India - Coronavirus COVID-19

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World's Biggest Vaccine Maker 'Very Stressed' As India Sees Record Spike In COVID-19

“In an interview with local TV, the CEO of the Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, said late Tuesday that his company's production of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the injection most used in India, is "very stressed, to put it frankly."“

 

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Maharashtra Reports Nearly 60,000 Covid Cases In Highest Single-Day Spike
Maharashtra also reported the highest single-day death count due to coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic with 322 fatalities. The total death count in the state has reached 56,652.

 

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Coronavirus India updates: Madhya Pradesh govt announces night curfew in urban areas

Covid-19: More Lockdowns and Curbs as States Grapple With Soaring Cases, Depleted Vaccine Stocks

 

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Kerala: Elections to blame for Covid-19 spike

 

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Coronavirus | India reports highest daily spike with over 1.15 lakh new cases

 

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In Pictures: Another grim day of record new COVID cases in India

 

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NEW DELHI (AP) — India reported a record daily surge in new coronavirus cases for the second time in four days on Wednesday, while New Delhi, Mumbai and dozens of other cities announced they are imposing curfews to try to slow the soaring infections.

Asia Today: India sees another record rise in virus cases

 

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Is India Running Out Of Vaccine Doses?

“MUMBAI — About 100 vaccination centers abruptly shut down Friday in India's financial capital, Mumbai, amid a shortage of doses and as the country confirmed its highest daily jump in coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.”

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“Meanwhile, coronavirus infections are surging in India. On Friday, India's Health Ministry confirmed nearly 132,000 new cases — more than on any other day since the pandemic began. The death toll — 780 — was the highest in five months.

The Indian government denies any shortages. In a tweet late Thursday, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan called on the public to "put an end to the fear-mongering." He said 19 million more vaccine doses were "in pipeline."“

 

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COVID-19: A year on, India's situation grimmer with 'more infectious' variants, surge in cases
Delhi alone recorded over 8,500 new cases on Friday, while Maharashtra reported more than 58,000

“As per the health ministry, 10 states -- Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan -- are showing a steep rise in daily COVID-19 cases at present.”

 

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India’s Covid cases hit another record as state with most infections locks down

• India has reported the most number of cases in the world in the past week, breaching the 100,000 mark for the first time on Monday and four times after that.
• The government blames the resurgence mainly on crowding and a reluctance to wear masks as businesses have nearly fully reopened since February, only to be partially shut again to control the current surge.
• Maharashtra, the Indian state with the most cases, has already shut down restaurants, malls and places of worship and barred the movement of most people to control the outbreak.

 

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India's daily COVID-19 cases rise to record for fifth time this week

“NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s daily coronavirus cases on Saturday rose by a record for the fifth time this week and deaths surged to the highest in more than five months, with hospitals and crematoriums overflowing in parts of the country.

New cases in the world’s second-most populous country have totalled the most of anywhere in the world over the last two weeks. India’s overall tally of 13.21 million is the third-highest globally, just shy of Brazil and below the worst affected country, the United States.“

 

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BBM:

India hits 100 million vaccinations as Covid-19 cases surge - CNN

“New Delhi (CNN)India has been gripped by a life or death race against Covid-19, as the country of nearly 1.4 billion people rolls out one of the fastest vaccination drives in the world while recording all-time high tallies of infections.

The country reported a record-high daily total of almost 153,000 coronavirus cases Sunday with 839 new deaths, according to health ministry figures. India's total caseload stands at more than 13.5 million -- second only to the United States and Brazil -- including nearly 170,000 fatalities.
On the same day, vaccinations topped 100 million, with India being the fastest country globally to reach that milestone, reaching the figure in just 85 days, said the health ministry.“

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“Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday announced a four-day vaccination drive starting Sunday.
India is now regularly administering over 3 million vaccines a day, surpassing the United States' daily rollout and gaining on China's, according to University of Oxford research group Our World in Data.“

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“Delhi authorities announced Friday that all educational institutions will remain closed until further notice.
The rise in cases comes as India's top researchers announced last month that there are nearly 800 variants of concern present in the country.“

 

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“India is administering two vaccines domestically. One is Covishield, a vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and produced by the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker. The other is India's first homegrown coronavirus vaccine, Covaxin, developed jointly by Bharat Biotech and the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research.

So far, India has administered more than 50 million doses of vaccines, with more than 8.1 million people fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The Serum Institute of India not only produces most of the vaccines for India -- it is also responsible for many of the vaccines distributed to the rest of the world. In September last year, SII pledged to manufacture and deliver 200 million doses for COVAX -- a WHO vaccine alliance set up to ensure fair access to Covid-19 vaccines.
But SII has had to halt or delay its exports several times in recent months as global and domestic demand surged.“

India records spike in Covid-19 cases as several variants detected, prompting fears of a second wave - CNN
March 25, 2021

 

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India deploys AI to conduct Covid safety surveillance at massive Hindu festival
Coronavirus update: Latest Covid-19 vaccine and world news

“AI surveillance: In their efforts to enforce measures, officers are using artificial intelligence cameras for surveillance in several river banks in the city.

"The camera has sensors which alert us when the number of cars in parking areas or foot traffic crosses a certain threshold and we can communicate with people on ground to start diverting crowds," said Mukesh Thakur, a senior police official.
"The cameras also detect if people are not wearing masks and the officers on ground immediately issue tickets to those people."“

 

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India Is Facing a Deadly Second Wave of COVID-19. Experts Say It's the Worst-Hit Country In the World

“India became the country with the world’s second highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on Monday, surpassing Brazil, and now second only to the United States. But experts say that low testing in the country suggests the real total is far higher than both.

India now has 13.5 million confirmed cases, compared to the U.S.’s 31.1 million. The country is currently in the midst of a second wave of the virus, with confirmed daily infections reaching an all-time high of 168,912 on Monday.”

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“If accurate, that math would put the real number of COVID-19 infections to date in India somewhere around 400 million — more than the entire population of the United States. “400 million infections in a country the size of India still means that a billion people are not infected,” Laxminarayan says. “So there’s still plenty of room for infection, even with a lot of people [already] being infected.”“

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“The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in India stands at just over 170,000, the fourth-highest in the world, behind the U.S., Brazil and Mexico. But those numbers too might not tell the whole story. Even before the pandemic, as few as 21% of deaths in India were recorded by a medical professional along with a cause of death, according to the World Health Organization. “If you’re undercounting cases by a factor of 30, is it possible that we’re undercounting deaths as well?” says Laxminarayan. “Of course. For 80% of deaths, we have no medically identified cause of death at any given time.”“

 

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India becomes 60th country to authorize use of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine

“India has granted emergency use authorization for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, shortly after overtaking Brazil to become the world’s second-most affected country by the coronavirus.“

 

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Indian hospitals battle ‘chaotic’ surge as daily virus infections cross 200,000 | Reuters

“Many Indian hospitals were scrambling for beds and oxygen as COVID-19 infections surged to a new daily record on Thursday, with a second wave of infections centred on the rich western state of Maharashtra.

India's tally of total infections is second only to the United States, with experts blaming everything from official complacency to aggressive variants. The government has blamed failure to practise physical distancing.“

 

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Is a double mutant COVID variant behind India’s record surge?

““This is a variant of interest we are following,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead officer on Covid, told reporters Friday. “Having two of these mutations, which have been seen in other variants around the world, are concerning,” she said, adding that there was a similarity with mutations that increase transmission as well as reduce neutralization, possibly stunting the ability of vaccines to curb them.”

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India / Children / Alarming Rise In Pediatric Cases

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Oil falls for second day as India's COVID-19 surge to dent fuel demand | Reuters

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India Covid-19 second wave: Shortage of oxygen, beds and even cremation slots

“Variants in play
India on 25 March announced that a new "double mutant" variant of the coronavirus had been detected from samples collected from different states.

Virologist Shahid Jameel explained that a "double mutation in key areas of the virus's spike protein may make the virus more infectious and allow it to escape the immune system".”

He says the change in the virus is the only "logical explanation" behind the surge. Health officials in the UK are now investigating whether a double mutant spreads more easily and evades vaccines.

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Covid: Indian variant being investigated in UK

“There is not yet enough data to classify it as a "variant of concern", a leading scientist has said.”

 

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