It was 3 January 2020. Word had spread that there was some kind of respiratory disease affecting people in Wuhan, China, and with the Lunar New Year approaching, many Chinese tourists were headed to neighbouring Thailand to celebrate. Cautiously, the Thai government began screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at the airport, and a few select labs — were chosen to process the samples to try to detect the problem.

Wacharapluesadee is an expert virus hunter. She runs the Thai Red Cross Emerging Infectious Disease-Health Science Centre in Bangkok. Over the past 10 years, she’s been part of Predict, a worldwide effort to detect and stop diseases that can jump from non-human animals to humans.

She and her team have sampled many species. But their main focus has been on bats, which are known to harbour many coronaviruses.

She and her team were able to understand the disease in just a matter of days, detecting the first case of Covid-19 outside of China. They found that — as well as being a novel virus that didn’t originate in humans — it was most closely linked to coronaviruses they had already found in bats. Thanks to the early information, the government was able to act quickly to quarantine patients and advise citizens. Despite being a country of nearly 70 million people, as of 3 January 2021 Thailand had recorded 8,955 cases and 65 deaths.

The next threat

But even as the world grapples with Covid-19, Wacharapluesadee is already looking to the next pandemic.

Asia has a high number of emerging infectious diseases. Tropical regions have a rich array of biodiversity, which means they are also home to a large pool of pathogens, increasing the chances that a novel virus could emerge. Growing human populations and increasing contact between people and wild animals in these regions also ups the risk factor.

Over the course of a career sampling thousands of bats, Wacharapluesadee and her colleagues have discovered many novel viruses. They’ve mostly found coronaviruses, but also other deadly diseases that can spill over to humans.

The death rate for Nipah ranges from 40% up to 75%

These include the Nipah virus. Fruit bats are its natural host. “It’s a major concern because there’s no treatment… and a high mortality rate [is] caused by this virus,” says Wacharapluesadee. The death rate for Nipah ranges from 40% up to 75%, depending on where the outbreak occurs.

She isn’t alone in her worry. Each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) reviews the large list of pathogens that could cause a public health emergency to decide how to prioritise their research and development funds. They focus on those that pose the greatest risk to human health, those that have epidemic potential, and those for which there are no vaccines.

Nipah virus is in their top 10. And, with a number of outbreaks having happened in Asia already, it is likely we haven’t seen the last of it.

By: Abhi Misra

The House of Representatives would vote on a decision calling on Vice-President Mike Pence to remove Trump’s presidential powers.

The first vote could happen on Monday.

On Sunday, Ms Pelosi wrote to lawmakers outlining plans for a resolution to formally request that Vice-President Pence invoke the 25th Amendment. The move would allow Mr Pence to become acting president and remove Mr Trump from the White House.

Her letter said that this would be the first step and that House Democrats would then “proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor”.

“In protecting our constitution and our democracy, we will act with urgency, because this president represents an imminent threat to both,” Ms Pelosi said.

Mr Trump has made no public statements since he was banned from several social media platforms — including Twitter — on Friday.

By: Abhi Misra

68-year old Robert Chelsea was the first-ever African American and the oldest to receive a full face transplant surgery. This story starts on August 5th, when the accident occurred. He was driving on the freeway. His car was overheating. Smoke was coming from the radiator area. He managed to go over to the shoulder of the freeway. He noticed a drunk driver in a truck swerving over and it ran straight into him. And then all of a sudden the car blew up. Boom!! And it seemed like he was going through a long tunnel of fire. Once they rolled him into the gurney, he was unconscious. And he stayed that way until 6 months later.

When he woke up, the doctor told him that he was burned over 75 per cent of his body, mostly upper body. He had lost his lips and a part of his ear and nose. ‘Can you imagine having no lips? And your mouth being opened all the time? When you walk-and don't try to run. Flies and everything just gets into your mouth?’ He said.

After several years, a face transplant was introduced into his medical conversation. But they didn’t know how rare it was to find a black face. But they had finally found one. And 6 months after the transplant, he is doing very well.

This is the story of a man that would have had to walk around with a completely burned face and still found hope. This goes to show you that when life knocks you down, you get back up.

By: Abhi Misra

A US congressman was present at the moment when a woman was shot dead in the Capitol building. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican lawmaker from Oklahoma, said the woman had been among a crowd of people trying to enter the House of Representatives chamber.” The mob was going to come through the door, there was a lot of members and staff that were in danger at the time,” he said.

“When the police officer drew his weapon, that’s a decision that’s very hard for anyone to make and, once you draw your weapon like that, you have to defend yourself with deadly force.”

The woman who was shot was taken to the hospital, where she was later declared dead. She has not been officially named, but local media identified her as San Diego-area US Air Force veteran and Trump supporter Ashli Babbit.

Mullin said the shooting did result in the departure of the crowd from the doors of the chamber.

“The officer’s actions may be judged in a lot of different ways moving forward,” Mullin said, “but his actions I believe saved people’s lives even more. Unfortunately, it did take one though.”

By: Abhi Misra

You see, today was just a regular day. I had just finished my lunch and was playing video games. Once I finished my game, I went down to my friend’s house. He’s about 18 or 19 years old now. He asked me if I had any regrets about anything. I said no and asked him the same. He told me something I’ll never forget. He said ‘You know, I used to say that the one hour I spent years and years ago playing video games wasn’t a whole lot, that same one hour if I had spent doing something creative, I would have been one of the most intelligent kids out there.’

And now here I am, writing after 3 months of doing nothing but playing video games. This is my message to all kids out there reading this. When you say that the one hour you spend playing video games is not a lot, think about how smart or creative you would get if you spent that hour doing creative things.

Real-Life Story By Abhi Misra

It’s all about the race to 270 votes.

In the 2020s election, the US House of Representatives has chosen seven states to vote instead of each state voting.

How did they pick these states?

In the US election system, it’s the state-level results that count. Each state has a number of votes, based on population, and many reliably vote the same way each time.

They chose the seven key states which have enough votes to sway the outcome and where they expect the battle to be fought more closely. President Trump won all of them in 2016

Why do the candidates start with some votes?

Since most states are already tipped to vote one way or the other, they have assigned their respective votes to the candidate that is considered most likely to vote for. This means the game starts at 188 votes for Donald Trump and 233 for Joe Biden.

Can there be a tie?

Technically, yes. There are a total of 538 votes and the two candidates can win states in such a way that each will come out with 269 votes.

To break the tie, the US House of Representatives will vote for the next president and the US Senate will vote for the next vice-president.

This is so rare though.

Apartments are now sanitizing all floors with disinfectant spray and if there is a case then they will restrict anyone from going in and out of the floors that are one above it and one below it. The good news is that we are keeping ourselves safe by basically home quarantining ourselves.

But the bad news is that we are still getting infected even though we don’t know where we are getting it from. I think that we are getting infected because we keep on going to hospitals if we are showing symptoms even if we are not actually infected. Then when we go to get tested, we get infected.

So, it is better to stay at home and not go to hospitals. If you are showing symptoms, then you should self quarantine yourself in a room.

We hope you are safe!

Bye!

You might be thinking, How does TR4 affect bananas? Well, what actually happens is that the fungus destroys the vascular tissue and stops the bananas from making their food. And if they cannot make their own food, they will eventually die of starvation.

But just like Covid-19, the question is not only if we can find a cure, but also how do we live with a “new normal” that will change bananas forever?

By: Abhi

A new question has arose from the scientists in India. In other countries, more men are dying but why in India, Do more woman die or have a greater chance of dying than men? This question had come to them when there were about 3,433 deaths and those that were more women than men. The answer for this question still remains unknown and the scientists are still trying to figure this out.

Now there is a total of 425k covid cases and 13,700 reported deaths and worldwide, there is a enormous 9 million covid cases and more than 467k reported deaths. In conclusion, I think that the medical and police forces around the globe are putting in immense effort to try and save our lives and they are risking their own lives for us. We can save their and our lives by staying safe and maintaining distance and hygiene. That is all for today guys! Bye!!!

By: Abhi