Asean hits 100,000 cases with record single-day death toll
The Covid-19 situation continued to worsen in Southeast Asia, hitting 100,000 cases on Friday, while fatalities also hit a record high.
Collated data showed 100,065 new cases on Friday, higher than Thursday’s 96,174, while 2,184 deaths were reported, increasing from the previous day’s 2,026.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the region crossed 6.54 million, and the death toll rose to 127,113.
Indonesia reported 49,071 new cases and 1,566 deaths on Friday, bringing cumulative cases in the country to 3,082,410 with 80,598 deaths. Indonesian communicable disease experts expressed concern at the country’s infection rate increasing to over 30 per cent of all the people getting tested, which indicated the possibility of a new variant of the virus spreading.
Malaysia reported a sharp rise with 15,573 new cases and 144 deaths on Friday, bringing cumulative cases in the country to 980,491 with 7,718 deaths. The infection rate reached a new high on Friday despite the country being in a nationwide lockdown for almost two months. Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin insisted that the lockdown would not be relaxed until the infection rate reduced to less than 4,000 people per day.
China deploys UAV for telecom restoration in rain-hit Henan
China on Wednesday deployed a large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to restore telecommunications services in the central province of Henan, where heavy rain has wreaked havoc.
AChina-developed Wing Loong UAV took a 4.5-hour flight to Mihe Township in Gongyi City, one of the most seriously ravaged regions in the province, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
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At 6:21 p.m., the drone entered the areas where telecom services had been disrupted and started to provide a stable and continuous mobile signal coverage for an area of about 50 square kilometers.
As of Thursday morning, telecom services in Mihe Township had resumed, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.
Torrential rains have struck large areas of Henan Province since last Saturday, with 33 reported dead and eight missing as of 4 a.m. Thursday, according to local authorities.
About 88 percent of adults in Britain have received the first jab of COVID-19 vaccine and more than 69 percent have received two doses, according to the latest figures.
Britain has reported another 39,906 coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour period, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 5,602,321, according to official figures released Thursday.
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The country also recorded another 84 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now standing at 128,980. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.
England has recently lifted most COVID-19 restrictions as part of the final step of the roadmap out of the lockdown. Scientists have warned that lifting all restrictions at this stage could increase likelihood of dangerous variants.
The average number of daily cases in England is around 41,000, and hospitalizations and deaths are rising too although at a much lower level than during previous waves, said Nadhim Zahawi, the minister for COVID-19 vaccine deployment. He made the remarks when updating members of the parliament on Thursday.
People dine at a cafe in London, Britain, on July 19, 2021.
Regarding the NHS (national health service) COVID-19 pass, he said:” Anyone can access a pass via the NHS app on the NHS website or by calling 119 and asking for a letter to demonstrate vaccine status. People will also be able to demonstrate proof of a negative test result.”
Although the government do not encourage its use in essential settings, like supermarkets, other businesses and organization in England can adopt the pass as a means of entry where it is suitable for their venue or premises and when they can see its potential to keep their clients or their customers safe, according to Zahawi.
But for proprietors of venues and events where large numbers are likely to gather and likely to mix with people from outside their households for prolonged periods deploying the pass is the right thing to do, he said.
About 88 percent of adults in Britain have received the first jab of COVID-19 vaccine and more than 69 percent have received two doses, according to the latest figures.
To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Russia, the United States as well as the European Union have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.
Passengers walk in an underground station during the morning rush hour in London, Britain, on July 19, 2021
Saudi Arabia attributed the success of this years Hajj season, free from contagious diseases, to its health measures and the limitation of the number of pilgrims in the holy sites.
Saudi Arabia announced on Thursday the successful conclusion of this year’s Hajj season, free from the COVID-19 and other contagious diseases, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Saudi Health Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah attributed the success to an integrated system of health facilities in the holy sites, highly equipped ambulances and qualified teams, the report said.
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The minister added that limiting the number of domestic pilgrims during this Hajj season to 60,000 also contributed to the success.
For the second year in a row, Saudi Arabia has allowed only domestic pilgrims to performed Hajj to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A staff member issues NFC-enabled smart cards with built-in personal information to pilgrims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on July 15, 2021. The Saudi government used the latest information technologies to help control the spread of COVID-19 during the Hajj season.
WHO tells Indonesia to expand lockdown, as Asean reports over 96,000 Covid cases
Southeast Asia saw a sharp jump in new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, while the death toll continued its upward trajectory, collated data showed.
Asean reported 96,164 new cases on Thursday, a big jump from Wednesday’s 77,915, mainly due to a spike in Indonesia, while 2,026 people died, up from the previous day’s 2,024.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the region crossed 6.44 million, while 124,829 people have died.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday urged Indonesia to immediately tighten measures and expand lockdown zones beyond Java and Bali islands to limit travel. WHO’s recommendation came after 13 out of 34 provinces of Indonesia have reported rapidly increasing infections at about 30 per cent of total people who have been tested, which is higher than the WHO’s limit of 20 per cent. The number of cases in Indonesia rose steeply from 33,772 on Wednesday to 49,309 on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s Vabioteh announced that it had successfully manufactured a trial lot of Sputnik V vaccine and had sent it to Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia for quality testing. The project was funded by Russian Direct Investment Fund. The company expected that after getting approval it could manufacture the first lot of 30,000 doses within 30 days, and then increase manufacturing capacity to 5 million doses per month.
Covid may have claimed as many as 5 million lives in India
Indias actual death toll from covid-19 could range between 1.3 million to a staggering 5 million, with even the most conservative estimate putting its tally at more than double the U.S., the highest recorded in the world so far.
The numbers, derived from research models and local authority data, range from three to 10 times the country’s official count, adding to evidence that the true cost of India’s outbreak has been massively under-reported.
As corpses floated in the Ganges, a river sacred to millions of Hindus, and crematoriums and graveyards were overwhelmed, skepticism grew over the death toll of around 420,000 recorded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has used the ostensibly low mortality rate to defend India’s covid track record.
Bloomberg approached authorities in about half of India’s 28 states and territories seeking death data from April and May for the last two years and analyzed figures from researchers and experts. The result is clear: the real toll has been vastly underestimated because of a combination of under-counting, a backlog in the civil registration system and a lack of testing leading to covid deaths being classified as other conditions like heart disease.
The findings dovetail with estimates from researchers around the world. Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, has devoted much of the past year to modeling India’s pandemic. Her studies suggest the death toll is around 1.3 million up to June 15.
Rukmini S, a leading data journalist, has written that the numbers she’s gathered suggest a death toll closer to 2.5 million.
A report from the Washington-based Center for Global Development think tank released Tuesday studied data from three different sources, finding that excess deaths – a term public health experts use to describe mortality from all causes during a crisis that is above what would have been expected in ‘normal’ conditions – likely ranged between 3.4 million to 4.9 million.
“Regardless of source and estimate, actual deaths during the covid pandemic are likely to have been an order of magnitude greater than the official count,” said the report, co-authored by Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic adviser to the Indian government and two other researchers. “True deaths are likely to be in the several millions, not hundreds of thousands, making this arguably India’s worst human tragedy since partition and independence.”
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The federal Health Ministry in a July 14 press release called media reports on higher covid death counts “speculative.” India’s Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told Parliament Tuesday that “detailed guidelines for reporting of deaths have been issued by Union Health Ministry to all states and union territories.”
The ministry did not respond to written questions from Bloomberg – instead it released a statement Thursday saying reports of higher death tolls were misleading. “Given the robust and statute based death registration system in India, while some cases could go undetected as per the principles of infectious disease and its management, missing out on the deaths is unlikely,” it said.
Despite widespread reporting on oxygen shortages across India as the second wave of infections hit the country in April and May, the minister added that “no deaths due to lack of oxygen has been specifically reported” by local governments.
The states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha combined have close to 300,000 excess deaths in the six months to June, according to all-cause mortality numbers analyzed by Bloomberg – more than 5.5 times their official covid death data of about 53,000.
That already represents three-quarters of India’s official toll, though they are just four among 28 states and territories and 17% of the nation’s 1.4 billion people.
State government officials say in most cases that people who had not been tested or had tested negative – but showed coronavirus symptoms – were not counted in the official toll. In rural areas, many people went untested, untreated and ultimately uncounted, contrary to federal government guidelines. At least six states did not respond to requests for all-cause death data.
The figures paint a very different picture to the narrative presented by Modi, who has said that India handled the outbreak better than any other country, pointing to its low mortality rate as evidence. Modi’s popularity has fallen as the country’s health infrastructure almost collapsed: his government’s approval ratings dropped from 75% in 2019 to 51% this year, according to polling company LocalCircles’s survey released May 29.
While under-reporting of covid fatalities is a global phenomenon, the problem is aggravated in India because deaths were already poorly counted before the pandemic. Only 92% of all deaths are registered and only a fifth of those are properly medically certified.
“Not capturing a death is dishonor to a life,” said Mukherjee. “Without relating the deaths and hospitalizations to vaccine and variant data, we will never be able to grasp the effectiveness of vaccines or clinical lethality of the variant.”
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Historically India has published ‘all-cause’ mortality data every two years, Rukmini said, but noted that she and other reporters have recently accessed this data via local sources. It is “available and should be made public. We don’t need to wait for two years.”
Across some of India’s most populous states, local reporters and non-governmental organizations have pieced together a more accurate picture of the pandemic. The eastern state of Bihar saw nearly 75,000 unexplained deaths in the first five months of 2021, most during the deadly second wave of the pandemic. That represents almost 10 times the state’s official covid death figure, the news channel NDTV reported.
“In Madhya Pradesh, the state bulletin gives one figure, while the district bulletin gives an entirely different number, while crematoriums are telling a different story,” said Amulya Nidhi, the national co-convener of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan or People’s Health Movement. His organization’s data shows that in April and May, about 14,695 people lost their lives to covid-19 in 20 of the state’s 51 districts, while the official figure is only 2,425.
From January to May this year, Andhra Pradesh excess deaths may have jumped as much as 34 times, the Hindu reported, citing civil registration data. Unaccounted deaths also have been reported from Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Even the capital New Delhi and financial hub Mumbai, where record-keeping is generally better, have large unexplained death numbers.
In May and June, some states including Bihar and Maharashtra reconciled their death data, pushing the country’s cumulative mortality toll up.
Not all ‘excess deaths’ have to be covid-19 deaths, but most of them likely are because they occurred during the virus surge, said Chinmay Tumbe, assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and author of the book ‘The Age of Pandemics (1817-1920): How they shaped India and the World.’
“The problem of course is that the government is going to maintain that we have a great reporting system,” Tumbe said. “I’m afraid that what the data shows is that’s clearly not true.”
Published : July 23, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Bibhudatta Pradhan, Archana Chaudhary
China sets back search for covid origins with rejection of WHO investigation proposal
Chinese officials on Thursday rejected a World Health Organization proposal for next steps in the search for the origins of the coronavirus, deepening questions about if and how the roots of the pandemic will be fully investigated and complicating a standoff among the WHO, China and the United States.
After a visit to Wuhan in January, a joint China-international team concluded that the virus probably jumped naturally from an animal, determined that a market linked to early cases was not necessarily the source and all but dismissed the possibility of a lab leak.
In the months since, the methods and findings have come under intense scrutiny, including from WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In May, President Biden gave the U.S. intelligence community 90-days to redouble its own search and urged China to participate in a “full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation.”
But Chinese health officials on Thursday offered what may be the strongest signal yet that such an investigation is unlikely to happen on their soil, saying a WHO proposal that included audits of markets and laboratories in Wuhan was “impossible” for China to accept.
If China continues to limit – or outright blocks – outside investigators, the world will have little recourse, said Mara Pillinger, a senior associate in global health policy and governance at Georgetown’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.
“Without Chinese cooperation, WHO’s hands are tied, international hands are tied, and our ability to identify the origins of the virus will be much reduced.”
Tedros last week announced a five-part plan for follow-up research on the origins of the coronavirus. It called for deeper study in geographical areas with early outbreaks, more research of animal markets in Wuhan, and audits of research labs near where the first cases emerged.
He also held a news conference in which he criticized China’s cooperation, saying the country’s government did not share “raw data” with the WHO team that visited Wuhan earlier this year to investigate the source of the initial outbreak.
On Thursday, Zeng Yixin, deputy head of China’s National Health Commission, fired back.
“To be honest, when I first saw the WHO’s second-phase traceability plan, I was very surprised,” he said. “Because in this plan, the hypothesis of ‘China’s violation of laboratory procedures causing virus leakage’ is one of the research priorities.
“From this point, I can feel the disrespect for common sense and the arrogant attitude toward science revealed in this plan.”
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At the same Thursday news conference, Liang Wannian, head of the Chinese experts on the WHO-China team, acknowledged certain patient data was not supplied to the foreign experts and cited China’s patient privacy regulations – repeating an assertion that has drawn skepticism from outside experts.
“Just to protect the privacy of patients, we did not agree to provide original data, nor did we allow them to copy it or take photos,” Liang said. “At that time, the international experts also fully understood this.”
The joint China-international origin-tracing effort convened by WHO has been criticized for being slow, incomplete and politicized, with holes and inaccuracies in the limited data.
The WHO said last week it would be updating the joint report to fix “editing errors” after The Washington Post reported on discrepancies in the report’s profiles of early patients. A spokesman said the WHO could not resolve a discrepancy in the reported location of the first official case in Wuhan – a potentially significant detail, as it would determine whether all the earliest official cases were located near the Huanan seafood market or not.
The question of whether scientists should study the possibility of a lab leak remains particularly fraught.
Yuan Zhiming, a researcher from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the main lab under scrutiny, spoke at Thursday’s news conference. He said the virus was of natural origin, calling it the “consensus in the academic community.”
Yuan said there have been zero coronavirus infections among the institute’s staff and that the institute’s high-containment P4 lab had not had any pathogen leaks or accidental staff infection since it began operation in 2018. The institute also runs lower-security labs and conducted some of its coronavirus research in them. The Post has reported that the WIV conducts some classified research and internally acknowledged unspecified safety lapses in November 2019.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Chinese officials appear to be signaling Beijing’s red lines in an effort to shape the terms of reference for the next phase of the search – should it proceed.
“They are trying to be in a good negotiating position,” he said.
Beijing is also going on the offensive, lobbing unsubstantiated claims at the United States. On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called for an investigation into the U.S. military-run infectious-disease research lab at Fort Detrick, Md., as part of coronavirus origin-tracing, saying 5 million Chinese Internet users signed a petition for such a probe.
In earlier months, Beijing officials pushed the theory that the coronavirus was brought to China from overseas on frozen food packaging – a theory largely dismissed by scientists outside of China due to the genetic similarity of SARS-CoV-2 to viruses previously found in bats in China.
Public health experts worry that the heated rhetoric will not only hurt the origins search, but efforts to prevent future crises.
“If all this suspicion will persists and it will create a long-term barrier to cooperation in various forms,” said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Having a breakdown between the U.S. and China on health security is just bad news across the board.”
Torrential rain has affected about 3 million people in central Chinas Henan Province, with 33 reported dead and eight still missing as of 4 a.m. Thursday, local authorities said.
Atotal of 376,000 local residents have been relocated to safe places, said the provincial emergency management department. Rainwater has damaged more than 215,200 hectares of crops, causing a direct economic loss of about 1.22 billion yuan (about 188.6 million U.S. dollars).
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The Henan provincial meteorological observatory activated the highest level of rainstorm alert at 11 a.m. Thursday, as rainfall is expected to continue for the next three hours in a number of cities including Anyang, Hebi, Xinxiang and Jiaozuo. The local accumulated precipitation is likely to exceed 100 mm, according to forecasts.
Downpours also lashed the city of Huixian between 8 a.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday with precipitation reaching 400 mm.
Local authorities have mobilized 39,583 rescuers for disaster relief, and 37,953 people have so far been evacuated in Huixian.
Despite the heavy rain in the region, traffic has gradually resumed in the province.
Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport scheduled 397 flights on Thursday — 219 inbound and 178 outbound — an increase of 315 flights from the previous day.
As of 10 a.m., 204 of Henan’s 403 highway toll stations have opened, while 193 have partially opened with traffic control and six others remain closed due to water-logging and flood control.
Railway authorities are making every effort to ensure supply for passengers on 35 trains stranded in Zhengzhou, while workers are clearing railway tracks to restore the traffic.
Over 4 mln children in U.S. infected with COVID-19
As of July 15, almost 4.09 million children have been infected with COVID-19 in the United States.
Over 4 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to a latest report of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association.
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As of July 15, almost 4.09 million children have been infected with COVID-19. After decreases in weekly reported cases over the past couple of months, the country began to see increases in cases in July, according to the report.
Over 23,500 child cases were reported in the week ending July 15, according to the report. Children represented 14.2 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the country.
Children accounted for 1.3 percent to 3.6 percent of total reported hospitalizations, and 0 to 0.26 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, said the report.
“At this time, it still appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is rare among children. However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects,” the AAP said in the report.
Taliban now control about half of Afghan district centers: U.S. general
“Strategic momentum appears to be sort of with the Taliban,” said General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Afghan Taliban militants now control about half of the war-torn country’s 419 district centers, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday.
“Strategic momentum appears to be sort of with the Taliban,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a press conference.
“There’s a possibility of a complete Taliban takeover, or the possibility of any number of other scenarios,” Milley said. “I don’t think the end game is yet written.”
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While the militants have yet to capture any of the country’s 34 provincial capitals, they are pressuring about half of them, said Milley.
Afghan security forces are consolidating their positions to protect those major urban centers including Kabul, he said.
The Afghan provinces have been the scene of heavy battles between Taliban and the government security forces since the start of withdrawal of the U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan early May.
U.S. President Joe Biden has set a formal end to the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan for Aug. 31, days ahead of his original Sept. 11 deadline.
U.S. Central Command said last week over 95 percent of the withdrawal had been completed.
More than 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan over the past two decades, with 20,000 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Estimates show that over 66,000 Afghan troops have been killed, and over 2.7 million people have had to leave their homes.
People dine at a cafe in London, Britain, on July 19, 2021.
Passengers walk in an underground station during the morning rush hour in London, Britain, on July 19, 2021
A staff member issues NFC-enabled smart cards with built-in personal information to pilgrims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on July 15, 2021. The Saudi government used the latest information technologies to help control the spread of COVID-19 during the Hajj season.
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