Current Affairs in Short: 18 May 2021

Pinarayi Vijayan appointed CPI(M) parliamentary party leader, KK Shailaja dropped from cabinet berth

•The Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) state committee on May 18, 2021 appointed Pinarayi Vijayan as the CPI (M) parliamentary party leader and Kerala's Chief Minister.
•The new Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet is expected to have all fresh faces as Ministers including K Radhakrishnan, KN Balagopal,MV Govindan,Saji Cherian, VN Vasavan, V Sivankutty, Dr R Bindu, Veena George, V Abdul Rahman and Mohammad Riyas, who is the son-in-law of the Chief Minister. 
•All the Ministers who were a part of the previous CPI(M) government including Health Minister KK Shailaja, have been dropped this time. KK Shailaja has been chosen as the Party's whip.

Pfizer, Moderna vaccines found effective against coronavirus variants found in India: Study

•The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines have been found to be effective against the COVID variants B.1.617 and B.1.618, first identified in India.
•This was stated in a new study that is yet to be peer-reviewed. The study brought on its conclusion based on the lab experiments involving cell cultures. 
•The lab experiments showed that the B.1.617 and B.1.618 variants seem to be partially resistant to the antibodies elicited by vaccination. 
•However, more research is needed to understand just how effective the two vaccines are against these COVID-19 variants. 

World is at risk of 'vaccine apartheid': WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

•World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on May 17, 2021 that the world is at risk of 'vaccine apartheid'. He said this while highlighting the vaccination gap between high-income countries and low and lower-middle countries.
•The WHO was speaking at the Paris Peace Forum Spring Meeting. He highlighted that the high-income countries, which account for 15 per cent of the world's population have about 45 per cent of the world's vaccines. 
•At the same time, he stated that the low- and lower-middle countries, which account for almost half of the world's population have received just 17 per cent of the world's vaccines. 
•He stated that the basic problem of vaccine inequity was a lack of sharing. He said this could be resolved by sharing financial resources to fully fund the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and sharing doses with COVAX and sharing technology to scale up the manufacturing of vaccines.
•He mentioned that even now when some high-income countries are moving to vaccinate children and adolescents, health workers, older people and other in high-risk groups around the world remain unvaccinated.

Telangana to set up 48 oxygen generation plants

•Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on May 17, 2021 directed the Medical and Health Department officials to set up 48 oxygen generation plants across the state. 
•The oxygen generation plants will be set up in government hospitals and they are expected to produce about 324 metric tonnes of oxygen required for Covid patients in the state.
•The Telangana CM during a high-level meeting also asked the officials to ensure that there is no shortage of oxygen in future and instructed the officials to set up an additional plant to produce 100 MT of liquid Oxygen in Hyderabad.

Indian cricket players to get second COVID vaccine dose in UK 

•The Indian cricketers who are set to travel to the United Kingdom to face New Zealand in the World Test Championship (WTC) final have been vaccinated with the first dose. 
•The team is also scheduled to play a five-match Test series against England.
•Hence, the team will be administered the second vaccine dose by the UK health department.
•The BCCI has attempted to make a foolproof plan for the safe travel of the national team to the UK. 
•All players will undergo three RT-PCR tests before assembling in Mumbai on May 19, 2021, where they will undergo two-week quarantine. 
•The team will undergo another 10-day quarantine after reaching the United Kingdom.