Current Affairs in Short: 23 December 2021

President of UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid tests positive for COVID-19

• The President of the UN General Assembly and the current Foreign Minister of Maldives Abdulla Shahid has tested positive for Coronavirus with mild symptoms.

• The Foreign Minister of Maldives pointed that he is fully vaccinated including a booster.

• In a tweet, Abdulla Shahid stated that he has isolated himself at home with mild symptoms. He added that his prayers are with the millions who have been suffering from Covid and billions of those without access to vaccines.

• Maldives recorded its first case of Omicron on December 7, 2021. The case was detected after conducting a genome sequencing on the samples that were taken from a tourist from South Africa who had arrived in the Maldives.

Gujarat Chief Minister launches Gujarati version of Koo

• The Chief Minister of Gujarat Bhupendra Patel launched the Gujarat version of the multilingual micro-logging site ‘Koo’. It enables people to share content and connect with the help of their mother tongue.

• The CM of Gujarat who has been active on Koo said that Gujarati must also assume a prominent position on the social media platforms.

• With the launch of the Gujarati language, Koo is now available in 10 languages. They are Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi, English, and Bengali.

• The translation feature of the Koo app enables the real-time translation of a post across the slew of Indian languages in order to enhance the reach and garner greater traction for a user.

India marks milestone, 60% of the population fully vaccinated

• A new milestone has been achieved by India as the 60% of the entire country’s population is now fully vaccinated. It means that they have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

• The news was shared by the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya via a tweet. He also lauded medical professionals, public health workers, and citizens for making this feat possible.

• A total of 34,208,926 people across India have so far recovered from the disease which also puts the nationwide recovery rate 98.40%. It is the highest since March 2020.

• Amid the Omicron scare, so far the country has reported 236 Omicron cases across 16 states and Union territories. Out of them, 104 people have recovered or migrated.

China puts a city of 13 million under Lockdown

• As China faces yet another Coronavirus outbreak, the country has been forced to put a lockdown on the northwest Chinese city of Xian with a population of 13 million.

• The latest lockdown in Xian is one of the largest lockdowns in the country in 2021 with tighter curbs on the outbound travel as well as the ordinary commuting within the city.

• As the celebrations of New Year 2022 approaches amid the scare of the Omicron variant, the fear of a new serious outbreak has forced the authorities to put stricter restrictions.

• From December 23, 2021, all the residents in Xian are required to stay indoors and only one member of each household is allowed to leave the house to purchase daily necessities every two days.

National Dope Testing Laboratory regains WADA accreditation

• The Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur informed that the National Dope Testing Laboratory has regained the accreditation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

• The restoration of WADA accreditation will also give a boost to India’s efforts of achieving the highest global standards of excellence in sports.

• During the Winter Session of Parliament, ‘The National Anti-Doping Bill 2021’ was also introduced by the Central Government.

• In August 2019, a six-month suspension was imposed on the National Dope Testing Laboratory because of the non-conformities with the International Standard for Laboratories. They were identified during the WADA site visit.