Budget 2018-19

  Hunting for variants requires a concerted effort. South Africa and the UK were the first big countries to implement nationwide genomic surveillance efforts for SARS-CoV-2 as early as April 2020. Since early in the COVID pandemic, the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa has been monitoring changes in SARS-CoV-2. This was a valuable tool to understand better how the virus spread. In late 2020, the network detected a new virus lineage, 501Y. V2, which later became known as the beta variant. Now a new SARS-CoV-2 variant has been identified – B.1.1.529. The World Health Organisation has declared it a variant of concern, and assigned it the name  Omicron . To help us understand more, The Conversation Africa’s Ozayr Patel asked scientists to share what they know. What’s the science behind the search? Hunting for variants requires a concerted effort. South Africa and the UK were the first big countries to implement nationwide genomic surveillance efforts for  SARS...

  Here are the key reasons why the markets traded weak on Friday. It was truly a ‘Black Friday’ for the Indian markets that saw an across-the-board sell-off. The  S&P BSE  Sensex shaved-off over 1,400 points in intra-day deals. Its counterpart on the National Stock Exchange, the Nifty50 index, lost over 400 points. So, what’s spooking the markets today? For one, the negative sentiment on Friday in the Indian markets was on account of weak global cues. Most Asian  markets  were a sea of red with Japan’s Nikkei down 2 per cent and Straits Times slipping nearly one per cent. Shanghai Composite, Kospi and Taiwan were down 0.2-0.4 per cent, each. The US markets, however, were shut on account of Thanksgiving holiday. This weak sentiment across Asian markets was triggered by fears of a sooner-than-expected rate hike by the US Federal Reserve (US Fed). Investors and traders, according to analysts, now expect the US central bank to raise rates faster on the back of t...

  Biden is reversing an order from President Donald Trump in his final days in office that called for the relaxation of the travel restrictions as of Tuesday President Joe Biden on Monday will formally reinstate COVID-19 travel restrictions on non-US travelers from Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom and 26 other European countries that allow travel across open borders, according to two White House officials. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the order, also confirmed Sunday that South Africa would be added to the restricted list because of concerns about a variant of the virus that has spread beyond that nation. Biden is reversing an order from President  Donald Trump  in his final days in office that called for the relaxation of the travel restrictions as of Tuesday. The decision to reverse the order is not surprising, but the addition of South Africa to the restricted travel list highlights the new administration’s concern about mutation...