Category Archives: India

Coronavirus live news: India passes 20m cases; German plan to give more freedoms to fully vaccinated ‘unfair’

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India records 357,229 new daily cases; law that would lift curbs for those with all jabs discriminates against young people who won’t be able to get jabs for months

Here is Guardian Australia’s morning mail.

Related: Morning mail: GPs grapple with vaccine shortfalls, Pfizer’s $34bn revenue, giant Joe Biden

North Macedonia’s Covid-19 vaccination program picked up speed Tuesday, with authorities starting to use 200,000 Sinopharm jabs bought from China.
The European Union’s top official for enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, also delivered about 5,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses to North Macedonia, Associated Press reports.

That is part of a batch of 120,000 the 27-nation bloc will donate to the country by the end of August.

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‘Like living in a horror film’: UK doctors raise Covid funds for India

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Concerned British doctors of Asian heritage says India’s Covid crisis needs a strong global response

The streets of Delhi are known for their noise, crowds, and bustle, but Meenal Vis, a UK doctor, says that when her family there listen out of their windows there is “pin-drop silence”.

“It is almost like living in a horror film. People are not sure what will come next,” she said. “The kind of feeling described is a country in a war.”

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Vaccine shortages blight India’s efforts to contain Covid crisis

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Indian government accused of complacency, with shortage of jabs likely to continue ‘for months’

Severe Covid-19 vaccine shortages have hampered India’s plan to administer jabs to all adults, with fewer then half of India’s states able to begin vaccinating over-18s amid warnings the shortfall could last months.

Over the weekend, more than 600 million Indians became eligible for the coronavirus vaccine in a policy that was introduced in the wake of a deadly second wave hitting the country last month.

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Covering India’s Covid crisis: ‘Hundreds of journalists have lost their lives’

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Our South Asia correspondent reflects on a catastrophe that is now affecting the lives of almost everyone in the country


You recently lost a close colleague, Kakoli Bhattacharya, to Covid-19. Can you tell us about her and the important work that she did?

Kakoli was the Guardian’s news assistant over here and had worked for us since 2009. She could find any number or contact I needed and smoothed over any and all of the bureaucratic challenges that working in India can present. She made reporting here a huge joy, when it could be a huge challenge, and she was hugely well thought of by journalists for other organisations too. More than that, though, she was the person who welcomed me to Delhi. She knew the region inside out. She was incredibly warm and was someone I could always call on. The Guardian’s India coverage won’t be the same without her.

Related: ‘Warm, kind, wise and brilliant’: Guardian writers remember Kakoli Bhattacharya

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Narendra Modi loses key state election as Covid grips India

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Prime minister defeated in West Bengal as voters send message over handling of coronavirus crisis

India’s prime minister has suffered a rare political defeat in a key state election, amid signs of a voter backlash over his handling of the coronavirus disaster as the country reported a record number of deaths.

Narendra Modi had been expected to make significant gains on Sunday in West Bengal, one of few states where his rightwing Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) does not have a parliamentary majority. Instead, Mamata Banerjee, a powerful regional politician and prominent Modi critic, won a third term as chief minister.

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‘They knew we weren’t giving oxygen’: a Delhi doctor’s week of horror

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Dr Chahat Verma saw five patients die in a day as India’s Covid crisis overwhelms hospitals

During the past week, when oxygen was periodically running out at Ganga Ram hospital, one thing Dr Chahat Verma found unbearable was the look on the faces of patients when the oxygen saturation levels of another patient in the ward plunged.

“They’d lie there, watching the patient gasping, unable to breathe, and they knew we weren’t giving oxygen because there wasn’t any. The look in their eyes was one of pure terror. They knew it could be their turn next,” she said.

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Act now to prevent oxygen shortage in Covid-hit countries, say campaigners

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Focus on vaccines and tests has been obscuring the need for oxygen in low- and middle-income countries

The scenes in India of families desperately searching for oxygen for critically ill Covid patients will be repeated in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and other countries in Africa and around the world unless a significant international effort is made to ensure all countries have good oxygen supplies, campaigners have said.

The focus on vaccines and tests, while important, has been obscuring the need for oxygen, which is cheap and readily available in high-income countries but in short supply elsewhere, they say. Before India, there was similarly shocking footage from Manaus in Brazil where distressed relatives pleaded for oxygen to keep a family member alive.

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Two pandemics: as we ease up, virus sweeps the world’s poor

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Latin America and Africa face new wave as politicians and scientists urge rescue packages

World leaders have been warned that unless they act with extreme urgency, the Covid-19 pandemic will overwhelm health services in many nations in South America, Asia, and Africa over the next few weeks.

Only billions of pounds of aid and massive exports of vaccines can halt a humanitarian catastrophe that is now unfolding rapidly across the planet, scientists and world health experts said.

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Australia’s ban on travellers returning from India due to Covid crisis may be unlawful

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Lawyers and academics say ban an ‘extraordinary precedent’ that could be open to multiple challenges

The travel ban preventing Australians in India from returning home could be subject to legal challenges, with lawyers and academics believing the extraordinary measure may breach the law.

Scott Morrison’s government has been condemned for its “outrageous” decision to introduce fines of up to $66,600 or five years in prison, or both, for anyone defying a travel ban preventing Australians returning home from India.

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The Hindu priest struggling to cremate India’s Covid dead – video

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RamKaran Mishra is a Hindu priest who performs the last rites at the Ghazipur crematorium in east Delhi, on the frontline of India's Covid crisis. He's been cremating up to 150 bodies day after day, working long hours into the night. With no end in sight, and feeling abandoned by his government, Mishra must deal with traumatised families and an ever-present smell of burning bodies


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India Covid crisis: government ignored warnings on variant, scientists say

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Country’s government failed to impose extra restrictions despite warnings of a new, more dangerous strain in early March, experts claim

A panel of Indian scientists warned officials in early March of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold in the country, it has emerged.

Despite the warning, four of the scientists said the federal government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread of the virus, Reuters reported on Saturday. Millions of largely unmasked people attended religious festivals and political rallies that were held by prime minister Narendra Modi, leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party and opposition politicians.

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UK’s aid cuts hit vital coronavirus research around world

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Leading UK expert says loss of funding certain to damage attempts to tackle virus and variants

Vital coronavirus research, including a project tracking variants in India, has had its funding reduced by up to 70% under swingeing cuts to the UK overseas aid budget.

One of Britain’s leading infectious disease experts said the UK government cuts were certain to damage attempts to tackle the virus and track new variants.

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Nepal facing deadly Covid wave similar to India, doctors warn

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‘Situation is out of control’ as cases spike and hospitals run short of beds and oxygen

Doctors in Nepal have warned that the country is facing a similar devastating wave of Covid-19 as neighbouring India, with border districts already reporting an alarming spike in cases and shortage of hospital beds and oxygen.

In the Banke district of Nepal, bordering India, doctors at Bheri hospital said it was turning into a “mini India”, with coronavirus spreading out of control.

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Grief and anger as Covid victims overwhelm Delhi’s crematoriums

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As bodies pile up at the Ghazipur crematorium, staff and relatives turn their ire on the Modi government

The bodies came, one after another, after another, after another. So many bodies that the ambulances and trucks carrying them into the crematorium blocked traffic.

In Delhi, a city where someone dies from Covid-19 every four minutes, every day is a battle not just for hospital beds but for a space to say goodbye to the dead with dignity.

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‘We are not special’: how triumphalism led India to Covid-19 disaster

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Huge surge in cases followed erroneous ‘supermodelling’ study suggesting herd immunity had been achieved

They will be remembered as India’s lost months: the stretch between September and February when Covid-19 cases in the country defied global trends, falling sharply throughout the coldest months of the year until they reached four-figure daily totals.

It was inexplicable. Was it the Indian climate? A protection conferred by childhood immunisations? Some speculated India may have naturally reached herd immunity. It was a tantalising idea that took hold in India’s highest circles of policymaking, media and science – even a government-commissioned study suggested herd immunity may indeed have been achieved. It would prove one of the most fatal miscalculations of the Covid-19 pandemic so far.

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Coronavirus live news: all over 40s in England to be offered jab – as it happened

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This live blog is closed. You can stay up to date with all coronavirus developments below:

We are closing this live blog now. You can stay up to date with all coronavirus developments below:

More now on the vaccine being offered to over 40s in England, via PA Media:

It comes as the latest NHS England figures revealed more than 28.5 million people in England had received their first jab by April 28, nearly two thirds of the adult population.

The data, published on Thursday, also showed that nearly 12 million people had received their second doses, making them fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who received his first coronavirus vaccination at London’s Science Museum on Thursday, said: “The UK’s vaccination programme has been a phenomenal success so far, with more than 47 million doses administered and one of the highest uptake rates in the world.

“Building on this excellent progress we are now opening up vaccinations to 40 and 41 year olds.

“I got my jab yesterday and I urge everybody in these age groups to book a jab as soon as possible to protect yourself and your loved ones from this dreadful disease.”

Mr Hancock and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also announced on Friday that the UK will host a global summit in 2022 alongside a major scientific coalition aimed at supporting plans to accelerate vaccine development in response to any future pandemics.

The summit, which will be in partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), aims to raise investment from the international community to support the UK and Cepi’s goal of slashing vaccine development time to 100 days - about a third of the time that it took the world to develop a coronavirus jab.

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Border dispute casts shadow over China’s offers of Covid help for India

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Analysis: some in China see India’s crisis as a diplomatic opportunity but tensions from last summer remain high

As coronavirus rages across India, its neighbour China has made repeated offers of help. Some are asking whether this could be an occasion to ease the tense relations between the world’s two most populous countries following last year’s border skirmishes.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said this week that Beijing was “ready to provide support and assistance to the Indian people at any time according to the needs of India”. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Delhi said it would “encourage and instruct Chinese companies to actively cooperate”.

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Explainer: why is getting medical oxygen for Covid patients in some countries so difficult?

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As India’s hospitals struggle to keep pace with demand, the pandemic has exposed global market failures, lack of knowledge and anticipation

New waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in countries, such as India and Kenya have exposed the poor management of oxygen supplies. Prof Trevor Duke, editor of the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on oxygen therapy for children, answered questions on what countries with limited resources can do to secure better supplies.

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Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe: ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’

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It’s hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and the indignity that people are being subjected to. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies are telling us not to complain

During a particularly polarising election campaign in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, waded into the fray to stir things up even further. From a public podium, he accused the state government – which was led by an opposition party – of pandering to the Muslim community by spending more on Muslim graveyards (kabristans) than on Hindu cremation grounds (shamshans). With his customary braying sneer, in which every taunt and barb rises to a high note mid-sentence before it falls away in a menacing echo, he stirred up the crowd. “If a kabristan is built in a village, a shamshan should also be constructed there,” he said.

“Shamshan! Shamshan!” the mesmerised, adoring crowd echoed back.

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Coronavirus live news: India deaths pass 200,000; Poland announces plan to lift lockdown

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India hits another global record; Polish PM announces lifting of lockdown from next week

Chile has designated pregnant women a Covid-19 vaccination priority and this week began issuing Pfizer doses to those with underlying health issues in their second or third trimesters.

Reuters reports:

Chile’s top public health official Paula Daza said women were being inoculated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine since more information existed about its safety for pregnant women.

An estimated 230,000 will be offered vaccines, with those with health conditions followed by those working in high-risk jobs such as the health and education sectors.

The coronavirus situation is improving in France, prime minister Jean Castex said on Wednesday.

As we reported earlier, president Emmanuel Macron will outline on Friday how restrictions will be progressively relaxed.

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