Former India cricketer Chetan Chauhan tests positive for COVID-19
New Delhi: Former India cricketer and Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Chetan Chauhan has tested positive for COVID-19.
The development of Chauhan testing positive for the dreaded virus emerged late on Saturday night from the tweets of former India players Aakash Chopra and R P Singh, who wished him a speedy recovery.
"Chetan Chauhan ji is also tested positive for #COVID?19. Sending best wishes in his direction too...get well soon, sir," Chopra tweeted. "Just heard about @ChetanChauhanCr ji Chetan has tested positive for #coronavirus. Praying for his speedy recovery," R P Singh wrote.
The 72-year-old underwent the COVID-19 test on Friday and has been reportedly admitted to the Sanjay Gandhi PGI hospital in Lucknow.
Chauhan's family members will undergo COVID-19 tests and they have been put under home quarantine for now. Chauhan holds the Sainik Welfare, Home Guards, PRD and Civil Security ministry in the UP cabinet. Till last year, he served as the sports minister of the state.
Chauhan, a two-time former Lok Sabha MP, is one of the few former international cricketers who have contracted the virus.
Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi and Scotland's Majid Haq were among the high-profile names to test positive and recover from the infection.
Known to be a gritty player, Chauhan played 40 Tests between 1969 and 1978 and scored 2084 runs at an average of 31.57 with 97 being his highest score. He also played in seven ODIs, scoring 153 runs from them.
He and Sunil Gavaskar formed a successful opening partnership, scoring over 3000 runs together with 10-century stands in numerous Tests in the 1970s. He was a heavy scorer of runs in domestic cricket while playing for Delhi and Maharashtra.
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Los Angeles county wildfires could be costliest in US history, early estimates say
Los Angeles, Jan 11: The wildfires that erupted this week across Los Angeles County are still raging, but already are projected to be among the costliest natural disasters in US history.
The devastating blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, laying waste to entire neighbourhoods once home to multimillion-dollar properties.
While it's still too early for an accurate tally of the financial toll, the losses so far likely make the wildfires the costliest ever in the US, according to various estimates.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between USD 135 billion and USD 150 billion. By comparison, AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic losses caused by Hurricane Helene, which tore across six southeastern states last fall, at USD 225 billion to USD 250 billion.
“This will be the costliest wildfire in California modern history and also very likely the costliest wildfire in US modern history, because of the fires occurring in the densely populated areas around Los Angeles with some of the highest-valued real estate in the country,” said Jonathan Porter, the private firm's chief meteorologist.
AccuWeather factors in a multitude of variables in its estimates, including damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and vehicles, as well as immediate and long-term health care costs, lost wages and supply chain interruptions.
The insurance broker Aon PLC also said Friday that the LA County wildfires will likely end up being the costliest in US history, although it did not issue an estimate. Aon ranks a wildfire known as the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, in 2018 as the costliest in US history up to now at USD 12.5 billion, adjusted for inflation. The Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed about 11,000 homes.
The LA County wildfires, which were fuelled by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and an extreme drought, remained largely uncontained Saturday. That means the final tally of losses from the blazes is likely to increase, perhaps substantially.
“To put this into perspective, the total damage and economic loss from this wildfire disaster could reach nearly 4 per cent of the annual GDP of the state of California,” AccuWeather's Porter said.
In a report Friday, Moody's also concluded that the wildfires would prove to be the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher-end properties.
While the state is no stranger to major wildfires, they have generally been concentrated in inland areas that are not densely populated. That's led to less destruction per acre, and in damage to less expensive homes, Moody's noted.
That's far from the case this time, with one of the largest conflagrations destroying thousands of properties across the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, home to many Hollywood stars and executives with multimillion-dollar properties. Already, numerous celebrities have lost homes to the fires.
“The scale and intensity of the blazes, combined with their geographic footprint, suggest a staggering price tag, both in terms of the human cost and the economic toll,” Moody's analysts wrote. The report did not include a preliminary cost estimate of the wildfire damage.
It could be several months before a concrete tally of the financial losses from the wildfires will be possible.
“We're in the very early stages of this disaster,” Porter said.
