covid19 – Lanka Talents

Classmates 2020-21

Lanka Talents Creation — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 03:19:51 +0000

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Mother with COVID-19 gives birth to quadruplets

Lanka Talents Creation — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 09:37:59 +0000

The children were born to a 29-year-old woman residing in the Kuppiyawatta area, Hospital Director Dr. Sagarika Kiriwandeniya said.

The woman, who gave birth for the first time, is currently being treated in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit following cesarean delivery.

The quadruplets are two girls and two boys.

The hospital director further said about a week ago after the woman was admitted to the hospital, a PCR test confirmed that she was infected with COVID-19, but she was safely treated as she was about to give birth to quadruplets.

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Health Ministry issues latest Map of high-risk Covid19 areas in Sri Lanka

Lanka Talents Creation — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 02:32:49 +0000

The Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health has issued details of high-risk coronavirus areas in Sri Lanka.

The Unit released a map based on the categorization of Medical Officers of Health areas, on the number of cases reported, and distribution of quarantine centres.

The cases considered are those that were reported within the last 14 days ending on November 7th. (NewsWire)

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Four lions test positive for COVID-19 at Barcelona Zoo

Lanka Talents Creation — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 03:39:29 +0000

The infection in three female cats and one male is only the second documented case of the coronavirus in big cats since four tigers and three lions tested positive in April at the Bronx Zoo in New York.

The lions, Zala, Nima and Run Run, all 16 years old, and 4-year old Kiumbe, underwent a PCR test. This is the same type of test carried out on the staff members in November after they showed mild symptoms of the disease.

In a statement, the zoo said the “lions were given veterinary care for their mild condition,” which they explained is “similar to a very mild flu condition.”

All four responded well to anti-inflammatory treatment and are being observed closely.

A statement from the zoo said the animals were no longer showing upper respiratory symptoms but still had mild coughing and sneezing.

Veterinary authorities who are investigating are optimistic there will be no widespread infections as the lions have had no contact with other animals.

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Why Covid may mean more facial recognition tech

Lanka Talents Creation — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 15:11:13 +0000

His iPhone started having trouble recognising his face, which is how he preferred to unlock the device when out and about.

“I kind of have to take my mask off,” says Prof Ugail, an expert in facial recognition at the University of Bradford. “I would rather it let me in by just looking at my eyes.”

Coincidentally, research he conducted with one of his PhD students that was published last year had shown that half a face was enough for a specially trained facial recognition algorithm to work.

But out in the wild, some commercial systems that authenticate people via their faces were now stuttering thanks to the rise of masks.

The problem was highlighted in a July report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US. Researchers found the error rates of 89 different facial recognition systems they tested increased when the mouth and nose or bottom half of an individual’s face was obscured – in some cases from less than 1% to as much as 50%.

Firms have raced to update their algorithms so that they can cope with masks, especially in situations where facial recognition is used to confirm someone’s identity – such as authorising access to a secure building.

An updated report from NIST has now found that several algorithms, reconfigured since the pandemic began, make far fewer mistakes when analysing masked faces. In some cases, error rates were ten times better than before.

“Developers are indeed adapting their algorithms to handle face masks.” says Mei Ngan, a computer scientist at NIST.

In their tests, Ms Ngan and her colleagues used a variety of superimposed shapes to represent different sizes of mask, not photos of mask-wearers.

The progress means facial recognition could now become even more widespread than before with companies marketing it as a contactless, potentially more hygienic, means of verifying identities in public places.

More Technology of Business

Prof Ugail has been tinkering with his own systems, used for research, so that they can continue to identify individuals even when restricted to analysing the area of the face around the eyes. The results of his experiments have not yet been published or peer-reviewed but he says the findings are promising, suggesting accuracy of around 86%.

One firm that says its algorithms have continued to cope well during the pandemic is Swiss-based Tech5. Although the NIST report found that masks caused the error rate of firm’s system to jump from 0.45% to up to 14%, co-founder Rahul Parthe says the algorithm remained reliable enough in real-life settings.

“If somebody was wearing a mask and sunglasses and had a hat then you were basically missing a lot of their faces,” he explains. “That’s where we had to put in some requirements where a person would have to remove their hat or mask.”

Tech5’s systems are used in factories and schools in South East Asia, adds Mr Parthe, where they monitor daily attendance, for example.

And in schools, the system can perform an anonymous headcount, to see how many pupils were present on a particular day.

In these cases, where Tech5’s algorithm is passively monitoring images from a CCTV camera in a corridor, for instance, Mr Parthe says mask-wearers are asked to avoid confusing the system by not wearing hats as well.

However, he argues that his firm was well-positioned to adapt to the rise of face masks because, having so many clients in Asia, Tech5’s database had already been trained using lots of images of people wearing masks or religious garments that obscure part of the face.

“We never fine-tuned our algorithms just for face recognition with masks [during the pandemic],” a company spokeswoman says.

Controlling for masks has, until now, been less important in the West, notes Shaun Moore, founder and chief executive at Trueface: “The onset of Covid had really forced companies like Trueface to rethink what areas of the face are more important for facial recognition.”

France-based Thales, which supplies facial recognition systems to airports and businesses for controlling access to secure areas, says it is able to obtain 99% accuracy for matching someone to a high quality reference image such as a passport photo – but only now that it has completed some additional training of its algorithm to focus on the eye area of faces.

Trueface took a similar approach, says Mr Moore. His staff began tweaking the firm’s systems as early as February, when the spread of Covid began to become serious outside China.

But far from being a hiccup, Mr Moore argues the pandemic will ultimately accelerate the rollout of facial recognition, particularly for authentication purposes.

In October, his firm announced it had won a contract to install facial recognition access control systems at two US Air Force bases – a move designed specifically to reduce contact between people at the bases, for example, via touchpads and surfaces. Mr Moore thinks venues open to the public, including sports stadiums, will also turn to “contactless” identify verification.

“Facial recognition becomes the way to do that without having to hand over a key card, badge or ticket, it’s reducing the contact you would have as the visitor, employee or spectator,” he says.

“As that worker, you don’t want to be touching a thousand cards.”

It’s important to note that, while general hygiene and hand-washing remain important in the pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that although Covid-19 spreads easily from person to person, it is less commonly transmitted via contact with a contaminated surface.

Nonetheless, Covid-19 is clearly not only creating challenges for the proponents of facial recognition – but potential opportunities as well.

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O/L Examination further postponed; Education Minister

Lanka Talents Creation — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 08:41:35 +0000

‘This is a tough decision’ he said adding 621,000 students have applied to sit for the examination which was originally planned to take place from 18th January 2021 to 27th January 20201.

If schools cannot re-open in the first week of December, it would be unfair to conduct the examination on the aforementioned dates, said the Education Minister.

He said the health situation in Sri Lanka will be reviewed every two weeks to decide if the examination can take place.

He said the new date will be announced 06 weeks ahead of the examination, in order to allow candidates to prepare to sit for the examination.

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Masked Indian comic superhero fights Covid-19 fear

Lanka Talents Creation — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 07:24:05 +0000

In Priya’s Mask, due to be launched on 2 December, the comic crusader joins hands with Jiya, the “Burka Avenger”, a popular character from a Pakistani cartoon show, as the two go about trying to tackle the pandemic – and also the “infodemic”, a major proliferation in fake news surrounding the coronavirus.

With more than 9.4 million infections and 137,000 deaths, India has the second highest caseload globally. A strict nationwide lockdown that was imposed on 21 March delayed the spread for a while, but infections grew rapidly – and continue to do so – since restrictions were relaxed.

A major challenge in India’s fight against Covid-19 has been the false and misleading information around the pandemic, which is often shared at lightning speed.

Fear and carelessness have seen people flouting orders to wear masks in public places or maintain social distancing. In some places, frontline workers, including doctors and nurses were attacked, even barred from their own homes by neighbours fearful of catching the virus.

“Through this campaign, we wanted to challenge misinformation, dispel fear, and support the health workers and others at the forefront of the fight against the virus,” Ram Devineni, the Indian-American creator of the Priya comic series, told the BBC.

He launched the “modern-day feminist superhero” in December 2014, two years after the brutal gang rape of a young woman on a bus in Delhi, to focus attention on the problem of gender and sexual violence in India. The series has subsequently been named a “gender equality champion” by UN Women.

In Priya’s Mask, she arrives riding the flying tigress Sahas (Hindi for courage), to battle “an invisible monster – a deadly virus unlike any we’ve seen before”.

As she flies into the city, she sees masses fleeing on foot – a reminder of the early days of the lockdown in India when tens of thousands of poor migrant workers walked for days to return home while factories, offices and transport shut down.

“There’s a quiet sense of fear. Everyone is hiding in their homes. It seems as though time has stopped,” she observes.

Delhi-based writer and theatre actress Shubhra Prakash, who wrote the script of Priya’s Mask, says she incorporated her personal experiences into the story.

“During the early weeks of the lockdown, we were not allowed to leave home at all. So I spent a lot of time in my balcony. My access to the world was quite restricted. We were all isolated and it was difficult for everyone. So when you see Meena, a little girl who’s one of the main characters in the story, standing alone in her balcony, daydreaming, that was also me.

“And when the lockdown began to ease and we could step out, a ‘new normal’ emerged. We had to wear masks and maintain social distancing,” she says.

In Priya’s mask, Meena is invited to hop on to Sahas’ back for a tour of the becalmed city.

They see deserted roads; Meena spots her favourite ice-cream parlour where no one is queuing up any more; she sees her friend who’s as isolated as she is; and hears voices – at times irrational and fearful. At the hospital, she watches her mother, a nurse, heroically tending to Covid-19 patients.

“We wanted people to understand that these are extraordinary times. And we wanted to highlight the role of Covid heroes since we felt they were not being talked about much,” Ms Prakash says.

Comic crusader returns to rescue ‘stolen girls’

“There was a lot of stigma surrounding the illness and we were trying to say that people need to be open-minded. What is keeping the world moving during the pandemic? The sacrifices made by the frontline workers, who go to work to keep us safe.”

In the comic, Priya also partners with Jiya, the Burka Avenger, who’s fighting to protect her city Chutneyville against a villainous assault by Baba Kaboom, who plans to take it over by not wearing a mask and spreading the virus.

But, in the process, he himself catches Covid and needs help from Priya and Jiya.

“The most important message it conveys is we have to look at the world with compassion and not give up on humanity. We can only conquer the virus if we work together,” Ms Prakash says.

Indrani Ray, co-producer of a two-minute animation film based on Priya’s Mask (seen at the top of this story), says the pandemic has impacted everyone’s life and although “our lockdowns are different, our experiences are the same”.

Ms Ray, who lives in Mumbai, says her parents live in Kolkata and she has not been able to see them the entire year. “I’m afraid to visit, just in case I carry the infection and pass it on to them.”

Her colleague Tanvi Gandhi says her involvement in the project was in part due to personal loss.

“I lost someone in my family to the virus, and it all happened so quickly. In a matter of four weeks, it was all over.

“That’s when you realise it’s not just a statistic, not a social media forward, it’s something very tangible that is impacting all of us. It is as real as it can get.”

The animation is voiced by feminist icons in Bollywood and Hollywood, including Rosanna Arquette, Vidya Balan and Mrunal Thakur and 12-year-old Sairah Kabir.

The comic, which targets young people and has augmented reality features, can be downloaded for free anywhere in the world.

Mr Devineni, who lives in the US, says Priya’s Mask would have relevance not just in India, but globally since the pandemic has impacted people across the world.

“New York, where I live, looked post-apocalyptic. And if you see images from European cities, many of them did too. Every time I stepped out, I could only see homeless people, it was surreal, the eeriest site I’ve ever seen.”

His father, a paediatrician who has practiced in South Jersey since 1975, had to stop working for the first time since he was in the vulnerable group for Covid-19.

“He’s 80 and has health complications and we knew if he got it, he would have just died. In fact, two of his very close doctor friends – I had grown up calling them uncles – died from Covid. We watched their funerals on Zoom.”

Mr Devineni says when the US embassy in Delhi got in touch with him in April, asking if he’d be interested in creating a new Priya comic to launch in December for the United Nation’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, “I wondered if we would be outdated by then”.

“I knew the virus would still be there and the campaign would have some resonance. Also, 10 years from now, this artwork, created during the pandemic would be a historical document, a documentation of how people dealt with it at the emotional and visceral level,” he says, adding, “but I think it’s going to be much more than that.”

For, almost a year since the pandemic began spreading, large parts of the world are still in the grip of the virus. In Delhi, and the US, numbers continue to explode as the global infections cross 62 million, with 1.5 million dead.

And the World Health Organisation and governments in many parts of the words are still finding it a challenge to get people to wear masks or maintain social distancing. Last month, Delhi government raised the fine for not wearing masks in public from 500 rupees ($7.50; £5.00) to 2,000 rupees after repeated warnings fell on deaf ears.

And that, Mr Devineni says, means that Priya’s Mask has more relevance than ever.

Artwork by Syd Fini and Neda Kazemifar

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IOM Sri Lanka & Switzerland assist COVID-19 repatriation

Lanka Talents Creation — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 05:33:05 +0000

IOM Sri Lanka in partnership with the Government of Switzerland assisted the COVID-19 repatriation efforts of the Government of Sri Lanka by donating a unique RT PCR machine, state-of-the-art Roche fully automated RNA extractor with an output of 1,300 samples per day with a turnaround time of less than 3.5 hours.

Further, 39,000 RT- PCR test kits were donated to enhance the molecular laboratory testing capacity at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) to offer free PCR tests at the Point of Entry for repatriated migrant workers.

Valued at over Rs. 150 Million, the equipment was symbolically handed over to the Health Minister.

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Coronavirus: Elon Musk ‘likely has moderate case’

Lanka Talents Creation — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 08:22:59 +0000

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk says he “most likely” has a “moderate case” of Covid-19 but has been “getting wildly different results from different labs”.

The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who is 49, tweeted his symptoms were those of a “minor cold”. On Friday he said he had been tested four times, with two positive and two negative results.

Mr Musk appeared to play down concerns about the pandemic when it first hit.

Covid-19 has now infected nearly 10.9 million people in the US.

More than 245,000 people have died there, and more than 67,000 people are currently in hospital.

Some 35 US states now require face coverings to be worn in public and many are urging residents to stick to social distancing amid fears their health care systems will be swamped with infected patients.

Mr Musk, who has 40 million followers on Twitter, said about his symptoms that he was “a little up & down. Feels just like a regular cold, but more body achy & cloudy head than coughing/sneezing”.

On Friday, he had questioned the veracity of rapid antigen testing, tweeting: “Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse.”

He said he was awaiting the results of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, which are regarded as the gold standard by epidemiologists and the one used most around the world.

Back in March, Mr Musk had tweeted to his 32 million followers on Twitter: “My guess is that the panic will cause more harm than the virus.”

Two months later he threatened to move his electric car firm’s headquarters out of California after his Tesla factory was ordered to stay shut because of lockdown measures.

Mr Musk’s SpaceX firm is set to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday. Nasa chief Jim Bridenstine on Friday ruled out the presence of anyone who tested positive for Covid-19 at the Kennedy Space Center.

-BBC

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Several more areas in Colombo including Fort & Slave Island isolated

Lanka Talents Creation — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 21:45:39 +0000

Colombo (News 1st); The National Operation Center for the Prevention of the COVID-19 outbreak has classified a number areas in the Colombo District as isolated areas with effect from 05:00 AM on Monday (16), said the Department of Government Information.

Maradana Police Area
Fort Police Area
Pettah Police Area
Slave Island Police Area
Dam Street Police Area

In addition, Police Areas in the Colombo District which are already placed in isolation will remain isolated until further notice.

Further more, the following Police Areas in the Gampaha District will remain isolated and the others areas will be released from lock-down.

Negombo Police Area
Ja-Ela Police Area
Ragama Police Area
Kadawatha Police Area
Wattala Police Area
Peliyagoda Police Area
Kelaniya Police Area (isolated with effect from 05:00 AM on 16th November).

In addition, the isolation status of the following areas will be lifted with effect from 05:00 AM on Sunday (15).

Kurunegala District – Kurunegala Municipal Area / Kuliyapitiya Police Area

Kalutara District – Horana & Ingiriya Police Areas and Wekada West Grama Seva Division

Kegalle District – Ruwanwella & Mawanella Police Area

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