LIVE: Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2pm, night curfew extended in 8 Guj cities

Live News: Gujarat government has extended night curfew till December 31 in eight major cities of the state amid rising COVID-19 variant Omicron cases in the state. The curfew timing will be 1 am to 5 am, reads the official order.

Bharat Biotech on Monday said that its Coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine Covaxin now had a shelf life of 12 months from the date of manufacture after the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) recently approved the extension. “This approval of shelf-life extension is based on the availability of additional stability data, which was submitted to CDSCO. With the shelf-life extension, hospitals can now utilise the stock, which was nearing the expiry and avoid vaccine wastage,” the company said.

The COVID-19 vaccines can be “tweaked” to provide protection against new variants of the virus, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, Director Dr Randeep Guleria said. His remarks come amid rising cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus and the ongoing debate about whether a booster shot is needed to increase antibodies. Speaking at a programme organised here in Maharashtra on Sunday, Dr Guleria said that as far as the severity of the Omicron variant is concerned, the next few weeks will be very crucial.