The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 coronavirus disease rose to more than 142 million on Tuesday, and India remained a hot spot, with more than 250,000 new infections and more than 1,700 deaths in the last 24 hours alone.
New Delhi, the capital, was again blocked on Monday, in an effort to stop the rise in the number of cases in which hospitals overflow, intensive care units are full and oxygen is low.
India is part of a wave of new cases pushing for global growth, even as some countries, including the US, are making good progress on vaccination, overshadowing the scale of the crisis elsewhere, including Brazil and France. The wave is partly due to new variants that are more infectious than the original virus.
India reports more daily coronavirus infections and deaths than any other country, while its economy has contracted at a record pace. The WSJ explains what is at stake for the nearly $ 1.4 billion nation. Photo: Naveen Sharma / SOPA Images via ZUMA Wire
But India’s high infection rate is also due to recent events, including a Hindu festival that saw many gathering to bathe in the Ganges River while failing to wear face masks, as well as election rallies. busy state.
The US State Department warns against travel to India, and the UK has added the country to the “red list” of travel. Hong Kong has banned all flights from India, and Singapore has added a week to the 14-day quarantine period it requires passengers there, according to the Straits Times.
The burden of India’s case is also overwhelming its vaccination effort and this has implications for the world as India is the largest producer of vaccines. The country had to delay deliveries to other places to keep up with domestic demand. On Monday, the government said it would expand the vaccination program to every adult, but it is unclear how it will meet that supply, according to the AP.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has once again emphasized the issue of vaccine equity, urging richer countries not to vaccinate vaccines and noting that the failure to vaccinate poorer countries will simply allow more options to emerge and produce one that does not meet current vaccines.
Ecologist Greta Thunberg joined a WHO news briefing with the news that she will donate 100,000 euros ($ 120,000) through her foundation to the WHO Foundation to support her Covax program, which aims to distribute vaccines to the most at-risk countries. poorest in the country. world.
In case you missed this: The head of the UN joins the WHO to crack down on rich countries for vaccinating COVID vaccines
“The international community needs to do more to address the tragedy of vaccine inequity,” Swede Thunberg told reporters. “We have the means to correct the great imbalance that exists around the world today in the fight against COVID-19. As in the case of the climate crisis, we must first help those who are most vulnerable. “
On average, 1 in 4 people in high-income countries received a vaccine against coronavirus, compared to only one in over 500 in low-income countries.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine program shows that as of 6 a.m. ET, 264.5 million doses have been delivered to states, 211.6 million doses and 132.3 million have been administered. of people received at least one blow, equal to 39.9% of the population.
A total of 85.4 million people are fully vaccinated, equivalent to 25.7% of the population, which means they have received two vaccines with the two-dose vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX,
and Modern Inc. MRNA,
or a shot by Johnson & Johnson JNJ,
unique vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine has not been authorized for use in the United States
Among Americans aged 65 and over, 35.5 million people are fully vaccinated, equivalent to 64.9% of this group. Almost 44 million people in this age group received a first jab, covering 80.1% of this population.
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In another train of thoughts:
• The US earnings season saw two companies on Tuesday, focusing on COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson posted better-than-expected figures for the first quarter and said COVID vaccine sales added $ 100 million to revenue. Abbot Labs ABT,
Meanwhile, profit has more than tripled as it generated $ 1.8 billion in its $ 2.2 billion in COVID tests.
• The US State Department urged Americans to reconsider any planned international travel and said it would issue specific warnings not to visit about 80 percent of the world’s countries because of the risks of a coronavirus pandemic, the AP reported. . The US has not received a global warning against international travel since August, when the guidance was revoked by the previous administration. The advice issued by the department is not a formal global consultation. Instead, it is said that the State Department will start using the standards of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while preparing health and safety guidelines for each country. Due to these standards, about 80% of countries will be classified as “Level 4” or “do not travel”.
Read:What does a strong reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine mean?
• The coronavirus pandemic was used as a reason to block journalists’ access to information sources and field reporting, Reporter Without Borders reported. The organization’s 2021 World Freedom Index found that journalism, the “disinformation vaccine,” was blocked in more than 130 countries, accounting for 73 percent of the 180 countries it evaluated. “The data shows that it is increasingly difficult for journalists to investigate and report sensitive stories, especially in Asia, the Middle East and Europe,” the report said. Journalists have been subjected to intimidation and threats, strict media laws and even the incrimination of reports considered critical to government responses to the crisis, such as a lack of medical supplies or an increased death toll. This list includes Brazil, Egypt, Iran and China, according to the report.
Indexing region by region:
Source: Reporters Without Borders
• The European Medicines Agency stated that its safety committee had concluded that a warning about unusual blood clots with low platelets should be added to the product information for the COVID Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which it said had benefits. exceeded the risk of “very rare” effects. All eight cases in the US, after more than 7 million vaccinations, have occurred in people under the age of 60 within three weeks of vaccination, and especially in women. The cases analyzed were very similar to the cases that occurred with the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
said EMA. The launch of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Europe was interrupted by the company.
See now: Obtaining COVID creates a much higher risk of rare blood clots than vaccines, the Oxford study finds
• The European Union will have enough doses of vaccine to cover 70% of adults by mid-July, the Guardian reported, citing Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is responsible for vaccines in the trade bloc. “Fifty-three factories produce vaccines in the EU. Our continent is now the largest producer in the world after the United States, ”said the Commissioner for Internal Markets Thierry Breton said the French daily Le Figaro in an interview. The 70% threshold is important, as some experts say it is necessary to obtain “herd immunity” or the point where the virus has too few hosts to proliferate.
Latest accounts
The overall number of coronavirus diseases rose to more than 142 million on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins, while the death toll rose to more than 3.03 million after a 3 million violation on Saturday.
The US leads the world in cases and deaths with wide margins, with 31.7 million cases, or more than 20% of the global total, while the number of 567,729 deaths represents about 20% of the global number.
Outside the US, Brazil is third in terms of cases, after India, with 13.9 million and second, with 374,682 deaths.
Mexico is the third among the deaths at 212,466 and the 14th highest number of cases, 2.3 million.
The UK has 4.4 million cases and 127,524 deaths, the largest in Europe and the fifth largest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, recorded 102,272 confirmed cases and 4,845 deaths, according to its official figures.