Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
India's Hospitals Beg For Oxygen; Country Starts Mass Cremations
AP: Indian Hospitals Plead For Oxygen, Country Sets Virus Record
India put oxygen tankers on special express trains as major hospitals in New Delhi on Friday begged on social media for more supplies to save COVID-19 patients who are struggling to breathe. More than a dozen people died when an oxygen-fed fire ripped through a coronavirus ward in a populous western state. India’s underfunded health system is tattering as the world’s worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation, which set another global record in daily infections for a second straight day with 332,730. (Mehrotra and Sharma, 4/23)
Reuters: Mass Cremations Begin As India’s Capital Faces Deluge Of COVID-19 Deaths
Delhi resident Nitish Kumar was forced to keep his dead mother’s body at home for nearly two days while he searched for space in the city’s crematoriums - a sign of the deluge of death in India’s capital where coronavirus cases are surging. On Thursday Kumar cremated his mother, who died of COVID-19, in a makeshift, mass cremation facility in a parking lot adjoining a crematorium in Seemapuri in northeast Delhi. "I ran pillar to post but every crematorium had some reason ... one said it had run out of wood," said Kumar, wearing a mask and squinting his eyes that were stinging from the smoke blowing from the burning pyres. (Siddiqui, 4/22)
CNN: As Bodies Pile Up, India's Leaders Face Rising Public Anger Over Second Covid-19 Wave
State ministers and local authorities, including those in hard-hit Maharashtra, have been warning about the second wave and preparing action since February. In jarring contrast, there appears to have been a vacuum of leadership within the central government, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi staying largely silent on the situation until recent weeks. In intermittent statements throughout April, Modi discussed the national vaccination effort and acknowledged the "alarming" rise in cases, but was slow to take containment measures besides ordering states to increase testing and tracking, and asking the public to stay vigilant. (Yeung, Suri and Gupta, 4/23)
Nature: India's Massive COVID Surge Puzzles Scientists
The pandemic is sweeping through India at a pace that has staggered scientists. Daily case numbers have exploded since early March: the government reported 273,810 new infections nationally on 18 April. High numbers in India have also helped drive global cases to a daily high of 854,855 in the past week, almost breaking a record set in January. ... Researchers in India are now trying to pinpoint what is behind the unprecedented surge, which could be due to an unfortunate confluence of factors, including the emergence of particularly infectious variants, a rise in unrestricted social interactions, and low vaccine coverage. Untangling the causes could be helpful to governments trying to suppress or prevent similar surges around the world. (Mallapaty, 4/21)
AP: Canada Bans Flights From India, Pakistan
Canada on Thursday said it is banning all flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days due to the growing wave of COVID-19 cases in that region. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said the ban would start late Thursday, speaking hours after India reported a global record of more than 314,000 new infections in the previous 24-hours. Cargo flights from India and Pakistan will continue. (Gillies, 4/22)
Bloomberg: Singapore To Bar Visitors From India On Worsening Situation
Singapore said it will further tighten border controls with India, including a ban on visitors from the country, because of a “rapidly deteriorating situation” there. Authorities are also stepping up measures to prevent a wider outbreak within Singapore, officials said at a press conference on Thursday. Foreign workers and those working in the construction and marine sectors, who had previously been infected with Covid-19 and recovered, are no longer exempted from measures like routine testing, the health ministry said in a statement Thursday. (Heijmans, 4/22)
