Medical Situation In Ukraine Declines Amid Covid Surge Warnings
News outlets cover the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, with evidence of patients from a children's hospital sheltering from bombardment, worries that covid surges will happen, and a refugee crisis that has reached 1 million people. Medical exports to Russia are also in the spotlight.
Axios:
Ukraine's Medical Needs Grow Dire
Kids too sick to leave Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv have been sheltering in beds and on mattresses in the hospital basement this week amid growing fears it could be hit by a Russian airstrike. It's a stark reminder that many civilians in need of care can't comply with evacuation orders and leave amid the increasingly desperate situation. "What is happening now in Ukraine is a humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war," Volodymyr Zhovnyakh, the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital director, told the Wall Street Journal. (Reed, 3/2)
USA Today:
WHO: COVID 'Much More Likely' To Spread In Ukraine Due To Invasion
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the ongoing invasion of Russian forces in Ukraine will allow COVID-19 to spread easily across the country, concerning health officials that the situation will result in many cases going undetected as attacks are made on healthcare facilities. "You disrupt society like this and literally millions of people on the move, then infectious diseases will exploit that," Mike Ryan, director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said during a media briefing. "(People are) highly susceptible to the impacts of, first of all, of being infected themselves, and it's much more likely that disease will spread," Ryan added. (Mendoza, 3/2)
NPR:
1 Million Refugees Have Fled Ukraine Since The Start Of The War
The United Nations says 1 million refugees have fled across the borders of Ukraine since Russian forces invaded a week ago. "In just seven days we have witnessed the exodus of one million refugees from Ukraine to neighbouring countries," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. The new total of refugees from Ukraine amounts to a little more than 2% of the country's total population of 44 million. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), around half of the refugees are in Poland, with Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia being the other top destinations, while others have fled to various other European countries. (Socolovsky and Franklin, 3/2)
Reuters:
Drugmakers, Device Companies Say Sanctions May Hinder Medical Supplies To Russia
Western drugmakers and medical device companies warn their plans to keep selling products to Russia may be complicated by economic sanctions targeting the country and its major banks in punishment over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions levied by the United States, Britain, Europe and Canada against Russia do not apply to medicine and medical equipment, and the industry has a responsibility under international humanitarian law to continue supplying these products, industry trade groups, policy experts and company officials said. (Guarascio, Erman and Jacobsen, 3/3)
In other global covid news —
AP:
COVID Cases, Deaths Continue To Fall Globally, WHO Reports
The number of new coronavirus cases reported globally dropped by 16% last week, marking a month-long decline in COVID-19 infections, according to figures from the World Health Organization. In its weekly report on the pandemic issued late Tuesday, the U.N. health agency also said that deaths fell by 10%, continuing a drop in fatalities first seen last week. WHO said there were more than 10 million new cases and about 60,000 deaths globally. The Western Pacific was the only region where COVID-19 increased, with about a third more infections than the previous week. Deaths rose by 22% in the Western Pacific and about 4% in the Middle East, while declining everywhere else. (3/2)
The New York Times:
As Cases Skyrocket, New Zealand Finally Faces Its Covid Reckoning
For much of the past two years, Covid-19 was a phantom presence in New Zealand, a plague experienced mostly through news reports from faraway lands. Now, suddenly, it has become a highly personal threat. New Zealand is being walloped by a major outbreak of the Omicron variant, with the virus spreading at what may be the fastest rate in the world. On Thursday, the country reported 23,194 new cases, a once unthinkable number in a small island nation of about five million people where the record daily case count before the current wave was in the low hundreds. (McKenzie, 3/3)
AP:
Why Are COVID Vaccination Rates Still Low In Some Countries?
Why are COVID-19 vaccination rates still low in some countries? Limited supplies remain a problem, but experts say other challenges now include unpredictable deliveries, weak health care systems and vaccine hesitancy. Most countries with low vaccination rates are in Africa. As of late February, 13 countries in Africa have fully vaccinated less than 5% of their populations, according to Phionah Atuhebwe, an officer for the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa. Other countries with extremely low vaccination rates include Yemen, Syria, Haiti and Papua New Guinea. (Milko, 3/3)
