BENGALURU: India's COVID-19 infections crossed the 18 million mark on Thursday (Apr 29) with almost 380,000 new cases, breaking another world record for new daily infections.
The explosion in infections, blamed in part on a new virus variant as well as mass political and religious events, has overwhelmed hospitals with dire shortages of beds, drugs and oxygen.
According to health ministry data, India reported 379,257 new cases and 3,645 new deaths, taking its total caseload to 18.38 million and fatalities to 204,832. It was the highest number of deaths reported in a single day in India since the start of the pandemic.
This month alone, India has added more than 6 million new cases.
Experts said the country's best hope to curb its second deadly wave of COVID-19 was to vaccinate its vast population. On Wednesday it opened registrations for everyone above the age of 18 to be given jabs from Saturday.
But India, which is one of the world's biggest producers of vaccines, does not have the stocks for the estimated 600 million people becoming eligible.
Many people who tried to sign up said they failed, complaining on social media that they could not get a slot or they simply could not get online to register as the website repeatedly crashed.
"Statistics indicate that far from crashing or performing slowly, the system is performing without any glitches," the government said in a statement late on Wednesday.
The government said more than 8 million people had registered for the vaccinations, but it was not immediately clear how many had got slots.
About 9 per cent of India's population have received one dose since the vaccination campaign began in January with health workers and then the elderly.
The government's chief scientific advisor K Vijay Raghavan said in an interview with the Indian Express newspaper that the government could have done more to prepare for the second wave.
"There were major efforts by central and state governments in ramping up hospital and healthcare infrastructure during the first wave ... But as that wave declined, so perhaps did the sense of urgency," he said.
But "it is just not possible to amplify the capacities of a public health system within a year to a level that would be sufficient to cope with what we are seeing now", he added.
MAKESHIFT CREMATORIUMS
The crisis is particularly severe in New Delhi, with people dying outside packed hospitals where three people are often forced to share beds.
Delhi is reporting one death from COVID-19 every four minutes and ambulances have been taking the bodies of COVID-19 victims to makeshift crematorium facilities in parks and parking lots, where bodies burned on rows and rows of funeral pyres.
Ambulances have been taking the bodies of COVID-19 victims to makeshift crematorium facilities in parks and parking lots, where bodies burned on rows and rows of funeral pyres.
The World Health Organization said in its weekly epidemiological update that India accounted for 38 per cent of the 5.7 million cases reported worldwide to it last week.
Many nations have rushed to help, sending desperately needed oxygen and aid.
"India’s COVID outbreak is a humanitarian crisis," US Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Twitter.
"I’m leading a letter to @moderna_tx, @pfizer, and @jnjnews to find out what steps they’re taking to expand global access to their vaccines to save lives and prevent variants from spreading around the world."
GLOBAL AID
Two planes from Russia, carrying 20 oxygen concentrators, 75 ventilators, 150 bedside monitors, and medicines totalling 22 metric tonnes, arrived in the capital Delhi on Thursday.
As part of the global effort, Singapore said Wednesday it had sent two planeloads of oxygen supplies, and Germany will deliver 120 ventilators and plans to set up oxygen production.
Britain also announced Wednesday it was sending three oxygen "factories" the size of containers to India following a first consignment of aid this week.
The United States is sending supplies worth more than US$100 million to India, including 1,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests, the White House announced on Wednesday. It said the supplies will begin arriving on Thursday.
The United States also has redirected its own order of AstraZeneca manufacturing supplies to India, which will allow it to make over 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the White House.
Taiwan on Thursday said it had bought 150 oxygen concentrators and aimed to send them to India this weekend.
US WARNING
India will receive a first batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 on May 1. Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund, which is marketing Sputnik V globally, has already signed agreements with five leading Indian manufacturers for over 850 million doses of the vaccine a year.
The US State Department issued a travel advisory warning on Wednesday against travel to India because of the pandemic and approved the voluntary departure of family members of US government employees in India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticised for allowing massive political rallies and religious festivals which have been super spreader events in recent weeks.
More than 8.4 million eligible voters are set to vote on Thursday in the last phase of an eight-part election in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, even as the state witnesses a record rise in coronavirus cases.
"The people of this country are entitled to a full and honest account of what led more than a billion people into a catastrophe," Vikram Patel, The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School said in The Hindu newspaper.
The South Asia head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Udaya Regmi, said the world was entering a critical phase of the pandemic and needed to have vaccinations available for all adults as soon as possible.
Early modelling showed that the B1617 variant of the virus detected in India had a higher growth rate than other variants in the country, suggesting increased transmissibility, it said.
WASHINGTON: Tainted batches of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine sent to Brazil carried a live version of a common cold-causing virus, the South American country's health regulator reported in a presentation explaining its decision to ban the drug's import.
Top virologist Angela Rasmussen told AFP the finding "raises questions about the integrity of the manufacturing processes" and could be a safety issue for people with weaker immune systems, if the problem was found to be widespread.
Russia's Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, has denied the reports.
The issue centres around an "adenovirus vector" - a virus that normally causes mild respiratory illness but in vaccines is genetically modified so that it cannot replicate, and edited to carry the DNA instructions for human cells to develop the spike protein of the coronavirus.
This in turn trains the human system to be prepared in case it then encounters the real coronavirus.
The Sputnik V vaccine uses two different adenovirus vectors to accomplish this task: adenovirus type 26 (Ad26) for the first shot, and adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) for the second shot.
According to a slideshow uploaded online, scientists at Anvisa, Brazil's regulator, said they tested samples of the booster shot and found it was "replication competent" - meaning that once inside the body, the adenovirus can continue to multiply.
They added that this had likely occurred because of a manufacturing problem called "recombination", in which the modified adenovirus had gained back the genes it needed to replicate while it was being grown inside engineered human cells in a lab.
Brazilian regulators did not evaluate the first shot.
Rasmussen, a research scientist at Canada's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, described the error as a quality control issue, rather than a problem inherent to the technology.
If batches used in the real world were tainted, then "for most people this probably won't be a big deal because adenoviruses are generally not thought of as really important human pathogens," she said.
"But in people who are immune compromised ... there could be a higher rate of adverse effects because of it, including potentially serious ones."
The bigger problem, she added, was the unfortunate impact on confidence over a vaccine that a study in The Lancet journal showed was safe and more than 90 per cent effective.
If people aren't sure that the vaccine they are receiving is the same that was studied in trials, then "I can imagine that some people might have their reservations about getting that vaccine at all," said Rasmussen.
Another unknown is whether the manufacturing problem that led to the adenovirus vector being able to replicate also knocks out the DNA code for the spike protein - rendering the shot ineffective as a coronavirus vaccine.
Denis Logunov, deputy director of the Gamaleya Institute, has responded by saying "The statements I have read in the press have nothing to do with reality" and that the adenovirus vector was not able to replicate.
BENGALURU: India's giant IT firms in Bengaluru and other cities have set up COVID-19 "war rooms" as they scramble to source oxygen, medicine and hospital beds for infected workers and maintain backroom operations for the world's biggest financial firms.
Banks including Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered, who run much of their global back office operations from large office parks in Bengaluru, Chennai or Hyderabad, have put in place infrastructure to vaccinate thousands of employees and their families when age restrictions are lifted on May 1.
Workers at huge technology service providers Accenture, Infosys and Wipro say teams are working 13 to 14 hours daily, under growing pressure and struggling to deliver on projects as staff members call in sick and take time off to care for friends and relatives.
They play down any threat of a collapse in operations - but at stake if the surge continues is the infrastructure put in place by the world's biggest financial companies in cost-cutting drives that have left them deeply reliant on the big Indian offices.
"Employees have contracted COVID-19 since the second wave began, causing severe pressure for projects that are nearing deadlines," said one employee at Accenture, asking not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Five other sources at Accenture confirmed the growing issues with pressure of work. Accenture said it was providing some medical care and covering the cost of vaccinations for its employees but did not comment on the impact on productivity.
Wipro said it has not seen any disruption to operations and has transferred some client projects to offices outside India.
Only about 3 per cent of its nearly 200,000 employees are now working from the office on critical projects, and it expects more of those employees to work from home, it said. For those who have to work from the office, Wipro said it had made living arrangements at guest houses and hotels nearby.
Infosys, India's second largest software services firm, said it was operating remotely across all offices and had not seen any impact on client projects, despite the deteriorating health situation in the country in recent weeks.
Tata Consultancy Services, India's top information technology (IT) services firm, similarly said its operations had not been affected.
India's second wave of infections has seen at least 300,000 people test positive each day for the past week, overwhelming healthcare facilities and crematoriums and driving an increasingly urgent international response.
Asia's IT capital Bengaluru, desperate to calm a daily infection rate five times higher than in last year's first wave, on Monday ordered a full lockdown that allows ordinary residents to leave their homes only briefly between 6am and 10am.
Local IT managers say they struggled to get global chiefs outside India to recognise the seriousness of the outbreak.
COVID-19 'WAR ROOMS'
India's gigantic IT and call centre service industry employs more than 4.5 million people directly and relies on huge numbers of graduates under the age of 30.
They are paid a fraction of Western salaries and had largely ridden out the COVID-19 pandemic working from home until the relaxing of restrictions in recent months spurred companies to call more employees back to the office.
Managers at Goldman Sachs' massive complex in Bengaluru, for example, told staff in early March to prepare to return to full-scale office working.
Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said then that the bank owed it to its incoming class of analysts and interns to have them come to work in offices for at least part of the summer. The company quickly U-turned, sending all but essential employees home on Mar 27 as cases began to rise.
Another large bank, Wells Fargo, said its employees in India would continue to work remotely till at least early September.
New strains of the virus have since sent India's case numbers soaring to global records and brought more infections among younger Indians.
All 15 of the large companies Reuters spoke to this week said that they now had vaccination schemes in place. Several outlined COVID-19 "war rooms" they had launched to support staff and secure oxygen and other supplies.
Initially, managers outside India had not wanted their companies' Indian operations to be seen to be jumping the queue for vaccines, says a senior manager who runs a workforce of more than 600 staff at a global bank in Bengaluru, asking not to be identified.
"The India CEO and others here said: We don't care what it looks like, people are dying."
TOKYO: Japan has only used about a fifth of the COVID-19 vaccine doses it has imported so far, government data showed on Wednesday (Apr 28), underscoring logistical hurdles such as a shortage of medical staff as it grapples with a sluggish inoculation campaign.
Japan has secured the largest amount of COVID-19 vaccines in Asia, as it gears up for the Olympics in the summer. But it has inoculated only 1.6 per cent of its population so far, the slowest among wealthy countries.
By the end of April, Japan will have imported enough vials of Pfizer's vaccine for almost 17 million doses, according to a schedule from the Cabinet Office. But as of Wednesday, just over 3.2 million shots had been given out, mostly to healthcare workers.
By comparison, South Korea, which began its inoculation campaign after Japan, has administered two-thirds of 3.87 million doses of AstraZeneca Plc and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines it had received so far, inoculating 4.7 per cent of its population.
Japan's unused shots suggest its inoculation push is failing to gain steam, even as inbound vaccine shipments triple over the next two months.
BOTTLENECKS
The country began its vaccination push in February, later than most major economies, and was dependent on scarce initial supplies of the Pfizer vaccine flown in from Europe. Vaccine minister Taro Kono has said that municipalities requested a slower rollout to give them time to set up inoculation centres and notify residents.
But as imports started to ramp up, other bottlenecks have become apparent, mainly in manpower. Japanese regulations say only doctors or nurses can administer the injections. The health ministry last week decided that dentists may also deliver shots.
Monthly imports from Pfizer factories in Europe are projected to more than triple, amounting to about 35 million doses coming into Japan in both May and June. Domestic regulators are now reviewing vaccine candidates from Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca, and approval of either would unlock tens of millions more doses.
There are signs the government is feeling the heat to speed up its vaccine push. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga this week tasked the Defense Ministry to set up a mass inoculation site in central Tokyo by May 24.
But the vaccination push has come too late to blunt a fourth wave of infections. The government declared a third state of emergency in its major population centres on Sunday, less than three months before the scheduled start of the Tokyo Olympics.
Japan expects to have more than enough doses in hand by June to fully vaccinate its sizeable elderly population. But there is still no timetable for when the general population will receive the shots, with some health experts expecting it could take until the winter or longer.
Myanmar's pro-democracy unity government, which includes members of parliament ousted by the military coup, has told Southeast Asia's regional bloc that it will not engage in talks until the junta releases all political prisoners.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying to find a path for Myanmar out of a bloody crisis triggered by the Feb 1 coup and has called for an end to violence and talks between all sides.
But the junta has already declined to accept proposals to resolve the crisis that emerged from an ASEAN summit last weekend that was attended by Myanmar's Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, but no-one from the civilian side.
The pro-democracy National Unity Government (NUG), formed this month by opponents of the military, said ASEAN should be engaging with it as the legitimate representative of the people.
"Before any constructive dialogue can take place, however, there must be an unconditional release of political prisoners including President U Win Myint and State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the NUG prime minister, Minister Mahn Winn Khaing Thann, said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from any senior officials in ASEAN.
Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi have been detained since the coup, which the military launched as Aung San Suu Kyi's government was preparing for a second term after sweeping a November election.
The military said it had to seize power because its complaints of fraud in the election were not being addressed by an election commission that deemed the vote fair.
Pro-democracy protests have taken place in cities and towns across the country since the coup. The military has cracked down with lethal force on the protesters, killing more than 750 people, an activist group says.
Reuters is unable to confirm the casualties as the junta has clamped down on media freedoms and journalists are among the many people who have been detained.
Alarmed by the turmoil in one of its members, ASEAN held a meeting on Saturday in the Indonesian capital with the leader of the junta in a bid to press him to end the crisis.
ASEAN did not invite a representative of Aung San Suu Kyi's ousted government.
ASEAN leaders said after the meeting they had reached a "five-point consensus" on steps to end violence and promote dialogue between the rival Myanmar sides.
MORE AIR STRIKES
The junta later said it would give "careful consideration" to ASEAN's suggestions, which included appointing an envoy to visit Myanmar, "when the situation returns to stability" and provided that ASEAN's recommendations facilitated the junta's own roadmap and served the country's interests.
Activists had earlier criticised the plan, saying it helped to legitimise the junta and fell far short of their demands.
In particular, it did not call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, and other political prisoners. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group says more than 3,400 people have been detained for opposing the coup.
The NUG is largely made up of ousted members of parliament together with politicians representing ethnic minorities and pro-democracy protest leaders.
Protesters marched in support of the NUG in the second city of Mandalay on Wednesday, the Myanmar Now media outlet reported.
The coup has also exacerbated old conflicts the military and ethnic minority insurgents who have been battling for years for greater autonomy in frontier regions.
Fighting has flared between the army and Karen insurgents in the east near the Thai border, and between the army and Kachin insurgents in the north, near the border with China.
Clashes have also broken out in Chin State, which is on the border with India, between anti-coup activists and security forces.
Karen insurgents captured Myanmar army posts near the Thai border on Tuesday in some of the most intense clashes since the coup which included air strikes by the military.
The military launched more air strikes in the area on Wednesday, villagers on the Thai side of the border said, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
The Karen and other ethnic minority forces based in frontier regions have supported the largely urban-based pro-democracy opponents of the junta.
India's second wave of Covid-19 infections has seen at least 300,000 people a day test positive for the past week, overwhelming healthcare facilities and crematoriums and driving an increasingly urgent international response.
In the past 24 hours, 360,960 new cases were recorded, the largest single-day total in the world, taking India's total to nearly 18 million. A further 3,293 deaths, the deadliest day so far, took the death toll to 201,187.
Experts believe the official tally vastly underestimates the actual toll in the country of 1.3 billion.
In the capital, New Delhi, ambulances lined up for hours to take Covid-19 victims to makeshift crematorium facilities in parks and parking lots, where bodies burned on rows of funeral pyres.
Coronavirus sufferers - many struggling for breath - flocked to a Sikh temple on the outskirts of the city, hoping to secure some of the limited supplies of oxygen available there.
Police said a fire early on Wednesday at a hospital on the outskirts of Mumbai killed four people and injured several more.
Accidents at hospitals have been of grave concern for the country which is running short of beds and oxygen supplies. Last week, a fire broke out at a hospital treating Covid-19 patients and a leaking oxygen tank at another hospital led to the deaths of 22 people.
Supplies of life-saving oxygen and equipment have begun arriving in New Delhi, including ventilators and oxygen concentrators from Britain, with more dispatched from Ireland, Germany and Australia.
People with breathing problems due to Covid-19 waiting to receive oxygen support for free at a Sikh temple in Ghaziabad on April 27, 2021. PHOTO: REUTERS Patients breathe with the help of oxygen masks inside a banquet hall temporarily converted into a Covid-19 ward in New Delhi on April 27, 2021. PHOTO: AFP
Several countries have suspended flights from India, taking steps to keep out more virulent variants of the virus.
United States President Joe Biden said he had spoken at length with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, including as to when the US would be able to ship vaccines to the country, and said it was his clear intention to do so.
"I think we'll be in a position to be able to share, share vaccines as well as know-how with other countries who are in real need. That's the hope and expectation," he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
The US State Department's coordinator for global Covid-19 response, Ms Gayle Smith, warned that India's challenge will require a sustained effort: "We all need to understand that we are still at the front end of this. This hasn't peaked yet."
