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The world’s biggest retailer Walmart has decided to set up vaccination clinics for over 200,000 of its workers and their families in India.   The company is not procuring Covid-19 vaccines but will cover the cost of inoculations for its associates and households.   The decision is taken at a time when India is witnessing a massive surge in Covid-19 cases during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.   Even though the American multinational retail corporation has no stores in India, it controls two of the most important online companies in the country –Flipkart and PhonePe.   Walmart said on 29 April in a statement that it will donate over 3,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 oxygen cylinders for delivering oxygen therapy to patients at home or in hospitals.   Additionally, the company will also donate 20 oxygen-generating plants, as well as 20 cryogenic containers for oxygen storage and transportation.   Even as part of the United States-India Business ...

  While responding to a Tweet from the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on the need for the healthcare staff, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra suggested ideas to work on the solutions. The Indian billionaire businessman said that a nationwide mobile medical force can be launched to counter the shortage of healthcare workers faced by several states in India during this pandemic. Anand Mahindra’s response to Thackeray’s Tweet comes at a time when India is noticing a massive spike in Coronavirus cases. The cases in the country had been falling since September last year but the current surge in infection numbers raised a serious concern. Staff Shortage Amid The Pandemic “I have already directed for infrastructure to be added wherever necessary. We can increase the beds, ventilators, oxygen supply and medicine supply. But what about doctors, nurses and medical staff?” wrote Maharashtra CM. In response to the Tweet, Anand Mahindra said on 3 April: “This is a va...

  In the United States, the researchers at Stanford University have detected a new form of the Coronavirus, whose emergence in India is coinciding with the surge in the country's COVID-19 cases. According to Stanford’s Clinical Virology Laboratory, which has developed tests to find out the existence of viruses already spreading around the world, as of now one confirmed case and seven presumed COVID-19 cases of the Indian variant were found in the San Francisco Bay Area. As reported, the concerning cases in the United States involve Stanford patients. Dr Ben Pinsky, medical director of the laboratory told The Mercury News that the recent finding has demonstrated the “rapid spread” of this Coronavirus variant. But needless to say, this discovery of the variant along with the growing number of other versions of the virus, comes as no shock to the experts as the viruses travel beyond the borders with the carriers. The researchers found the mutations by scanning viral genetic ...