Beijing begins 3-day COVID-19 mass testing of 3.5 million people as Shanghai report 51 deaths
Beijing/Shanghai(PTI): Beijing on Monday began mass COVID-19 testing of over 3.5 million people in one of the city's high-profile districts following a spike in cases, while Shanghai reported a record 51 deaths in a day as the eastern metropolis continued to grapple with the Omicron variant for the fourth week.
Beijing's local government has ordered Chaoyang district, home to some 3.5 million residents, to have three rounds of mass nucleic acid testing starting from Monday after the district registered the most COVID-19 cases in the capital's latest epidemic surge, official media reported.
The test applies to those who are living and working in the district, which will be conducted respectively on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the Chaoyang disease prevention and control leading team said in a notice on Sunday.
According to China's National Health Commission report released on Monday, Beijing reported 14 cases on Sunday of which 11 of them were in Chaoyang district which is the central part of the city where the top Chinese leadership resides.
The Chinese mainland on Sunday reported over 20,190 cases, majority of them being asymptomatic cases. Shanghai, a vast city of 26 million people, has reported 2,472 positive cases and 16,983 asymptomatic cases.
On Sunday, the city's COVID-19 death toll crossed 100 in the current outbreak.
The city reported 51 deaths on Sunday, the highest in a single day, taking the toll to 138.
With this, China's overall death toll due to coronavirus, ever since it first emerged in the central city of Wuhan in December 2019 rose to 4,776.
Apart from Shanghai, 17 other provincial-level regions on the mainland saw new local COVID-19 cases, including 79 in Jilin, 26 in Heilongjiang, 14 in Beijing and 29,178 confirmed COVID-19 cases undergoing treatment in hospitals across the country.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Assam govt drops ex-president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed's name from medical college in Barpeta
Guwahati, Mar 10 (PTI): The Assam government on Tuesday decided to rename Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital as Barpeta Medical College and Hospital.
Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the state cabinet, which approved the decision, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said most government medical colleges in the state are named after the places where they are located.
"All our medical colleges are named after their locations. We see that in the medical colleges in Guwahati, Dhubri, Silchar, Bongaigaon, Biswanath and Sonitpur. Somehow, the Barpeta one was named as Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital, which does not align with the naming pattern of other medical colleges," he said.
ALSO READ: MP man jailed under NSA for objectionable social media post
Sarma said the cabinet decided to rename the institution to avoid confusion.
"Because of its name, many people ask whether it is a private medical college. That is why the cabinet today decided to change the name and make it Barpeta Medical College and Hospital," he said.
Sarma said the government would name another institution after former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in recognition of his stature.
"As Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was India's president and the first one from Assam, the cabinet decided that another educational or cultural institution of the same or higher stature will be named after him. We will take a decision in this regard to keep his name alive," he added.
Established in 2011, the medical college is affiliated with Srimanta Sankardeva University of Health Sciences and has been offering undergraduate courses since 2012 and postgraduate medical education since 2019.
