Month: May 2021

For just a few wonderful weeks, Zou Xiaoqi, a single mom in Shanghai, felt accepted by her authorities.

After giving beginning in 2017, Ms. Zou, a monetary employee, went to court docket to problem Shanghai’s coverage of giving maternity advantages to married ladies solely. She had little success, shedding a lawsuit and two appeals. Then, earlier this 12 months, the town instantly dropped its marriage requirement. In March, a jubilant Ms. Zou obtained a advantages test in her checking account.

She had barely begun celebrating when the federal government reinstated the coverage simply weeks later. Single ladies have been as soon as once more ineligible to obtain authorities funds for medical care and paid go away.

“I at all times knew there was this chance,” Ms. Zou, 45, mentioned. “In the event that they make me give the cash again, I suppose I’ll give it again.”

The flip-flop by the Shanghai authorities displays a broader reckoning in China about longstanding attitudes towards household and gender.

Chinese language regulation doesn’t explicitly prohibit single ladies from giving beginning. However official household planning insurance policies point out solely married {couples}, and native officers have lengthy supplied advantages primarily based on these provisions. Solely

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Ram Singh Karki escaped the primary wave of India’s pandemic by boarding a crowded bus and crossing the border house to Nepal. Months later, as the speed of recent infections fell, he returned to his job at a printing press in New Delhi, which had sustained his household for 20 years and helped pay the college charges of his three kids.

Then India was swept by a second wave, and Mr. Karki wasn’t as fortunate.

He was contaminated final month. Hospitals in New Delhi had been overwhelmed. When his oxygen stage dropped, his supervisor organized for an ambulance to take him again to the border. He crossed into Nepal, carrying with him simply the garments on his again — and the virus.

Nepal is now contemplating declaring a well being emergency because the virus rampages nearly unchecked throughout the impoverished nation of 30 million individuals. Carried by returning migrant employees and others, a vicious second wave has stretched the nation’s medical system past its meager limits.

Nepal has recorded half one million Covid circumstances and 6,000 deaths, numbers that specialists imagine deeply undercount the toll. Testing stays restricted. One determine may point out the true severity: For

Britain’s drug regulator on Friday authorised the usage of the single-dose photographs manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, the fourth coronavirus vaccine to be approved within the nation.

The authorization comes amid rising issues concerning the unfold in Britain of a coronavirus variant first detected in India. The variety of instances of the variant, referred to as B.1.617.2, has doubled in every week, in keeping with public information, and as of Thursday, practically 7,000 instances had been detected.

“This fourth authorised vaccine provides to our armory,” the British well being secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Twitter. “Whenever you’re eligible, get your jab.” Britain has additionally approved the usage of the vaccines manufactured by Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech.

Greater than 58 {9408d2729c5b964773080eecb6473be8afcc4ab36ea87c4d1a5a2adbd81b758b} of Britain’s inhabitants has acquired at the very least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 36 {9408d2729c5b964773080eecb6473be8afcc4ab36ea87c4d1a5a2adbd81b758b} has been absolutely vaccinated. Britain opened vaccination to adults 30 and older this week, however many of the vaccination marketing campaign’s efforts have in current weeks targeted on second injections.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is 85 percent effective against severe illness from Covid-19, according to the British regulator.

The approval in Britain comes a day after Mexico gave emergency authorization to