Rollno21
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You won't be able to findn,don't waste your time and mine ,along with getting humiliated in the process.
Covid-19 - Devastating Second Wave in India - Updates and Discussion
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India added to coronavirus ‘red list’ for travel
3 hours ago
India has been added to a “red list” of countries from which most travel to the UK is banned, over fears of a new Covid variant, the health secretary has said.
From 04:00 BST on Friday 23 April, most people who have travelled from India in the last 10 days will be refused entry.
British or Irish passport holders, or people with UK residence rights, will be allowed in but must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.
Matt Hancock said there had been 103 UK cases of the India variant.
In a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, the health secretary said the vast majority of the cases of the new variant - officially known as B.1.617 - had been linked to international travel.
He said test samples had been analysed to see if the new variant had any "concerning characteristics" such as greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines.
He told MPs: "After studying the data, and on a precautionary basis, we've made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list."
Health officials say this new variant, first identified in India, has some worrying genetic changes that need exploring.
It's still too soon to say if it is more contagious, deadly and will evade vaccines - and whether it should join the Variant of Concern list that the South Africa, Kent and Brazil variants belong to.
Assessments are ongoing, and in the meantime the government is looking to stop more cases arriving and spreading in the country.
That's why the government is also stepping up surge testing to quickly find any new cases in the UK and is introducing a speedy new type of lab test that can show within hours if someone is positive for Covid - and if the infection they have is one of the known variants, including this new one from India.
It should mean people can isolate faster to prevent giving it to their friends, families, neighbours and colleagues.
www.bbc.com
3 hours ago
India has been added to a “red list” of countries from which most travel to the UK is banned, over fears of a new Covid variant, the health secretary has said.
From 04:00 BST on Friday 23 April, most people who have travelled from India in the last 10 days will be refused entry.
British or Irish passport holders, or people with UK residence rights, will be allowed in but must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.
Matt Hancock said there had been 103 UK cases of the India variant.
In a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, the health secretary said the vast majority of the cases of the new variant - officially known as B.1.617 - had been linked to international travel.
He said test samples had been analysed to see if the new variant had any "concerning characteristics" such as greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines.
He told MPs: "After studying the data, and on a precautionary basis, we've made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list."
Health officials say this new variant, first identified in India, has some worrying genetic changes that need exploring.
It's still too soon to say if it is more contagious, deadly and will evade vaccines - and whether it should join the Variant of Concern list that the South Africa, Kent and Brazil variants belong to.
Assessments are ongoing, and in the meantime the government is looking to stop more cases arriving and spreading in the country.
That's why the government is also stepping up surge testing to quickly find any new cases in the UK and is introducing a speedy new type of lab test that can show within hours if someone is positive for Covid - and if the infection they have is one of the known variants, including this new one from India.
It should mean people can isolate faster to prevent giving it to their friends, families, neighbours and colleagues.
Covid-19: India added to coronavirus ‘red list’ for travel
It means most travel to the UK from India will be banned from 04:00 BST on Friday, amid Covid concerns.
www.bbc.com
8888888888888
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Basically it all started with New Zealand
Your Minister asked your people to stay away from the Chinese vaccine. worry about yourself first.
Han Patriot
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If we didn't control it successfully, you bozos won't even have mask or even APis to make vaccines numb numb. Stop blaming others for your own incompetence. It's been 1 year already, we took 2 months to control it.
GHALIB
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modi and company is busy in winning bangal elections at the cost of public health and ganga snan .
you are right .modi is not bothered about public.In early March, India's health minister Harsh Vardhan declared the country was "in the endgame" of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Vardhan also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership as an "example to the world in international co-operation". From January onwards, India had begun shipping doses to foreign countries as part of its much-vaunted "vaccine diplomacy".
Mr Vardhan's unbridled optimism was based on a sharp drop in reported infections. Since a peak of more than 93,000 cases per day on average in mid-September, infections had steadily declined. By mid-February, India was counting an average of 11,000 cases a day. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths from the disease had slid to below 100.
The euphoria at beating the virus had been building since late last year. Politicians, policy makers and parts of the media believed that India was truly out of the woods. In December, central bank officials announced that India was "bending the Covid infection curve". There was evidence, they said, in poetic terms, that the economy was "breaking out amidst winter's lengthening shadows towards a place in sunlight". Mr Modi was called a "vaccine guru".
At the end of February, India's election authorities announced key elections in five states where 186 million people were eligible to vote for 824 seats. Beginning 27 March, the polls would stretch over a month, and in the case of the state of West Bengal, be held in eight phases. Campaigning had begun in full swing, with no safety protocols and social distancing. In mid-March, the cricket board allowed more than 130,000 fans, mostly unmasked, to watch two international cricket games between India and England at the Narendra Modi stadium in Gujarat.
In less than a month, things began to unravel. India was in the grips of a devastating second wave of the virus and cities were facing fresh lockdowns. By mid-April, the country was averaging more than 100,000 cases a day. On Sunday, India recorded more than 275,000 cases and over 1,600 deaths, both new single-day records. If the runway infection was not checked, India could be recording more than 2,300 deaths every day by first week of June, according to report by The Lancet Covid-19 Commission.
India is in now in the grips of a public health emergency. Social media feeds are full with videos of Covid funerals at crowded cemeteries, wailing relatives of the dead outside hospitals, long queues of ambulances carrying gasping patients, mortuaries overflowing with the dead, and patients, sometimes two to a bed, in corridors and lobbies of hospitals. There are frantic calls for help for beds, medicines, oxygen, essential drugs and tests. Drugs are being sold on the black market, and test results are taking days. "They didn't tell me for three hours that my child is dead," a dazed mother says in one video, sitting outside an ICU. Wails of another person outside the intensive care punctuate the silences.
Even India's mammoth vaccination effort was now struggling. In the beginning, the rollout had been embroiled in a controversy over the efficacy over a home-grown candidate. Even as the country ramped up the drive and administered more than 100 million doses by last week, vaccine shortages were being reported. Serum Institute of India, the country's - and the world's - biggest vaccine maker said it would not be able to ramp up supplies before June because it didn't have enough money to expand capacity. India placed a temporary hold on all exports of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, because the doses were needed urgently at home, and allowed imports of foreign vaccines. Even oxygen was likely to be imported now to meet the surge in demand.
Meanwhile, almost in a parallel universe, away from the death and despair, the world's richest cricket tournament was being played behind closed doors every evening, and tens of thousands of people were following their leaders to election rallies and attending the Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela. "It is beyond surreal, what is happening," Shiv Visvanathan, a sociology professor, told me.
Experts believe the government appears to have completely dropped the ball on the second wave of infections that was about to hit India.
In mid-February, Tabassum Barnagarwala, a journalist with the Indian Express newspaper, flagged a seven-fold rise in new cases in parts of Maharashtra and reported that samples from the infected had been sent for genome sequencing to look for imported variants.
By the end of the month, the BBC reported the surge and asked whether India was facing a new Covid wave. "We really don't know what the cause of the surge is. What is worrying is that entire families are getting infected. This is a completely new trend," Dr Shyamsunder Nikam, civil surgeon of an affected district in Maharashtra, said at the time.
Experts now say that crowing about India's exceptionalism in "beating" the epidemic - younger population, native immunity, a largely rural population - and declaring victory on the virus turned out to be cruelly premature. "As is typical in India, official arrogance, hyper-nationalism, populism and an ample dose of bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis," said Mihir Sharma, a columnist for Bloomberg.
India's second wave was fuelled by people letting their guard down, attending weddings and social gatherings, and by mixed messaging from the government, allowing political rallies and religious gatherings. With infections declining, fewer people were taking the jabs, slowing down the vaccination drive, which had aimed to inoculate 250 million people by the end of July. In mid-February, Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan, tweeted that India needed to "accelerate the vaccination drive while the case counts are low". Nobody quite took notice.
"There was a feeling of triumphalism," said P Srinath Reddy, the president of the Public Health Foundation of India. "Some felt we had achieved herd immunity. Everyone wanted to get back to work. This narrative fell on many receptive ears, and the few voices of caution were not heeded to," he said.
A second wave may have been inevitable, but India could have "postponed or delayed it and lessened its impact," said Gautam Menon, a professor of physics and biology. Like many other countries, India should have begun careful genomic surveillance in January to detect variants, Mr Menon said. Some of these variants could be driving the surge. "We learnt of new variants in February from reports from Maharashtra. This was initially denied by authorities," Mr Menon added. "This was a significant turning point."
What are the lessons of this public health crisis? For one, India should learn not to declare victory over the virus prematurely, and it should put a lid on triumphalism. People should also learn to adapt to short, local lockdowns in the event of the inevitable future spikes of infection. Most epidemiologists predict more waves, given that India is evidently still far away from reaching herd immunity and its vaccination rate remains slow.
"We cant freeze human life," Professor Reddy said. "If we can't physically distance in the crowded cities, we can at least make sure everyone wears a proper mask. And wear it properly. That's not a big ask."
Covid-19: How India failed to prevent a deadly second wave
India's government and parts of the media ignored warnings about a rising wave of cases, experts say.
Imran Khan
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India’s Covid Crisis Has a Familiar Culprit
The same government flaws that have long plagued Indian entrepreneurs are now jeopardizing the world’s battle to end the pandemic.
By
Mihir Sharma
April 13, 2021, 3:00 AM GMT+3
New variants are spreading like wildfire.
Photographer: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images
Mihir Swarup Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and head of its Economy and Growth Programme. He is the author of "Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy," and co-editor of "What the Economy Needs Now."
Read more opinionFollow @mihirssharma on Twitter
COMMENTS
LISTEN TO ARTICLE
Just a few short weeks ago, Indian government officials were patting themselves on the back. India was the “pharmacy of the world,” they said, and its cheaply produced vaccines would help end the Covid-19 pandemic globally. The federal health minister declared that the country had entered “the endgame” of its own battle against the pandemic. Even the Reserve Bank of India announced in unusually enthusiastic tones that India had “bent [the Covid-19 curve] like Beckham” and that “soon the winter of our discontent will be made glorious summer.”
Such boasts sound foolish, at best, today. Covid-19 case numbers and deaths have begun to spike exponentially in India, easily passing the numbers recorded during last autumn’s peak. Hospital beds are running short and so are vaccine doses. Although the government has halted all vaccine exports, many states have only a few days’ supply left in stock.
What went wrong? As is typical in India, official arrogance, hyper-nationalism, populism and an ample dose of bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis. The state has left India vulnerable to a second Covid-19 wave, multiple new mutations and the threat of repeated, livelihood-destroying lockdowns.
Worse, Indians aren’t the only ones who will pay the price. Developing nations that had been counting on the “pharmacy of the world” will now have to wait longer for their jabs, even as the new variants continue to spread.
More from
So Long to Walter Mondale, One of the Greats
The Pandemic Will Be More Deadly This Year
No Bailout for Rental Cars, Now Customers Pay for It
Trump Blazed a Trail that Clears the Way for Biden
Let’s start with the arrogance. The government appears to have unwisely believed its own rhetoric about having bent the curve of infections after imposing the world’s strictest lockdown last year. Even when new and virulent strains of the virus began to emerge, some of them from India’s own hinterland, officials showed no increased urgency about rolling out vaccinations. Regulators approved the first Indian vaccines in December. The first shot wasn’t given until more than two weeks later.
Then there’s the nationalism. Indian bureaucrats and regulators, under whatever administration, are prone to a barely disguised xenophobia. Thus, regulators pushed out an indigenously developed vaccine, Bharat Biotech Ltd.’s Covaxin, even before Phase III trial data was available. Meanwhile, other vaccines that had received regulatory approval elsewhere — including those from Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson — were unnecessarily held up until trials could be conducted in India.
World Health Organization guidelines say that such “bridging trials” may be needed “if there are compelling scientific reasons to expect that the immune response to the vaccine, and therefore its efficacy, could be significantly different to that documented in a prior efficacy trial.” Indian authorities never bothered to share these compelling scientific reasons. Why J&J’s vaccine, demonstrated to be effective even against the virulent South African and Brazilian variants, would need another large-scale trial in India demands some explanation, surely? (The company is still awaiting permission to launch a bridging trial.)
As for populism, the government sought to squeeze the private sector using price controls. Vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India was forbidden to produce for India’s private market, although CEO Adar Poonawalla had repeatedly said he would continue to offer the government doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc. for only Rs. 150 ($2) each. That price “is not profitable enough to re-invest substantially in building capacity,” said Poonawalla, who hoped to sell other doses on the open market for Rs. 1,000 ($13) each. Now the company has lost its export orders as well, further constraining cashflow.
As a result, Serum Institute has received a legal notice from AstraZeneca for failing to fulfill its contracts. More importantly, the company hasn’t got the cash to scale up its manufacturing capabilities. It’s making 50-70 million shots a month; it needs to double that at least. Poonawalla has now asked the government for $400 million to ramp up capacity.
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Yet, far from investing in capacity or brokering deals to tap unused vaccine manufacturing facilities, as the Biden administration has done in the U.S., the Indian government been slow even to sign purchasing contracts with manufacturers. In January, Serum Institute had stockpiled around 50 million doses; the government didn’t sign a purchase order for weeks and then only bought 11 million jabs initially.
The government seems to expect Indian manufacturers to produce vaccines on spec, jump through various regulatory hoops and then break all their other remunerative contracts in order to give the final product solely to the Indian state — at grossly insufficient prices. Is it any wonder that Pfizer’s local subsidiary quietly withdrew its application for emergency use of its vaccine in India?
This kind of regulatory uncertainty, bullying, lack of foresight and urgency, and contempt for legitimate profit-making is familiar to every entrepreneur in India. Such attitudes are at the root of the country’s growth and investment crisis. Now the rest of the world will have to suffer the consequences.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Mihir Sharma at msharma131@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.net
The same government flaws that have long plagued Indian entrepreneurs are now jeopardizing the world’s battle to end the pandemic.
By
Mihir Sharma
April 13, 2021, 3:00 AM GMT+3
New variants are spreading like wildfire.
Photographer: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images
Mihir Swarup Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and head of its Economy and Growth Programme. He is the author of "Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy," and co-editor of "What the Economy Needs Now."
Read more opinionFollow @mihirssharma on Twitter
COMMENTS
LISTEN TO ARTICLE
Just a few short weeks ago, Indian government officials were patting themselves on the back. India was the “pharmacy of the world,” they said, and its cheaply produced vaccines would help end the Covid-19 pandemic globally. The federal health minister declared that the country had entered “the endgame” of its own battle against the pandemic. Even the Reserve Bank of India announced in unusually enthusiastic tones that India had “bent [the Covid-19 curve] like Beckham” and that “soon the winter of our discontent will be made glorious summer.”
Such boasts sound foolish, at best, today. Covid-19 case numbers and deaths have begun to spike exponentially in India, easily passing the numbers recorded during last autumn’s peak. Hospital beds are running short and so are vaccine doses. Although the government has halted all vaccine exports, many states have only a few days’ supply left in stock.
What went wrong? As is typical in India, official arrogance, hyper-nationalism, populism and an ample dose of bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis. The state has left India vulnerable to a second Covid-19 wave, multiple new mutations and the threat of repeated, livelihood-destroying lockdowns.
Worse, Indians aren’t the only ones who will pay the price. Developing nations that had been counting on the “pharmacy of the world” will now have to wait longer for their jabs, even as the new variants continue to spread.
More from
So Long to Walter Mondale, One of the Greats
The Pandemic Will Be More Deadly This Year
No Bailout for Rental Cars, Now Customers Pay for It
Trump Blazed a Trail that Clears the Way for Biden
Let’s start with the arrogance. The government appears to have unwisely believed its own rhetoric about having bent the curve of infections after imposing the world’s strictest lockdown last year. Even when new and virulent strains of the virus began to emerge, some of them from India’s own hinterland, officials showed no increased urgency about rolling out vaccinations. Regulators approved the first Indian vaccines in December. The first shot wasn’t given until more than two weeks later.
Then there’s the nationalism. Indian bureaucrats and regulators, under whatever administration, are prone to a barely disguised xenophobia. Thus, regulators pushed out an indigenously developed vaccine, Bharat Biotech Ltd.’s Covaxin, even before Phase III trial data was available. Meanwhile, other vaccines that had received regulatory approval elsewhere — including those from Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson — were unnecessarily held up until trials could be conducted in India.
World Health Organization guidelines say that such “bridging trials” may be needed “if there are compelling scientific reasons to expect that the immune response to the vaccine, and therefore its efficacy, could be significantly different to that documented in a prior efficacy trial.” Indian authorities never bothered to share these compelling scientific reasons. Why J&J’s vaccine, demonstrated to be effective even against the virulent South African and Brazilian variants, would need another large-scale trial in India demands some explanation, surely? (The company is still awaiting permission to launch a bridging trial.)
As for populism, the government sought to squeeze the private sector using price controls. Vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India was forbidden to produce for India’s private market, although CEO Adar Poonawalla had repeatedly said he would continue to offer the government doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc. for only Rs. 150 ($2) each. That price “is not profitable enough to re-invest substantially in building capacity,” said Poonawalla, who hoped to sell other doses on the open market for Rs. 1,000 ($13) each. Now the company has lost its export orders as well, further constraining cashflow.
As a result, Serum Institute has received a legal notice from AstraZeneca for failing to fulfill its contracts. More importantly, the company hasn’t got the cash to scale up its manufacturing capabilities. It’s making 50-70 million shots a month; it needs to double that at least. Poonawalla has now asked the government for $400 million to ramp up capacity.
Opinion. Data. More Data.
Get the most important Bloomberg Opinion pieces in one email.
By submitting my information, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and to receive offers and promotions from Bloomberg.
Yet, far from investing in capacity or brokering deals to tap unused vaccine manufacturing facilities, as the Biden administration has done in the U.S., the Indian government been slow even to sign purchasing contracts with manufacturers. In January, Serum Institute had stockpiled around 50 million doses; the government didn’t sign a purchase order for weeks and then only bought 11 million jabs initially.
The government seems to expect Indian manufacturers to produce vaccines on spec, jump through various regulatory hoops and then break all their other remunerative contracts in order to give the final product solely to the Indian state — at grossly insufficient prices. Is it any wonder that Pfizer’s local subsidiary quietly withdrew its application for emergency use of its vaccine in India?
This kind of regulatory uncertainty, bullying, lack of foresight and urgency, and contempt for legitimate profit-making is familiar to every entrepreneur in India. Such attitudes are at the root of the country’s growth and investment crisis. Now the rest of the world will have to suffer the consequences.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Mihir Sharma at msharma131@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.net
N.Siddiqui
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So it's arrogance... abundant in India, the only thing there.
Hyper nationalism, actually Hindutva, called nationalism for posterity.
Populism...a la Modi.
Create vibes of Hindu khatre mein haeen, create Hindu- Muslim divide, dehumanize them and win votes.
Hyper nationalism, actually Hindutva, called nationalism for posterity.
Populism...a la Modi.
Create vibes of Hindu khatre mein haeen, create Hindu- Muslim divide, dehumanize them and win votes.
Han Patriot
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Read the word 'arrogance' and 'incompetence'. The 2 best Indian traits, you see the same pattern in Galwan. Arrogance with their claims, boastful and then fck it up. LolLast year after Diwali the cases went down significantly,I guess the smoke killed the virus.we should celebrate Diwali world over.
vi-va
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India reach 300 thousands new cases per day, one third of the world new cases
Actually there are many analysis that India has 300 millions to 600 millions infections.
RSS/BJP/Modi COVID-19 lockdown in India is the wisest decision he made.
www.france24.com
India’s Covid-19 cases hit new record as crowds mass at Ganges for Hindu festival
Issued on: 14/04/2021 - 09:10
Naga Sadhus (Hindu holy men) take a holy dip in the waters of the Ganges River during the Kumbh Mela festival, in Haridwar, India, April 12, 2021. © Money Sharma, AFP
Text by:FRANCE 24Follow
4 min
India's new coronavirus infections hit a record on Wednesday, as crowds ofpilgrims gathered for a religious festival despite oxygen shortages and strict curbs in other areas.
India reported 184,372 cases in the last 24 hours, according to health ministry data, taking the total number of Covid-19 infections to 13.9 million. Deaths rose by 1,027, to a toll of 172,085.
Despite the rising number of cases, with hospitals struggling to cope with oxygen shortages, the Indian government has allowed the Hindu Kumbh Mela festival – where crowds gather to take a holy dip in the Ganges river – to proceed.
Hundreds of thousands of Hindus gathered to bathe in the Ganges on Wednesday, the third key day of the weeks-long festival, in the Himalayan city Haridwar.
Sanjay Gunjyal, the inspector general of police at the festival, said around 650,000 people had bathed on Wednesday morning.
"People are being fined for not following social distancing in non-crowded ghats (bathing areas), but it is very hard to fine people in the main ghats, which are very crowded," he said.
There was little evidence of social distancing or mask-wearing, according to witnesses.
In response to concerns raised earlier this week that the Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, could turn into a “superspreader” event, the state's chief minister, Tirath Singh Rawat, said “the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus".
More than a thousand cases have been reported in Haridwar district in the last two days, according to government data.
From reporting less than 10,000 cases per day earlier this year, India has been the world's worst-hit country since April 2, with health experts blaming a widespread failure to heed curbs on movement and social interaction.
New restrictions in commercial capital and richest state
India's richest state Maharashtra – home to the commercial capital, Mumbai, and the current epicentre of the second wave – imposed stringent restrictions from Wednesday to try to contain the spread of the virus.
The new restrictions will force all "non-essential" shops, malls and e-commerce deliveries to pause operations from Wednesday until May 1.
Shooting for movies, television shows and advertisements in Bollywood will also grind to a halt, in what will be a blow to India's flagship film industry.
Bars and restaurants were shut earlier this month, and public gatherings of more than five people are banned.
The new measures follow Maharashtra's move to impose a state-wide weekend lockdown that confined the state's 125 million people to their homes until the end of April unless shopping for food or medicine, or travelling.
Hospitals flooded, delays in global vaccine deliveries
Elsewhere, overstretched private hospitals are turning patients away, placing an increasing burden on government facilities.
Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning
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In the western state of Gujurat, local media showed a long queue of ambulances waiting outside Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, with some patients being treated there while they waited.
A hospital source, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak publicly, said this was because a lot of private hospitals were short of oxygen and were sending their patients to the public hospital.
The surge across India is particularly alarming because the country is a major vaccine producer and a critical supplier to the UN-backed COVAX initiative. That programme aims to bring shots to some of the world's poorest countries.
Already the rise in cases has forced India to focus on meeting its domestic demand – and delay deliveries to COVAX and elsewhere, including the UK and Canada.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
Actually there are many analysis that India has 300 millions to 600 millions infections.
RSS/BJP/Modi COVID-19 lockdown in India is the wisest decision he made.
India’s Covid-19 cases hit new record as crowds mass at Ganges for Hindu festival
India's new coronavirus infections hit a record on Wednesday, as crowds ofpilgrims gathered for a religious festival despite oxygen shortages and strict curbs in other areas.
www.france24.com
India’s Covid-19 cases hit new record as crowds mass at Ganges for Hindu festival
Issued on: 14/04/2021 - 09:10
Naga Sadhus (Hindu holy men) take a holy dip in the waters of the Ganges River during the Kumbh Mela festival, in Haridwar, India, April 12, 2021. © Money Sharma, AFP
Text by:FRANCE 24Follow
4 min
India's new coronavirus infections hit a record on Wednesday, as crowds ofpilgrims gathered for a religious festival despite oxygen shortages and strict curbs in other areas.
India reported 184,372 cases in the last 24 hours, according to health ministry data, taking the total number of Covid-19 infections to 13.9 million. Deaths rose by 1,027, to a toll of 172,085.
Despite the rising number of cases, with hospitals struggling to cope with oxygen shortages, the Indian government has allowed the Hindu Kumbh Mela festival – where crowds gather to take a holy dip in the Ganges river – to proceed.
Hundreds of thousands of Hindus gathered to bathe in the Ganges on Wednesday, the third key day of the weeks-long festival, in the Himalayan city Haridwar.
Sanjay Gunjyal, the inspector general of police at the festival, said around 650,000 people had bathed on Wednesday morning.
"People are being fined for not following social distancing in non-crowded ghats (bathing areas), but it is very hard to fine people in the main ghats, which are very crowded," he said.
There was little evidence of social distancing or mask-wearing, according to witnesses.
In response to concerns raised earlier this week that the Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, could turn into a “superspreader” event, the state's chief minister, Tirath Singh Rawat, said “the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus".
More than a thousand cases have been reported in Haridwar district in the last two days, according to government data.
From reporting less than 10,000 cases per day earlier this year, India has been the world's worst-hit country since April 2, with health experts blaming a widespread failure to heed curbs on movement and social interaction.
New restrictions in commercial capital and richest state
India's richest state Maharashtra – home to the commercial capital, Mumbai, and the current epicentre of the second wave – imposed stringent restrictions from Wednesday to try to contain the spread of the virus.
The new restrictions will force all "non-essential" shops, malls and e-commerce deliveries to pause operations from Wednesday until May 1.
Shooting for movies, television shows and advertisements in Bollywood will also grind to a halt, in what will be a blow to India's flagship film industry.
Bars and restaurants were shut earlier this month, and public gatherings of more than five people are banned.
The new measures follow Maharashtra's move to impose a state-wide weekend lockdown that confined the state's 125 million people to their homes until the end of April unless shopping for food or medicine, or travelling.
Hospitals flooded, delays in global vaccine deliveries
Elsewhere, overstretched private hospitals are turning patients away, placing an increasing burden on government facilities.
Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning
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In the western state of Gujurat, local media showed a long queue of ambulances waiting outside Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, with some patients being treated there while they waited.
A hospital source, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak publicly, said this was because a lot of private hospitals were short of oxygen and were sending their patients to the public hospital.
The surge across India is particularly alarming because the country is a major vaccine producer and a critical supplier to the UN-backed COVAX initiative. That programme aims to bring shots to some of the world's poorest countries.
Already the rise in cases has forced India to focus on meeting its domestic demand – and delay deliveries to COVAX and elsewhere, including the UK and Canada.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
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