Mordern Education

  COVID sparks resurgence of ISIL terrorists, threatening international peace and security, Security Council hears Despite the competing priorities brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vladimir Voronkov, head of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), said that it was "crucial" for Member States to remain focused and united in thwarting terrorism.10 February 2021 - The threat to international peace and security posed by ISIL terrorist fighters is "on the rise again", the UN counter-terrorism chief told the Security Council on Wednesday. "While ISIL has not developed a purposeful strategy to exploit the pandemic, its efforts to regroup and to reinvigorate its activities [has] gained further momentum", he said. Via videoconference, the UN official flagged that the terrorists, also known in Arabic as Da'esh, have maintained the ability to move and operate, including across porous borders. At the same time, the pandemic's socio-economic toll and polit...

  Clinical Practice     Exhaled Aerosol Increases with COVID-19 Infection, Age, and Obesity   (PNAS)  Our studies of exhaled aerosol suggest that a critical factor in these and other transmission events is the propensity of certain individuals to exhale large numbers of small respiratory droplets. Our findings indicate that the capacity of airway lining mucus to resist breakup on breathing varies significantly between individuals, with a trend to increasing with the advance of COVID-19 infection and body mass index multiplied by age (i.e., BMI-years). Understanding the source and variance of respiratory droplet generation, and controlling it via the stabilization of airway lining mucus surfaces, may lead to effective approaches to reducing COVID-19 infection and transmission.. Public & Global Health Covid-19 Vaccination Rates Follow the Money in States with the Biggest Wealth Gaps, analysis shows   (STAT News)  Connecticut has the most glaring disp...

  Beijing, China:  China on Monday vehemently refuted the US charge that the novel coronavirus was leaked from a bio lab in the country and asserted that the pandemic was likely to have been caused by separate outbreaks in multiple places in the world. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying's remarks came amidst reports that a ten-member team of the World Health Organisation (WHO) scientists would visit China this month to probe the origin of the coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan in December 2019. Beijing is yet to confirm the visit by the WHO team and remained silent about granting permission for it to visit Wuhan city in central China. "I have no detailed information for you," Ms Hua told a media briefing here when asked about the visit of the WHO team and whether its schedule included a visit to Wuhan. "China attaches high importance to cooperation with the WHO. We have been providing support and convenience for WHO''s work," Ms Hua said...

  The value proposition of the Global Health Security Index Abstract Infectious disease outbreaks pose major threats to human health and security. Countries with robust capacities for preventing, detecting and responding to outbreaks can avert many of the social, political, economic and health system costs of such crises. The Global Health Security Index (GHS Index)—the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries—recently found that no country is sufficiently prepared for epidemics or pandemics. The GHS Index can help health security stakeholders identify areas of weakness, as well as opportunities to collaborate across sectors, collectively strengthen health systems and achieve shared public health goals. Some scholars have recently offered constructive critiques of the GHS Index’s approach to scoring and ranking countries; its weighting of select indicators; its emphasis on transparency; its focus on biosecurity...