The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 coronavirus-transmitted disease topped 142 million on Tuesday and India remained a hot spot, registering more than 250,000 new infections and more than 1,700 deaths in the last 24 hours alone.
The capital of New Delhi closed again on Monday in an effort to curb an increase in cases where hospitals overflow, intensive care units are full and oxygen is scarce.
India is part of a wave of new cases that is increasing the global figure, even as some countries, including the United States, are making good progress on vaccination, overshadowing the scope of the crisis in other places, including Brazil and France. The wave is due in part to new variants that are more infectious than the original virus.
India is reporting more coronavirus infections and deaths every day than any other country, while its economy has shrunk at a record pace. WSJ explains what is at stake for the nation of about 1.4 billion. Photo: Naveen Sharma / SOPA Images via ZUMA Wire
But India’s high rate of infection is also due to some recent events, such as a Hindu festival that saw many gather to bathe in the Ganges river while not wearing face masks, as well as some election rallies. busy states.
The US State Department warns against travel to India and the UK added the country to its “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 travelers there, according to the Straits Times.
India’s case load also overwhelms its vaccination effort and this has implications for the world as India is the largest producer of vaccines. The country was forced to delay deliveries to other places to keep up with domestic demand. On Monday, the government said it would expand the vaccine program to all adults, but it is unclear how it will meet that supply, according to the PA.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reiterated the issue of vaccine equity, urging richer countries not to vaccinate and noting that not vaccinating the poorest countries will simply allow more variants to emerge and that potentially produce one that does not respond to current vaccines. .
Environmentalist Greta Thunberg joined a WHO 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 in the world’s poorest countries.
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“The international community must do more to deal with the tragedy of vaccine inequity,” Swun Thunberg told reporters. “We have the means at our disposal to correct the great imbalance that exists today around the world in the fight against COVID-19. As with the climate crisis, we must first help those who are most vulnerable. “
On average, 1 in 4 people in high-income countries has received a coronavirus vaccine, compared with only one in 500 in low-income countries.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine tracker shows that at 6 a.m. Monday, 264.5 million doses had been administered to states, of which 211.6 million had been administered. of dose and 132.3 million people had received at least one shot. equal to 39.9% of the population.
A total of 85.4 million people are fully vaccinated, which is 25.7% of the population, meaning they have received two vaccines from the two-dose vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX,
and Modern Inc. MRNA,
or a shot from Johnson & Johnson JNJ,
single vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the United States
Among Americans age 65 and older, 35.5 million people are completely vaccinated, 64.9% of that group. Nearly 44 million people in this age group have received a first stroke, covering 80.1% of this population.
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In other news:
• The U.S. profit season on Tuesday reported two companies focused on COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson posted better-than-expected figures during its first quarter and said COVID vaccine sales added $ 100 million to revenue. Abbot Labs ABT,
meanwhile, that profit tripled further as it generated $ 1.8 billion of its $ 2.2 billion in COVID test sales.
• The U.S. State Department urged Americans to reconsider any international travel they might plan and said it would issue specific warnings not to visit about 80 percent of the world’s countries because of the risks of the coronavirus pandemic. as reported by the AP. The United States has not received any warning of global advice against international travel since August, when the previous administration revoked the guidance. The advice issued by the department is not formal formal advice. Instead, he says the State Department will begin using the standards of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as it prepares safety and health guidelines for each country. Because of these rules, 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 has been used as a reason to block journalists ’access to information sources and field reports, the non-profit Reporter Without Borders reported. The organization’s 2021 global press freedom index found that journalism, “the disinformation vaccine,” has been blocked in more than 130 countries, accounting for 73% of the 180 countries it evaluated. “The data show that journalists are finding it increasingly difficult to investigate and report on sensitive stories, especially in Asia, the Middle East and Europe,” the report states. Journalists have been subjected to intimidation and threats, strict media laws, and even the criminalization of reports considered critical of government responses to the crisis, such as the shortage of medical supplies or the growing death toll. This list includes Brazil, Egypt, Iran and China, according to the report.
Index by region:
Source: Reporters Without Borders
• The European Medicines Agency said its safety committee concluded that a warning about unusual low-platelet blood clots should be added to the product information for Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine, which he said it had benefits that outweighed the risk of having a “very rare” side. effects. The eight cases in the United States, after more than 7 million vaccinations, occurred in people under 60 within three weeks of vaccination, and mostly in women. The cases reviewed were very similar to the cases with the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
said the EMA. The company paused the launch of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Europe.
See now: Getting COVID creates a much higher risk of rare blood clots than vaccines, according to an Oxford study
• 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 in charge of vaccines at 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 ”, Commissioner of Internal Markets Thierry Breton he told the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview. The 70% threshold is important, as some experts say it is necessary to achieve “herd immunity,” or the point where the virus has too few hosts to proliferate.
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The overall balance of coronavirus-borne disease rose above 142 million on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins, as the death toll exceeded 3.03 million, after failing to reach 3 million on Saturday. .
The United States leads the world in cases and deaths with wide margins, with 31.7 million cases, or more than 20% of the world total, while the number of 567,729 deaths represents approximately 20% of the world total.
Outside the United States, Brazil is the third by cases after India with 13.9 million and the second with a death toll of 374,682.
Mexico is third by deaths with 212,466 and 14th by cases, with 2.3 million.
The UK has 4.4 million cases and 127,524 deaths, the highest in Europe and the fifth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 102,272 confirmed cases and 4,845 deaths, according to its official figures.