PETALING JAYA: Deals on the emergency procurement of ventilators during the Covid-19 pandemic had to be done through WhatsApp due to the sheer urgency of the situation, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on the management of the Covid-19 outbreak revealed. The Committee found that 104 of the 136 ventilators supplied by Pharmaniaga Logistics Sdn Bhd...
KUALA LUMPUR: A retired teacher has proven that a strong spirit is a powerful force that can drive us to achieve our goals including going on a solo motorcycle tour to seven countries covering a distance of over 30,000km. For the road expedition which took him almost four years to complete, Mohammad Lasim Deraman rode his...
Even during the confusion of early 2020, when the coronavirus was indeed novel and images of lines of coffins being unloaded from Italian hospitals spread fear throughout Europe and beyond, it was apparent that some people who caught the virus either ended up with mild symptoms or none at all. It was always difficult to get...
The head of China's Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday (April 8) urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) to return to a "scientific, fair" position in tracing the origin of Covid-19. At a news conference, Shen Hongbing warned the WHO against politicising the source of the virus, which was first detected in central...
India's federal government asked states to identify emergency hotspots and ramp up-testing for Covid-19, after the country recorded its highest daily case count since September, a Reuters tally showed on Friday (April 7). There were 6,050 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the federal health ministry said on Friday, continuing a sharp upward...
China’s capital Beijing has dialled up measures to stop Covid-19, strengthening public checks and locking down some residential compounds after a quadrupling of its case load in recent weeks, just as a key Communist Party congress entered full swing. The city of 21 million people on Thursday reported 18 new locally transmitted cases for the previous...
A new Covid-19 wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake. Omicron subvariants BA.4/5 that dominated this summer are still behind the majority of infections, but newer Omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds...
Imagine being a year old with the whole world ahead of you, and then being told to freeze in place for two years. That’s what K-pop group Verivery experienced when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, after their first year together in 2019. Now with a full-blown identity and sense of self, they’re aiming to cover...
New Zealand scrapped mask wearing rules and vaccine mandates on Monday (Sept 12), bringing an end to some of the toughest Covid-19 pandemic rules in the world about two years after they were put in place. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a weekly news conference that it was time to safely turn the page on...
Macau will reopen public services and entertainment facilities, and allow dining-in at restaurants from Tuesday (Aug 2), authorities said, as the world's biggest gambling hub seeks a return to normalcy after finding no Covid-19 cases for nine straight days. Beauty salons, fitness centres, and bars too will be allowed to resume operations, the government said in...
