# Helping hands during Covid: As the pandemic hit communities across the country, scores of volunteers came forward to provide help to people in distress, risking their own life. Hundreds of volunteers having an academic background in social work too offered a helping hand.
# Daily tally: In the last 24 hours, 2,541 new cases were recorded and 30 deaths.
# Carrot & stick: Multinational drugmaker Pfizer came in for the carrot and stick treatment from the World Health Organization over its anti-viral Paxlovid, given to mild and moderate Covid-19 patients with the highest risk of hospitalisation.
# SEC recommendations: India will begin innoculating children in the 5-11 age group , against Covid-19, as soon as it receives recommendations regarding the same from the expert group, Union Health Minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, said.
# Track hospitalisations: Vaccine inequity remains an issue both within India, where less than 2 per cent of the population has received a Covid booster, and the globe with 56 countries unable to inoculate even 10 per cent of their people, says Johns Hopkins scientist Amita Gupta.
# Metal barriers: Volunteers and low-level government workers in Shanghai have erected metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes as China hardens its strict “zero-Covid” approach in the metropolis.