Current Affairs Question - 13 April 2020

Explanation :

• The Dhauladhar range (The White Range) is part of a lesser Himalayan chain of mountains.
• It rises from the Indian plains to the north of Kangra and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and ends near Badrinath,Uttarakhand.
• These ranges are the extension of Pir Panjal into Himachal Pradesh. They are cut across by the river Ravi.
• The highest peak in the range is the Hanuman Tibba, approached from Beas Kund/Manali, about 5982m high.
• Although mostly composed of granite, the flanks of the range exhibit frequent formations of slate limestone and sandstone
• The hill stations of Shimla and Pir Panjal are located in these ranges.
• There are glacial lakes in the Dhauladhars. Prominent among them is the Lam Dal which is the biggest with a circumference of about 2.5 km.
• One of the major passes across this range is the Indrahar Pass, which forms the border between Kangra and Chamba districts.

Explanation :

• Also called the basic reproduction number, it indicates the average number of people who will contract the virus from a person who has already been infected, in a population that does not have immunity for the said disease.
• R0 is the division of the number of new infections by the number of existing infections, or the average number of new infections over an infectious period (R0= new infections/existing infections).
• To illustrate with an example, if the number of people diagnosed with a disease increases from four to eight in two days, it is likely to increase to 16 two days later, or in four days from the start. This makes the R0 two.

R0 Values

Three possibilities exist for the potential spread or decline of a disease, depending on its R0 value:

• If R0 is less than 1, each existing infection causes less than one new infection. In this case, the disease will decline and eventually die out.
• If R0 equals 1, each existing infection causes one new infection. The disease will stay alive and stable, but there won’t be an outbreak or an epidemic.
• If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will spread between people, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.
• The higher the R0, the more contagious the infection.