Over 360,000 fresh cases reported India reported 362,727 fresh coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the cumulative caseload to 23.7 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 4,120 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 258,317. The active caseload is at 3.7 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 19.7 million. As many as 17.7 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 1.8 million were given on Wednesday.
Vaccine inequity deepens in the 18-44 age group Seven states account for almost 85 per cent of all vaccine doses administered to those in the 18-44 age group so far, which underlines the lack of a transparent formula for allocation and raises critical questions of vaccine equity, a report in The Indian Express said. The data contradicts assurances given by the Modi government to the Supreme Court that to ensure equity, it has worked with private manu
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Experts flay early pandemic failures
Thu, 13 May 2021
An expert panel on May 12 blamed bad coordination as well as dithering by national governments and international organisations for the failure to tackle Covid-19 before it became a full-blown pandemic, as India’s death toll topped 250,000.
India added a record 4,205 deaths to its Covid-19 toll in the past 24 hours, with the variant stoking the country’s surge now present in dozens of other countries across the globe.
Looking back to the earliest days of the pandemic, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) blamed a “toxic cocktail” of dithering and poor coordination for the more than 3.3 million deaths so far and untold economic damage.
ENRIQUE FLORES
Outbreaks of highly infectious diseases are inevitable. However, in the 21st century, pandemics are not. This is one of the strong propositions contained in the report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) released this week. This implies that the enormous human and economic cost caused by the coronavirus could have been avoided.
The very real threat of a new, rapidly moving, highly lethal respiratory pathogen that could potentially kill millions of people and wipe out a significant part of the worldâs economy had been known about and warned against for many years. It was also known, in principle, what to do to prevent such a disease from becoming a pandemic. Despite this well-documented knowledge, Covid-19 became a pandemic that has so far caused the death of 3.3 million people and the destruction of as much as the equivalent of one-fourth of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019.
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Over the coming weeks, Ohio will award $1 million to five residents who received a COVID-19 shot, in a lottery aimed at boosting the vaccination rate across the state. (
CBS News)
As of Thursday at 8:00 a.m. EDT, the unofficial U.S. COVID-19 toll reached 32,815,408 cases and 583,690 deaths, increases of 35,994 and 842, respectively, since this time yesterday.
A report from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said the world s failures allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis, and suggested a top-to-bottom overhaul. (
Science)
More than 4,000 people in India have died for the second day in a row, as the country s raging COVID-19 crisis spreads to rural villages. It is a hell out here, said one patient at a hospital in northern Uttar Pradesh. (
A health worker gives a COVID-19 test to a woman in Oakland, California. Photo: Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group
The COVID-19 pandemic was a preventable disaster that exposed weak links at every point of the preparedness process, according to a World Health Organization-commissioned report published Wednesday.
Why it matters: The report by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response criticized governments worldwide for being unprepared for the pandemic despite the prevalence of past global health threats, such as Ebola, Zika, and SARS outbreaks.
The big picture: The report states that the world s response to the emergence of COVID-19 was too slow and too meek, and that the WHO was underpowered.