since yesterday.

Sima Sadat Lari said the pandemic has claimed 134 lives over the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 82,351.

More than 2,683,200 patients have recovered from the coronavirus infection so far or have been discharged from hospitals across Iran, Lari noted.

Among those undergoing treatment at present, 3,394 are being kept in the Intensive Care Units of medical centers because of critical health conditions, she said.

The spokeswoman also said more than 21.81 million coronavirus diagnostic tests have been carried out in Iran so far and over 4.36 million people have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine.

The number of people infected with COVID-19 across the world has surpassed 177 million and the death toll has exceeded 3.82 million.

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Iran to Emerge as Major COVID Vaccine Producer by Summer’s End: Minister

Apadana Central — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:47:54 +0000

COVID News | Apadana Media

Iran’s minister of health said the country will become one of the world’s biggest producers of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of summer.

In comments after opening a new hospital in the central province of Isfahan on Tuesday, Saeed Namaki said Iran will be known as a Major COVID Vaccine Producer in the world by the end of summer.

He also noted that the distribution of the first Iranian vaccine for the coronavirus, the emergency use of which has just been authorized, would begin across the country today.

The minister further deplored foreign vaccine sellers for the failure to honor their commitments, saying Iran’s efforts have resolved a series of problems as the import of the COVID vaccine to Iran has resumed.

In comments on Monday, Namaki said the emergency-use authorization has been granted for COVIran Barekat, the homegrown vaccine for the coronavirus named after the pharmaceutical group that has developed it.

The minister also noted that the emergency use of another vaccine developed jointly by Cuba and the Pasteur Institute of Iran will be authorized next week.

The COVIran vaccine has gone into three stages of clinical trials, the last of which involved 20,000 people in the cities of Tehran, Bushehr, Shiraz, Karaj, Mashhad and Isfahan.

Iran has already granted emergency use authorization to Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine, Covaxin made by India’s Bharat Biotech, Oxford/AstraZeneca developed by Russia’s R-Pharm Group, and the AstraZeneca-SKBio made in South Korea.

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Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Asians around the world appear to be experiencing more discrimination, and many say it’s happening at work.

Apadana Central — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 03:07:33 +0000

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Asians around the world appear to be experiencing more discrimination, and many say it’s happening at work.

Covid-19 pandemic | Apadana Media

Asians around the world speak out on workplace discrimination

By Michelle Toh, Moss Cohen and Lauren Cook, CNN Business

Published June 7, 2021

It’s not just in the streets, and it’s not just in the United States.

In Australia, 66.4% of Asian Australian respondents to a survey last October reported experiencing workplace discrimination, which represented an increase of almost 15% in six months. The pandemic worsened dramatically in the country during that time, with coronavirus cases surging from 4,862 to 27,109 between last April and October, according to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University.

Asian Australians also suffered a disproportionate drop in working hours last spring, which “was more than twice the drop” for the rest of the population, according to researchers at the Australian National University, which conducted the study. They noted that there was “a range of possible explanations” for the disparity, including “that discrimination against Asian Australians in the workplace may have had an effect.”

In the United Kingdom, the employment rate among Chinese people dropped 4.6% from the first quarter of 2020 to the second — nearly three times more than declines experienced by other ethnic groups, according to government data.

“It is likely that the high representation of Chinese and East Asian people in hard-hit sectors like hospitality is part of it, but direct discrimination by employers may play a role too,” Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, a British coalition of labor unions, told CNN Business.

The coronavirus outbreak was first detected in China last year, leading some politicians to blame the country for the crisis. Victims and community groups say that has emboldened more people to show hostility to those perceived to be of Asian — and especially Chinese — descent.

CNN Business spoke with 38 workers in 11 countries who reported experiencing or witnessing bias in a range of ways since the start of the pandemic, from explicit harassment to subtle microaggressions.

They are of various Asian ethnicities, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino.

Here are 11 of their stories.

CNN Business spoke to dozens of people around the world.

Read, watch or listen to some of their experiences of racial discrimination in the workplace.

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The Covid-19 Death Toll Is Even Worse Than It Looks

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 12:59:12 +0000

US Press Agency in Battle Creek | Apadana Media

World-wide deaths are running far beyond what would have been expected without the pandemic

The recorded death count from the Covid-19 pandemic as of Thursday is nearing 2 million. The true extent is far worse.

More than 2.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions. This tally offers the most comprehensive view yet of the pandemic’s global impact. Deaths in these places last year surged more than 12% above average levels.

Less than two-thirds of that surge has been attributed directly to Covid-19. Public-health experts believe that many, if not most, of the additional deaths were directly linked to the disease, particularly early in the pandemic when testing was sparse. Some of those excess deaths came from indirect fallout, from health-care disruptions, people avoiding the hospital and other issues.

To better understand the pandemic’s global toll, the Journal compiled the most recent available data on deaths from all causes from countries with available records. These countries together account for roughly one-quarter of the world’s population but about three-quarters of all reported deaths from Covid-19 through late last year.

The tally found more than 821,000 additional deaths that aren’t accounted for in governments’ official Covid-19 death counts.

US Press Agency in Battle Creek | Apadana Media

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Macron Accuses Lebanon Leaders Of ‘Betrayal’ Over Government Failure

Apadana Central — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 07:56:57 +0000

Emmanuel Macron Accuses Lebanon Leaders Of ‘Betrayal’ Over Government Failure | Apadana Media

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday upped the pressure on Lebanon’s leaders to form a government in the wake of the Beirut port blast, saying their lack of progress represented a “collective betrayal”.

Lebanon remains mired in political economic crisis with no end in sight after its premier-designate stepped down on Saturday following the failure of talks to form a government, despite intense international scrutiny.

At a rare news conference devoted to Lebanon, Emmanuel Macron launched an extraordinary diatribe against a Lebanese political elite who he said had looked to their own selfish interests rather than those of their country.

“They have decided to betray this commitment (to form a government),” Macron told reporters, declaring he was “ashamed” of the country’s leaders.

“I see that the Lebanese authorities and political forces chose to favor their partisan and individual interests to the detriment of the general interest of the country,” he added.

Mustapha Adib’s resignation on Saturday ended efforts to hammer out a reformist government in the wake of a colossal August 4 explosion in Beirut that killed 190 people, injured thousands and ravaged large parts of the capital.

Political parties had pledged in early September, during a visit to Lebanon by Macron, to form within two weeks a cabinet of independent ministers tasked with ending the country’s economic malaise.

Macron has visited the former French protectorate twice since the blast, meeting during his last trip Hezbollah representatives as he sought to bring all political sides behind a road map to lift the country out of crisis.

In August, he chaired a video conference that saw world leaders pledge more than 250 million euros ($295 million) for the country.

– ‘Collective betrayal’ –

Macron said none of the leaders of Lebanon — where in the wake of the 1975-1990 civil war power is traditionally shared between Shiites, Sunnis and Christians — had been up to the task.

“All of them bet on the worst case scenario for the sake of saving themselves, the interests of their family or their clan,” he seethed.

“I therefore have decided to take note of this collective betrayal and the refusal of Lebanese officials to engage in good faith.”

Under the Lebanese constitution, the president must now hold further talks to nominate another prime minister to form a government, but it is a process that risks dragging out and even failing.

“I don’t expect a government anytime soon,” Sami Atallah, who heads the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, told AFP in Beirut.

“There was a chance, there was a lot of pressure to form a government and it didn’t happen,” he said, adding there was a “bigger problem” of geopolitical tensions, especially between the United States and Iran.

Adib’s efforts were hampered by the claims of two Shiite formations, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and its ally Amal, led by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who demanded the finance portfolio.

According to observers, the Shiite allies dug in their heels after recent US sanctions were imposed on a minister of the Amal party and two companies affiliated with Hezbollah.

In a warning to Hezbollah, Macron said the group should “not think it is more powerful than it is”.

“It must show that it respects all the Lebanese. And in recent days days, it has clearly shown the opposite,” said Macron.

– ‘Last chance’ –

The French president said that the road map for political and economic reform set out on his last visit to Beirut on September 1 was still on the table but time was running out.

“It is now up to Lebanese officials to seize this last chance themselves,” he said.

The UN envoy to Lebanon, Jan Kubis, on Saturday had reacted with disbelief to the failure to form a government: “Politicians, have you really scuppered this unique chance created by France?”

Even before the devastating Beirut port blast, the country was already mired in its worst economic crisis in decades, and its entrenched political class was dealing with widespread popular discontent.

After the country for the first time defaulted on its sovereign debt in March, it launched talks with the International Monetary Fund towards lifting the country out of crisis, but those discussions soon stalled.

Many are worried the country is headed from bad to worse, with daily novel coronavirus infection figures on the rise and increasing security incidents reported in recent weeks.

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