COVID-19 impact | Oyo to lay off majority of furloughed US employees: Report

The furloughed employees were informed about this development by Chief Operating Officer Abhinav Sinha.

Moneycontrol News

June 25, 2020 / 23:22 IST

With the global travel industry battered by the coronavirus outbreak, Oyo is reportedly laying off most of its furloughed US employees as it looks to shore up operations in a market beset with low occupancy levels and dwindling revenues.

According to a report in Skift, the company, which has a presence in over 800 cities across the world, has been forced to take this step because it does not see a recovery in its global operations until the second half of 2021.

Oyo, however, will give them stock options but there are doubts about its long-term value.

The furloughed employees were informed about this development by Chief Operating Officer Abhinav Sinha.

In the mail addressed to the employees, Sinha said that in addition to the stock options, Oyo will also provide them with a job-placement service and extended health care and other separation support.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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