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The Sherpa community across the country is celebrating Gyalpo Lhosar by organizing various programmes on Thursday. 

The festival is celebrated every year from Falgun Shukla Pratipada, the second day of the waxing moon until the full moon.

On the occasion, people of the Sherpa community cook and eat various delicacies, organize various cultural programs and exchange best wishes with each other.

Gyalpo Lhosar marks the beginning of the Tibetan New Year.

The government has declared a public holiday to celebrate the festival.

The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is less effective in children aged five to 11 than in adolescents and adults, according to new data from New York state health officials, The Guardian reported.

The new research was announced shortly after federal authorities relaxed masking guidance and a day after Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, said he would probably follow Governor Kathy Hochul in ending a mask mandate in city schools.

The study was carried out during the Omicron variant surge but was made public at a time of rapidly dropping cases and hospitalizations in New York and elsewhere.

In the study released on Monday, not yet peer-reviewed, six New York state public health scientists analyzed cases and hospitalization rates from 13 December 2021 to 30 January 2022 among 852,384 fully vaccinated children aged 12 to 17 and 365,502 fully vaccinated children aged five to 11.

Results revealed that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization during the Omicron variant surge declined from 85% to 73% for children aged 12 to 17.

Among children aged five to 11, effectiveness fell even more significantly, from 100% to 48%.

Vaccine effectiveness against testing positive declined from 66% to 51% among children aged 12 to 17. In the younger group, effectiveness dropped from 68% to 12%.

In the last week of January, vaccine effectiveness against infection among 12-year-olds was 67% – but just 11% for 11-year-olds.

“The difference between the two age groups is striking,” Florian Krammer, an immunologist at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, told the New York Times.

He noted that 12-year-olds were administered 30mg of the vaccine, the same dose given to adults. But 11-year-olds were given only 10mg.

“This is super interesting because it would almost suggest that it’s the dose that makes the difference … the question is how to fix that,” Krammer said.

Eli Rosenberg, the New York state deputy director for science, told the New York Times that although it was disappointing to see the decline in vaccine effectiveness, it should be acknowledged that the Pfizer/BioNTech shot was developed in response to an earlier virus variant.

“It looks very distressing to see this rapid decline but it’s again all against Omicron,” he said.

Query

I am a 36-year-old working mom to a 13-year-old girl. I provide for every need of my daughter. But I recently found out that she struggles with severe anxiety. She suffers from panic attacks, especially before her exams. So I took her for treatment and she is getting the help she needs. But I can’t understand why, despite having everything, she is struggling with a mental health problem. – A worried mother

Answer by Shreeya Giri, Founder of Happy Minds  

First of all, it is important for you to know that just because your daughter has everything doesn’t mean she is completely protected from mental health issues. 

There could be many reasons she is having anxiety attacks. For instance, when it comes to parent-child relations, the age gap is always a big barrier, making communication difficult. Maybe because you’re at work all day, your daughter could be feeling she is not getting enough time and attention from you. The distance created between you and your daughter by your professional life may have led to a situation where her emotional needs are not being met.  

 It is wonderful that you have prioritized your daughter’s mental health and given her the treatment she needs. You can also help her from your personal side by trying to understand her anxiety. Is it something she gets at school? Maybe it is the pressure of studying right before exams? Or is it because she is not getting enough time and attention at home? You will only know the reason with open and honest communication with your daughter. 

Understanding your daughter’s emotional needs can help you figure out what she needs. 

Perhaps she just wants to spend some quality time with you after you return from work in the evening or before you head out in the morning. 

Have patience with her. She will communicate what she needs and what she is going through. Teenagers find it more comfortable to confide in friends rather than in parents. If you build a loving and trusting relationship with your daughter, she will talk to you more openly. 

Lastly, let your daughter know you have unconditional love for her, so even when you aren’t home, she is reassured that you love her and that it is okay to share what she is going through with you. 

The number of people sent fleeing Ukraine by Russia’s invasion topped 1 million on Wednesday, the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations said, as Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the country’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, and laid siege to two strategic seaports, Associated Press reported.

The tally from the U.N. refugee agency released to The Associated Press amounts to more than 2 percent of Ukraine’s population being forced out of the country in less than a week. The mass evacuation could be seen in Kharkiv, where residents desperate to get away from falling shells and bombs crowded the city’s train station and tried to press onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.

In a videotaped address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance. He vowed that the invaders would have “not one quiet moment” and described Russian soldiers as “confused children who have been used.”

Moscow’s isolation deepened when most of the world lined up against it at the United Nations to demand it withdraw from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes.

With fighting going on on multiple fronts across the country, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Mariupol, a large city on the Azov Sea, was encircled by Russian forces, while the status of another vital port, Kherson, a Black Sea shipbuilding city of 280,000, remained unclear.

Nepal logged 127 new Covid-19 cases and three deaths on Wednesday. 

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,116,656. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,941. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 4,672 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 123 returned positive. Likewise, 2202 people underwent antigen tests, of which 4 tested positive.

The Ministry said that 321 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of today, there are 79,272 active cases in the country. 

The Ministry said that 7,580 people are staying in home isolation while 190 are in institutionalized isolation.

Two people died in a motorbike accident at Saraswotinagar of Kathmandu Metropolitan City-6 on Tuesday.

The deceased have been identified as biker Shivaraj Karki (30) and pedestrian Durga Bahadur Karki of Okhaldhunga district.

The incident occurred after the biker lost control over the vehicle all of a sudden and hit the pedestrian last night. 

The rider breathed his last in course of treatment at the Chabahil-based Helping Hands Hospital and the pedestrian died during the course of treatment at the Om Hospital, according to the police. RSS

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Turkish Airlines  Kathmandu office and Siddhartha Arts Foundation. Mr. Abdullah Tuncer Kececi, General Manager of  Turkish Airlines, and Mrs Sangeeta Thapa, Founder/Director of Siddhartha Arts Foundation entered  into an agreement to implement the joint collaboration for the event: “Kathmandu Triennale” a  non-commercial art event of an international standard organized by Siddhartha Arts Foundation  (SAF) to promote Nepali arts and culture. The dates for Kathmandu Triennale are from  Feb 11 to March 31.

With this joint collaboration Siddhartha Arts Foundation and Turkish Airlines as the International  Airline partner will together promote the arts and culture in Nepal and beyond. The event presents contemporary (and traditional) art by Nepali and international artists on particular edition themes  and develops programming and outreach to explore the impact of the arts on society. For more, click here.

The government has announced a public holiday on the occasion of the Gyalpo Lhosar on Thursday.

A cabinet meeting held on Monday made the decision to this effect, the Ministry of Home Affairs said.

People belonging to the Buddhist community, especially the Sherpas, celebrate Gyalpo Lhosar to mark the beginning of a new year.

The festival is celebrated every year from Falgun Shukla Pratipada, the second day of the waxing moon until the full moon.