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Recent Singapore Virus Cases Tied To India-Dominant Variant

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People wearing face masks walk along the promenade at Marina Bay in Singapore. (FILE)
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The highly transmissible strain of Covid-19 that surfaced in India has become more prominent among Singapore's growing number of unlinked cases, in a sign that hidden chains of transmission of the variant have existed for some time.
Of the 17 unlinked cases identified on Sunday, six patients whose ages range from 29 to 57 years old preliminarily tested positive for the strain known as B.1.617, according to updated Ministry of Health data published overnight. Among them is a driver who was tested for the virus after developing a runny nose, an auxiliary police officer who had body aches, and an unemployed Malaysian national who saw a doctor after experiencing fever and cough. Among them, two had gotten their first vaccine dose already.
There have also been cases tied to the variant detected in India in the infection clusters seen at the country's airport and a large public hospital.
All in, Singapore reported 38 new cases of Covid-19 infection in the community on Sunday, the highest number in more than a year. The spike in unlinked local cases -- which increased to 32 cases in the past week from six cases the week before -- comes as Singapore returns to the lockdown-like conditions it last imposed a year ago, banning dining-in and limiting gatherings to two people. While the outbreak is smaller than the one last year centered on migrant workers, it is being driven by new variants, which are causing fierce new waves and outpacing vaccination progress in many places around the world.
On Sunday, Singapore further announced it will stop most in-person school classes this week, with its education minister saying some of the variants appear to attack younger children.
Countries like the UK have said the strain could lead to a major surge in cases and is accelerating its vaccine rollout. Meanwhile, Singapore's inoculation pace has been limited by supplies. The city-state is now studying holding off the second vaccine shot so that more people can get at least the first dose.
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"If supply is limited, then giving more people a single dose while waiting for more supplies is a good strategy because the protection from the mRNA vaccines after one dose is quite high, said Raina MacIntyre, a professor of biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Vaccination Pace
She co-authored a study last month looking at requirements for herd immunity in Australia's New South Wales, which has a population size comparable to Singapore's. If using a vaccine of 90% efficacy against all infections, it finds you need 66% of the population to be fully vaccinated. So far, Singapore has vaccinated 1.9 million people, or a third of the population, with the first dose. About 1.3 million have received both doses.
"All precautions must continue while the vaccination program continues," she said. MacIntyre said that if the Indian variant, that is more transmissible, is dominant, "achieving herd immunity will require higher vaccination rates - maybe 75-80% vaccinated."
Singapore's virus situation could be more dangerous than it was just before a similar lockdown last year, warned David Lye, an associate professor at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, according to the Straits Times. The many cases with no linkage suggest that the spread to the community from the outbreak at Changi Airport may be "wide and far," he said, according to the paper.
Singapore has reacted aggressively to the flareup linked to the variant by barring visitors from India last month and extending quarantines at government-designated facilities to three weeks.
"New strains of the Covid-19 virus seem to have slightly different characteristics from the previous strains," Chan Chun Sing, the new education minister said at a briefing on Sunday announcing the new school measures. "But one of the things that we have seen seems to be -- at least from our numbers -- there are more children who seem to have contracted this virus, so of course that is an area of great concern."
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-recent-singapore-virus-cases-tied-to-india-dominant-variant-2443643">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-recent-singapore-virus-cases-tied-to-india-dominant-variant-2443643</a>

news world Recent Singapore Virus Cases Tied To India-Dominant Variant

People wearing face masks walk along the promenade at Marina Bay in Singapore. (FILE) The highly transmissible strain of Covid-19 that s...

CEO Behind 5,500% Stock Gain Says His Secret Is Raising Salaries

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Masaru Tange said he wanted to change perception that software testing was a second-rate job
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Masaru Tange says the strategy that turned his company into one of Japan's best-performing stocks may be surprising: He buys smaller firms and boosts their workers' pay.
Tange's Shift Inc., a software tester, acquires other businesses near the bottom of the industry supply chain and raises their engineers' salaries. He says he's able to do this and still charge competitive prices by cutting out layers of companies that serve as middlemen in the outsourcing process. And having more workers leads to higher sales.
Shift's shares have risen more than 5,300% since it went public in 2014, the second-best performance on Tokyo's benchmark stock index. The company's market capitalization has surged to about $2.3 billion, pushing the value of Tange's 33% stake to about $745 million.
Tange, 46, says his business model is an attempt to remove inefficiencies in Japan's software industry, where layers of subcontractors take cuts on orders before passing the work to another company below. It's also, he says, a break from the M&A strategy of buying a business and looking to reduce costs.
"I have a strong urge to rescue these young employees," Tange, Shift's founder, president and chief executive officer, said in an interview. "I want to create a fair working environment through M&A."
Tange grew up in what he describes as an ordinary family in Hiroshima in southwestern Japan, where both his parents were civil servants. He established Shift in 2005 after majoring in mechanical engineering and spending more than five years working for a consulting firm.
Shift started out advising companies on how to improve profits. In 2009, it entered the software testing business.
Tange said he wanted to change engineers' perception that software testing was a second-rate job, including by paying them more money.
For example, for a service where the market price was 2 million yen ($18,320), Shift would charge 1.5 million yen. This would enable it to win customers. At the same time, it would raise the amount paid to the engineer to about 800,000 yen from 500,000 yen. It could do so, Tange said, by getting rid of middlemen.
Shift acquired Yusuke Sato's company in 2016. Since then, the software developer says his salary has jumped by more than 70%.
"Joining Shift was a huge turning point in my career," Sato said.
Shift has 3,308 engineers as permanent employees as of the end of February, up more than 14-fold from 228 at the end of November 2015. The company acquired at least 14 firms during that period.
Increasing engineers leads directly to revenue growth because it enables the company to do more business, according to Go Saito, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG who initiated coverage on the stock in February with an outperform rating.
"Sales can be derived by multiplying the number of engineers and the unit price for engineers," Saito wrote in a report that month. "The company has already created a framework for the skills development of engineers, enabling it to cultivate high-quality human resources."
Revenue rose to 28.7 billion yen in the 12 months ended August 2020, more than triple the level three years earlier. Profit increased to 1.6 billion yen, compared to 208 million yen three years before. Shift forecasts that sales will jump to a record 45 billion yen this fiscal year.
Software engineers are underpaid in Japan compared to the US and there's a shortage of them, according to Saito. That's one reason why Shift's model of outsourcing software testing works, he said.
"We're the biggest in Japan in this area," Tange said. "I do see revenue reaching 100 billion yen," he said, referring to the company's goal for the fiscal year ending August 2025.
Shift's soaring shares haven't been immune to pullbacks. They've fallen about 22% from a record in October as investors sold high-growth technology stocks. Even after the drop, the company trades at about 87 times estimated earnings.
For veteran investor Mitsushige Akino, the stock may see more volatility in coming months and could fall in market downturns. But its "fundamentals are solid and Shift is making progress on the vision it laid out," the senior executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management Co. said. "It won't be strange to see more buying of these types of shares if investors focus once more on growth stocks."
Credit Suisse's Saito says the key will be whether Shift is able to continue to increase its number of engineers.
Whether that will happen remains to be seen, but Tange, at least, isn't short of confidence.
"We're just getting started," he said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world CEO Behind 5,500% Stock Gain Says His Secret Is Raising Salaries

Masaru Tange said he wanted to change perception that software testing was a second-rate job Masaru Tange says the strategy that turned ...

WarnerMedia And Discovery To Merge, Forming Media Giant

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The deal will create a streaming giant that could compete with Netflix and Disney+.
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New Delhi:
US telecommunications firm AT&T announced Monday a merger between its WarnerMedia unit -- which owns CNN and HBO -- and Discovery media, creating a streaming giant that could compete with Netflix and Disney+.
When the deal is finalized, AT&T will receive $43 billion and AT&T's shareholders will take stock representing 71 percent of the new company, with Discovery shareholders owning 29 percent.
In a joint statement, the merger was described as creating "one of the largest global streaming players."
The deal will "combine WarnerMedia's premium entertainment, sports and news assets with Discovery's leading nonfiction and international entertainment and sports businesses to create a premier, standalone global entertainment company," the companies said.
The transaction could create a rival to challenge industry leaders Netflix and Disney+, which have seen subscriber numbers surge during the pandemic.
A slowdown in the growth of the Disney empire's streaming platform between January and March, however, made investors fret and caused the group's shares to plunge last week.
AT&T bought Time Warner in 2018 for $80 billion, then renamed it WarnerMedia, which owns HBO, Warner Bros. studios and cable channels such as CNN.
Discovery has channels in 220 countries, according to its website.
WarnerMedia had net sales of $30.4 billion in 2020, and Discovery -- which owns Eurosport -- $10.7 billion.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world WarnerMedia And Discovery To Merge, Forming Media Giant

The deal will create a streaming giant that could compete with Netflix and Disney+. New Delhi: US telecommunications firm AT&T anno...

Nawaz Sharif's Brother Shehbaz Sharif Put On No-Fly List

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Shehbaz Sharif wanted to go to London for a medical checkup after he was bailed out of jail last month
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Islamabad:
The Pakistan government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday added the name of Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, who has been charged with corruption, to the no-fly list, barring him from leaving the country for medical treatment.
Earlier this month, the Lahore High Court granted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz -- also the younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- permission to travel abroad once for medical treatment.
After obtaining bail, Shehbaz, 69, was about to fly to London on May 8 when an Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team at the airport stopped him from travelling on the grounds that his name had been on the provisional national identification list (PNIL), which impose a temporary bar on someone to leave the country.
Shehbaz was offloaded from Doha-bound flight on May 8.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Shehbaz's name was added to the exit control list (ECL) after approval from the federal Cabinet.
A special committee of the Interior Ministry on May 12 had proposed to the Cabinet that Shehbaz should be barred from leaving the country due to corruption cases against him.
Shehbaz wanted to go to London for a medical checkup after he was bailed out of jail last month.
The interior minister said Shehbaz had not submitted any medical documents for travelling abroad or specified the treatment for his illness.
Last week, Shehbaz had challenged the placement of his name on a travel blacklist and sought one-time permission to go abroad for medical treatment.
"I have been a cancer patient and got treated in New York and London. I could not get treatment for more than seven months as I was in jail," the top PML-N leader said, adding in light of the medical test report conducted in jail, there was a need for immediate treatment.
Interior minister Ahmed said Shehbaz "was the guarantor for his brother Nawaz. But instead of bringing him back, he was trying to flee".
"If Nawaz Sharif did not return then why should Shehbaz return? This is a matter of common sense," he said in reply to a question.
Sharif has been in London since November 2019 on "medical grounds".
The Imran Khan government has declared Sharif an absconder and cancelled his passport. Sharif left the country after the court granted him bail in the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case in which he was undergoing seven years imprisonment in Kot Lakhpat jail Lahore.
He was also granted four-week bail on medical grounds to have his treatment abroad. The government declared him an absconder after he failed to justify prolonging his stay in London.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry also said that Shehbaz's name has been added to the no-fly list after approval from the Cabinet and completion of legal formalities. "The relevant record has been updated in this regard," he tweeted.
Meanwhile, criticising the government's move, PML-N leader Azam Nazir Tarar said the party will file a case of contempt of court.
"The government refused to let him (Shehbaz) go abroad despite orders by the Lahore High Court," Tarar said.
Several PML-N leaders have been facing corruption cases, which they claim, are politically motivated.
On April 23, 2021, Shehbaz walked free from Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail after about eight months behind bars in the money laundering and assets beyond means reference filed by the country''s anti-graft body.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had alleged that Shehbaz's family had assets of around PKR 16.5 million till 1990, which increased to over PKR 7 billion in 2018 which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/nawaz-sharifs-brother-shehbaz-sharif-put-on-no-fly-list-2443464">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/nawaz-sharifs-brother-shehbaz-sharif-put-on-no-fly-list-2443464</a>

news world Nawaz Sharif's Brother Shehbaz Sharif Put On No-Fly List

Shehbaz Sharif wanted to go to London for a medical checkup after he was bailed out of jail last month Islamabad: The Pakistan governme...

Working 55 Hours A Week Increases Risk Of Death: UN Study

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"Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard," said WHO official (Representational)
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United Nations:
Working more than 55 hours a week increases the risk of death from heart disease and stroke, according to a United Nations study out Monday.
The report by the UN's World Health Organization and International Labor Organization agencies comes as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates workplace changes that could reinforce the tendency to work longer hours.
The WHO-ILO study, published in the journal Environment International, is the first global analysis of the risks to life and health associated with working long hours.
It does not focus on the pandemic but on the preceding years. The authors synthesised data from dozens of studies involving hundreds of thousands of participants.
"Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard," said Maria Neira, director of the WHO's environment, climate change and health department.
"It's time that we all -- governments, employers, and employees -- wake up to the fact that long working hours can lead to premature death."
The study concluded that working 55 hours or more per week was associated with an estimated 35-percent increase in the risk of suffering a stroke, and a 17-percent rise in the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35 to 40 hours.
- Teleworking -
The WHO and the ILO estimated that in 2016, 398,000 people died from a stroke and 3,47,000 from heart disease after working at least 55 hours per week.
Between 2000 and 2016, the number of deaths due to heart disease linked to long working hours increased by 42 percent, while the figure for strokes went up by 19 per cent.
Most of the recorded deaths were among people aged 60 to 79, who had worked 55 hours or more per week when they were between 45 and 74 years old.
"With working long hours now known to be responsible for about one-third of the total estimated work-related burden of disease, it is established as the risk factor with the largest occupational disease burden," the WHO said.
The organisation also said that the coronavirus crisis was speeding up developments that could feed the trend towards increased working time.
"The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way many people work," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"Teleworking has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between home and work. In addition, many businesses have been forced to scale back or shut down operations to save money, and people who are still on the payroll end up working longer hours.
"No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease. Governments, employers and workers need to work together to agree on limits to protect the health of workers."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/working-55-hours-a-week-increases-risk-of-death-united-nations-2443447">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/working-55-hours-a-week-increases-risk-of-death-united-nations-2443447</a>

news world Working 55 Hours A Week Increases Risk Of Death: UN Study

"Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard," said WHO official (Representational) United Nations: Working ...

Breaking : Half Of NIH/CDC Refuse The COVID Vaccine Right As The World Awakens

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Alex Jones breaks down how a majority of NIH and CDC experts – epidemiologists, virologists, and physicians who set America’s public health policy – are refusing to take the experimental COVID mRNA vaccine themselves while claiming in the media that it’s safe.
The Big Tech purge is here! Follow <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/the-big-tech-crackdown-is-accelerating-follow-infowars-on-these-growing-alternative-platforms/">Infowars and Alex Jones on other growing platforms</a> now to stay informed as the information blackout accelerates.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/breaking-half-of-nih-cdc-refuse-the-covid-vaccine-right-as-the-world-awakens">https://www.infowars.com/posts/breaking-half-of-nih-cdc-refuse-the-covid-vaccine-right-as-the-world-awakens</a>

news Breaking : Half Of NIH/CDC Refuse The COVID Vaccine Right As The World Awakens

Alex Jones breaks down how a majority of NIH and CDC experts – epidemiologists, virologists, and physicians who set America’s public health...