On April 28, when the Narendra Modi–led Indian government opened up vaccine registrations for all adult citizens, 29-year-old Mousumi Chatterjee felt left out.
The government said citizens should sign up on CoWIN, its COVID vaccine registration website, or download its coronavirus contact-tracing app, Aarogya Setu, on their phones. Vaccination slots would be made available on May 1.
But Chatterjee, a domestic worker in Kolkata, has no idea what the CoWIN website and the Aarogya Setu app are. Her mobile and internet literacy are limited to making calls, exchanging messages on WhatsApp, and browsing Facebook: the latter two only because a salesperson at a mobile store downloaded the apps on her phone and changed the language setting to Bangla, the only one she can read.
Need vaccine not only for covid, but also for Tejasvi Surya’s communalism: Congress
News Network
May 5, 2021
Bengaluru, May 5: The Congress has expressed shock over BJP’s Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya listing out 17 only Muslim names, linking them with the alleged bed-blocking scam in Bengaluru s south municipal zone.
The Congress released the full list of employees working in the BBMP South zone war room handling distress calls for Covid-19.
“There are 205 employees working in the BBMP south zone war room. But Tejasvi Surya chose to name 17 names of Muslims. This is a third-class, third-rated, gutter-class mentality,” Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain told reporters.
India is nowhere close to herd immunity, say experts as Covid graph soars
India is nowhere close to herd immunity, say experts as Covid graph soars
As more and more people get Covid-19 in the country with India s Covid reproductive rate at 1.44, questions are being raised about whether we are arriving at herd immunity. So are we?
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UPDATED: May 5, 2021 20:20 IST
India s last sero survey shows more than 21% of the adult population has been exposed to Covid-19. (Reuters)
As more and more people get Covid-19 in the country with India s Covid R rate or reproductive rate at 1.44, questions are being raised about whether we are arriving at herd immunity. So are we?
NEW DELHI - It was a day India reported nearly 370,000 fresh coronavirus infections. Uttar Pradesh, its most populous state, was among the top four in a list of states with highest caseloads that day.
Yet, on May 2, thousands gathered and jostled at polling centres across Uttar Pradesh, where votes for recently held village council elections were being counted.
Visuals of so many people gathering with no adherence to physical distancing norms were an ominous reminder of how elections have fanned the spread of the second wave of Covid-19 in India.
Assembly elections were held in the states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and the union territory of Puducherry in March and April.
India’s second wave of COVID has quickly turned into one of the worst outbreaks in the world. Since early March, official cases and deaths have skyrocketed, recently breaking world records on an almost daily basis. Meanwhile, Indian officials are warning the country’s health care system cannot keep up with the deluge of patients as supplies run thin, exposing India’s ailing health infrastructure. USIP’s Tamanna Salikuddin and Vikram Singh look at the origins of India’s second wave, its far-reaching consequences in the global fight against COVID and what the international community can and should do to help India weather the storm.