India s Neighbours Close Borders Over Virus Rampage
05/06/21 AT 5:32 AM
Sri Lanka on Thursday became the latest of India s neighbours to seal its borders with the South Asian giant as it battles a record coronavirus surge.
Bangladesh and Nepal have also banned flights and sought to close their borders with India, where a huge rise in numbers in the past three weeks has taken deaths past 230,000 and cases over 21 million.
All three countries are fighting their own pandemic surges, which Red Cross leaders have described as a human catastrophe .
The Sri Lankan government banned flight passengers from India entering, as the country reported its highest daily toll of 14 deaths and 1,939 infections in 24 hours.
As COVID-19 rages in India, scientist warns further waves inevitable
Reuters | May 06, 2021 12:02 AM EDT
A man mourns as he sits next to the burning pyre of a relative, who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), during his cremation, at a crematorium in New Delhi, India (Photo : REUTERS/Adnan Abidi)
A top scientific adviser to the Indian government warned on Wednesday the country would inevitably face further waves of the coronavirus pandemic, as almost 4,000 people died in the space of a day.
With hospitals scrabbling for beds and oxygen in response to a deadly second surge in infections, the World Health Organization said in a weekly report that India accounted for nearly half the coronavirus cases reported worldwide last week and a quarter of the deaths.
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India saw record new jumps in Covid-19 cases and deaths on Thursday, dashing tentative hopes that the catastrophic recent surge was easing.
Health ministry numbers showed 3,980 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the national total to 230,168, and 412,262 new cases, bringing
India s caseload since the pandemic began to 21.1 million.
Many experts suspect that with low levels of testing and poor record-keeping for cause of death and crematoriums overwhelmed in many places the real numbers could be significantly higher.
The rise follows several days of falling case numbers that had raised government hopes that the virus surge may have been easing.
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A senior scientific adviser to the Indian government has warned that the country will inevitably suffer more waves of the coronavirus pandemic, which is nearly 4,000 people die in the space of a day.
India’s chief scientific adviser Vijay Raghavan warned on Wednesday that even after lowering infection rates, the country should be ready for a third wave.
“Phase 3 is unavoidable because of the high levels of circulating viruses,” he said in a news release.
“But it’s not clear at what stage this Phase 3 will take place … We should be prepared for the new waves.”
Relatives of COVID-19 patient discuss with police to access emergency services at Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters]