Landslides obstruct Narayangharh-Muglin road section
Vehicular movement along the Narayangharh-Muglin in Chitwan district has been obstructed from 8:00 this morning following landslides in two different places. DSP Bijay Raj Pandit of the District Police Office, Chitwan said that landslides at Kerabari and Atharakilo of the road section disrupted the vehicular movement. The landslides in both the areas are still taking place due to torrential rainfall. DSP Pandit said that coordination is going to clear the landslide and resume the traffic. A large number of vehicles have been stranded midway.
Rain with thunder likely across the country
Weather across the country is likely to remain partly to generally cloudy throughout the day today with the possibility of light to moderate rainfall at many places of the country, according to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. The Department said that there is a chance of heavy rain at one or two places of Gandaki, Lumbini and Sudurpaschim provinces in the next 24 hours. People in those provinces have been asked to apply measures as daily life and transportation is likely to be affected due to flooding, landslide and soil-erosion due to heavy rain. Likewise, weather across the nation will remain partly to generally cloudy with the chance of light to moderate rainfall with thunderstorm and lightning at few places of Province 1, Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces and at one or two places of the remaining provinces tonight. As per the latest details of Meteorological Forecasting Division, today's minimum temperature of the Kathmandu Valley is recorded at 20.8 degree Celsius and maximum temperature at 27.8 degree Celsius.
CDC endorses updated COVID boosters, shots to begin soon
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday endorsed updated COIVD-19 boosters, opening the way for a fall vaccination campaign that could blunt a winter surge if enough Americans roll up their sleeves, Associated Press reported.
The new boosters targeting today’s most common omicron strains should begin arriving in pharmacies and clinics within days.
The decision by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky came shortly after the agency’s advisers voted in favor of the recommendation.
The shots “can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination and were designed to provide broader protection,” she said in a statement.
The tweaked shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna offer Americans a chance to get the most up-to-date protection at yet another critical period in the pandemic. They’re combination or “bivalent” shots — half the original vaccine and half protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions now causing nearly all COVID-19 infections.
The CDC’s advisers struggled with who should get the new boosters and when because only a similarly tweaked vaccine, not the exact recipe, has been studied in people so far.
But ultimately the panel deemed the updated injections the best option considering the U.S. still is experiencing tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases and about 500 deaths every day — even before an expected new winter wave. “I think they’re going to be an effective tool for disease prevention this fall and into the winter,” said CDC adviser Dr. Matthew Daley of Kaiser Permanente Colorado.
Comparing the tweak that has been studied in people and the one the U.S. actually will use, “it is the same scaffolding, part of the same roof, we’re just putting in some dormers and windows,” said Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University, according to Associated Press.
The CDC recommendation was the last step before shots can begin. Pfizer said it expected to deliver 3 million doses to vaccination sites around the country by Tuesday.
The original COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against severe illness and death, especially among younger and healthier people who’ve gotten at least one booster.
But those vaccines were designed to target the virus strain that circulated in early 2020. Effectiveness drops as new mutants emerge and more time passes since someone’s last shot. Since April, hospitalization rates in people over age 65 have jumped, the CDC said.
The updated shots are only for use as a booster, not for someone’s first-ever vaccinations. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s bivalent option for people 12 and older while Moderna’s is for adults only.
A big unknown: exactly how much benefit people will get from one of those extra shots.
The CDC said more than 1,400 people have been included in several studies of a prior tweak to the vaccine recipe targeting an earlier omicron strain named BA.1. That omicron-targeting combo shot proved safe and able to rev up virus-fighting antibodies, and European regulators on Thursday recommended using that type of booster, Associated Press reported.
In the U.S., the FDA wanted fall boosters to target the currently circulating omicron strains. Rather than waiting until possibly November for more human studies to be finished, the agency accepted mouse testing that showed the newer tweak sparked a similarly good immune response.
Covid in China: Chengdu lockdown after outbreak
Chengdu has become the latest Chinese city to be locked down as Beijing continues to pursue its controversial "zero-Covid" policy, BBC reported.
Around 21 million people have been ordered to stay indoors, with just one person per household allowed out for essential shopping.
On Thursday, the city recorded 157 new infections, including 51 asymptomatic.
China's Covid policies require cities to enter strict lockdowns - even if just a handful of cases are reported.
However, Beijing's drive to ensure "zero Covid" has been accused of stifling economic growth, and has prompted rare public dissent from citizens.
Chengdu's residents, asked to stay at home from 18:00 local time (10:00 GMT) on Thursday, will all be tested over the coming days, but it was not clear when restrictions would be lifted.
State media also reports that the start of schools' autumn term has been postponed and flights have been grounded, according to BBC.
Other restrictions are currently in force elsewhere in China, including in Shenzhen in the south and Dalian in the north-east.
The country has deployed a range of city-specific Covid prevention measures after the initial wave of the virus hit Wuhan in 2019.
China is the world's last major economy attempting to entirely stamp out Covid outbreaks, claiming this is necessary to prevent wider surges of the virus which could overwhelm hospitals, BBC reported.
