Travel and tourism have become casualties of coronavirus lockdown, but one travel writer has found a new way to highlight Scotland's beauty, writes Deborah Anderson

The Chaotic Scots Traveller Kay Gillespie delivers her Top 10 places She's dreaming about in Scotland

By James Campbell

Cairngorm National Park has moved online to give armchair visitors a flavour of a Highland spring, finds Sandra Dick

By Deborah Anderson

LEARNING from the problems and delays over PPE and testing will be essential to getting the vaccine strategy right, experts say.

Grief

The paths around Hoolet are hard trodden these days, as the village takes its daily gulp of fresh air. Along hedgerows, down tree-lined avenues, through the woods and by the stream, legions of boots have stomped, marking out time. With almost no rain for six weeks, the lanes are dusty and tracks that were made by tractors, horses and bikes in the February mud have solidified into treacherous ruts.

Source: www.reuters.com - Sunday, May 10, 2020
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out a five-tier warning system for the coronavirus in England on Sunday when he outlines the government's plans to begin slowly easing lockdown measures, British media reported.

THERE was a popular fad in the 1990s for presenting music in its rawest form. Rather than the traditional bombast of turning everything up to 11, MTV Unplugged stripped it back to the basics. Often it was simply one singer, one guitar and a stool. And it was hugely popular.

Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.

On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.

In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.

The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”

At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.

Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”

The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.

"At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.

Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger."

Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.

When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child," the doctors association stressed.

Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.

A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

Barack Obama has criticised Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pabndemic, and described it as an 'absolute chaotic disaster', according to reports.

More than 100 coronavirus-related attacks and threats have been made towards Scotland's police force, new figures have revealed.

SCOTLAND is carrying out less than one third of the tests it has the capacity to do in the Covid-19 crisis – as concerns grow about the nation's test, trace and isolate strategy in any future easing of lockdown.

The Herald is bringing live coronavirus updates and breaking news from Scotland, the UK and the world.

Source: www.businessinsider.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
Mother's Day is the single most important holiday for flower shops, with many businesses relying on strong holiday sales to survive the summertime slowdown in demand for flowers. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, spring 2020 got off to an ominous start for florists across the United States. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. CEO Chris McCann and BloomNation CEO and cofounder Farbod Shoraka told Business Insider that their florist partners are seeing a major uptick in spending in the run-up to Mother's Day. The National Retail Federation is projecting that flower sales on Mother's Day will increase from $2.01 billion to $2.1 billion in 2020. Despite the good news, there remain major challenges to florists and the flower industry as a whole during COVID-19, including a major downturn for growers and wholesalers, reduced staffing, and even figuring out distribution capabilities. But Society of American Florists CEO Kate Penn told Busines Insider that florists are some of the "resourceful" and scrappy business owners out there: "Come rain, sleet, or social distancing they'll figure out how to get it delivered." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . For flower shops across the United States, Mother's Day is the most important date on the calendar. Millions of Americans setting out to make their moms feel special with a bright bouquet consistently ensure that the second Sunday of May is the biggest holiday in the flower business

Source: api-internal.usatoday.com.akadns.net - Friday, May 08, 2020
Vice President Pence's trip to Iowa shows how the Trump administration's aims to move past coronavirus are sometimes complicated by the virus itself.            

Source: www.vox.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
Trump gestures during an event with House Republicans on Friday. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images The president wants you to believe the US response is the envy of the world. It isn’t. The United States has endured over 78,000 coronavirus deaths as of May 8, far more than double the second hardest-hit country. Unlike most comparable countries, the trajectory of the per-day death toll has not yet meaningfully bent down here nor has the number of new cases diagnosed each day. By contrast, Germany and Japan combined have had just over 9,000 confirmed Covid-related deaths. Though Japan didn’t get off to a great start , the number of new cases per day has been hovering around 200 there. In Germany, it’s around 1,000 . In either case, the new case numbers are far below the nearly 15,000 identified in the US on Thursday. Put succinctly, while both countries continue to grapple with the virus and life is far from normal for people there, the pandemic has been somewhat brought under control to an extent Americans can only dream of. Here, by contrast, things aren’t really improving — and there’s no indication our federal government is capable of meeting the challenge. In fact, it’s quite the opposite . And yet to hear President Donald Trump tell it, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are enamored by his fantastic response to the novel coronavirus, and they’re following his lead. They’ve even told him as m

स्वास्थ्य विभाग के प्रधान सचिव संजय कुमार ने ट्विटर पर जानकारी देते हुए...

सूत्रों से मिली जानकारी के अनुसार, इस महीने 'मोदी सरकार 2.0' का एक साल पूरा होने...

The 2020 season is now set to start in July with the Austrian Grand Prix - the first of several races scheduled to take place behind closed doors as a precaution against the spread of COVID-19.

AC Milan said that the team would continue the individual training programmes that they and other Serie A clubs had begun this week.

The number of novel coronavirus cases recorded worldwide surpassed four million on Saturday, according to an AFP tally based on official sources, as of 2145 GMT.

The United States recorded 1,568 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 78,746, according to the latest real-time tally reported by Johns Hopkins University at 8:30 pm Saturday...

India reported 3,277 new coronavirus patients in the last 24 hours and 128 deaths linked to the illness that brings the total number of cases in the country to 62,939, including 2,109 deaths, the...

The Indian and American pharmaceutical companies are currently working together on at least three possible vaccines to fight the coronavirus, India Ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh...

Hyundai Motor India has restarted the production at its Chennai-based plant by ensuring 100 per cent compliance to social distancing and adhering to all the guidelines issued by the State and Central...

The app will generate real-time location-based alerts helping all employees and consumer base in being aware of the relevant localised corona safety information.

It has been well over three weeks our motorcycles have been parked and there are now nearly three more weeks to go before the coronavirus lockdown hopefully lifts. When you do finally get back on the road, remember to check these six things.

Warren Buffett on Saturday took a dive into the 231-year history of the United States of America to predict the future of the country’s economy struggling to stay on its feet amid the struggle against coronavirus and lockdown: “Nothing can basically stop America.”

In reduced trade, with China, Japan and South Korea on holiday, Australia's ASX 200 rose 1.26% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 0.66%.

Gold prices have gained over 18 per cent from their recent low of Rs 38,400 per 10 grams hit on March 16, 2020. While silver futures surged 25 per cent from its low of Rs 33,580 per kg touched in March.

On MCX, gold June futures were trading Rs 153 or 0.33 per cent down at Rs 46,008 per 10 grams. Silver July futures were ruling at Rs 43,265 per kg, up Rs 142 or 0.33 per cent.

From playing the reruns of popular shows to using video conferencing tools to create content, broadcasters are using different methods to keep the audience entertained during lockdown

CCMB and Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi are working together on the whole genome sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus isolates which will help them to understand the evolution of the virus and its spread route.

Traditionally, our response to laws failing to arrest healthcare violence has been to simply increase the quantum and severity of punishment the next time.

Can’t blame Corona for crisis, investment choice was poor

The Centre's fiscal management of the Covid crisis vis-a-vis availability of funds to states might result in creating a coercive, rather than a cooperative federalism.

It is not just the lungs, it affects the heart, kidneys, brain... this is making treatment—and a lasting cure—difficult.

An RT-PCR test takes several hours for the result to be available. We cannot make a patient who comes with a non-Covid-19 problem wait till that result is available.

Even supporting the poor—whose numbers will double—can cost Rs 65,000-130,000 crore per month

Even now, a state like West Bengal’s data looks dodgy; others like Gujarat and UP also pose challenges

Israel has just reported a potent monoclonal antibody (mAb) against SARS CoV-2. Firms in South Korea, the US are leading mAb trials.

For ‘Act Now’, company leadership should create a “war room” with a senior cross-functional team, focused on scenario planning, prioritising crisis response, and managing initiatives in with dynamism and agility.

CoronaVirus/Lockdown update news in Marathi : करोना आणि लॉकडाऊनविषयीची ब्रेकिंग बातमी

करोनाबाधितांची एकूण रुग्ण संख्या आता 62 हजार 939  वर पोहचली

The scientists tested their vaccine on mice. The mice developed antibodies immediately after a single injection, which prevented the virus from infecting human cells. Researchers selected 2 of the five candidates for the vaccine after studying them with the best results.

Coronavirus COVID 19 vaccine news, latest update, human trials: Sanofi's Pasteur division has an established track record in influenza vaccines. Last month it had teamed with its British rival GSK to produce a vaccine candidate hoping that it will be ready in 2021.