asia
Virus fails to deter hundreds of climbers on Mount Everest
A year after Mount Everest was closed to climbers as the pandemic swept across the globe, hundreds are making the final push to the summit with only a few more days left in the season, saying they are undeterred by a coronavirus outbreak in base camp.
Three expedition teams to Everest canceled their climb this month following reports of people getting sick. But the remaining 41 teams decided to continue with hundreds of climbers and their guides scaling the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) top in the season that ends in May, before bad weather sets in.
“Even though the coronavirus has reached the Everest base camp, it has not made any huge effect like what is being believed outside of the mountain,” said Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, the biggest expedition operator on Everest. “No one has really fallen seriously sick because of COVID or died like the rumors that have been spreading.”
With 122 clients from 10 teams on Everest, the company led the biggest group but there were no serious illnesses among them, he said.
Nepalese officials have downplayed reports of coronavirus cases on Mount Everest, apparently out of concern of creating chaos and confusion in the base camp. After a gap year of no income from climbers, Nepal has been eager to cash in on this year’s season.
“Many people made it to the base camp and it is possible that the people who went there from here could have been infected,” Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli said. “But that does not mean that it (coronavirus) has reached the entire mountain, maybe a part of the base camp or the area below that.”
In April, a Norwegian climber became the first to test positive at the Everest base camp. He was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was treated and later returned home.
Prominent guide Lukas Furtenbach of Austria decided to halt his expedition this month and pull out his clients because of an outbreak among team members.
After returning from the mountain, Furtenbach estimated more than 100 climbers and support staff have been infected. He said in an interview last week that it was obvious there were many cases at the base camp because he could see people were sick and could hear them coughing in their tents.
“I think with all the confirmed cases we know now — confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders — I have the positive tests so we can prove this,” Furtenbach told The Associated Press.
China last week canceled climbing from its side of Everest due to fears the virus could spread from Nepal.
READ: China cancels Everest climbs over fears of virus from Nepal
The climbing season was accompanied by a devastating surge in coronavirus cases in Nepal, with record numbers of daily infections and deaths. On Friday, Nepal reported 6,951 new confirmed cases and 96 deaths, bringing the nation’s totals since the pandemic began to more than 549,111 infections and 7,047 deaths.
Another expedition, by the Telluride, Colorado-based company Mountain Trip, also announced it was pulling out of Everest.
“While it’s a difficult decision to make when considering all of the work, years of preparation, sacrifice and resources that have went into the expedition, it’s the only sensible outcome from a risk management standpoint,” a statement by the company said.
Six Sherpa guides working for the company have been evacuated to Kathmandu with COVID-19 symptoms, it said.
A total of 408 foreign climbers were issued permits to climb Everest this season, aided by several hundred Sherpas and support staff who have been stationed at base camp since April.
Since Everest was first conquered on May 29, 1953, thousands of people have scaled the peak and many Nepalese Sherpas have done it multiple times. Veteran Sherpa guide Kami Rita scaled the summit a record 25th time this month.
Malaysia grapples with alarming rise in Covid-19 cases
Malaysia's average daily COVID-19 cases per capita exceeded India this week and the country's health care system is stretched thin, but the government has resisted pressure to impose stricter lockdown rules over economic concerns.
Malaysia reported 211.29 daily new cases per million people on Wednesday on a rolling seven-day average, compared with 165.28 in India, according to John Hopkins University data.
It has surpassed India on this key benchmark since Sunday, while its daily COVID-19 cases crossed the 7,000 mark on Tuesday and the 8,000 mark on Friday, the highest since the outbreak.
Not only is the infection rate going up but also the fatality rate. Death cases are consistently by the "busload," as the Health Ministry described it, notching between 40 and over 50 a day.
The occupancy rate of intensive care units nationwide is now over 91 percent, senior Health Ministry official Noor Hisham Abdullah said last Friday.
In hospitals in Selangor and Penang states, ICUs are already full and some have had to repurpose normal wards. In Penang, the military was roped in to construct a "field ICU" in a hospital compound.
As the mortality climbs, two hospitals in Selangor resorted to using shipping containers as makeshift morgues.
Malaysia has been grappling with the third wave of the coronavirus outbreak since last September that was sparked by a state election in Sabah in Borneo that month.
Social distancing and mask rules flew out of the window in campaign rallies and politicians and voters who flew from Peninsular Malaysia to Sabah to campaign and vote, return and spread the virus.
In January, a state of emergency was declared, with inter-state travel banned and schools shut. Schools were allowed to reopen in March, only to close again this month.
Meanwhile, large swathes of the economy continue to run as normal even under the latest nationwide "movement control order."
The government announced further tightening of the order on May 12, banning inter-district travel, cutting operating hours of businesses and pushing companies to comply with the work-from-home policy, among other measures.
But it has stopped short of imposing a total lockdown despite mounting calls for it to do so, with proponents pointing out that most clusters are from the workplace.
According to the Health Ministry, out of the current 593 active clusters detected up to Wednesday, 39 percent are from the workplace involving nearly 17,000 active cases, or a quarter of the total active cases.
"If a full lockdown is enforced, the most impacted will be the vulnerable groups and those low-income earners," Finance Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz said on Monday.
He said 2.8 million people who survive on daily wages or freelancing will lose their income if the government imposes a tight lockdown, as in March last year when it lasted nearly two months.
The latest order that allows most businesses to operate is likely to impact gross domestic product growth by less than 1 percentage point, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday.
Despite risk tilted to the downside due to the implementation of the order, "GDP for 2021 is expected to grow between 6.0-7.5 percent," the ministry said.
But the worst is not over yet, as Hisham warned. Daily cases continue to hit record highs, and 80 percent of the cases detected were unlinked, the health official said early this month.
Malaysia has also been hit with the more infectious and severe coronavirus variants. As of Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported 78 cases of the South African variant and six of the Indian variant.
"The rise of cases started from April 1 and could trigger a vertical surge. We need to prepare for the worst. Please help us to stay at home. Only together we can break the chain of infection," Hisham said in a Twitter post on Wednesday.
Two Bengal Ministers get bail in cash-for-favours scam
A higher court in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata on Friday granted bail to two senior ministers in the West Bengal government and two other politicians apprehended by the country's top federal probe agency in connection with a cash-for-favours scam.
The High Court in Kolkata ordered the release of the four politicians -- serving ministers Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, and former ministers Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee -- currently under house arrest, on the condition that they wouldn't interact with the media.
"A five-judge bench has granted interim bail to the four politicians. But they have been asked not to interact with the media in the Narada tapes scandal or in any other case," lawyer Sushanto Roy told UNB over the phone from Kolkata.
Read:House arrest for 2 Bengal Ministers in cash-for-favours scam
The four politicians were placed under house arrest by the High Court on May 21, following a split in a two-judge bench.
The four were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 17 for their alleged role in the Narada tapes scandal. They were sent to jail custody that day only after the High Court, in a late-night order, stayed their bail granted by a special CBI court.
On May 17, high drama unfolded in Kolkata as Bengal Chief Minister Mamata staged a five-hour dharna outside the office of the federal probe agency in protest against the "illegal" arrest of her two senior ministers in the Narada tapes scandal case.
Mamata had told the media that the state assembly speaker didn't give his mandatory consent to the arrest of the two Ministers.
Read: Cash-for-favours scam: Two top Bengal Ministers to stay in jail
While Firhad and Subrata are Urban Development and Panchayati Raj Ministers, respectively, Madan is a legislator of Mamata's ruling Trinamool Congress party. Sovan, on the other hand, is Kolkata's former Mayor. He left the Trinamool in 2019 to join India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, but quit the outfit before the assembly polls.
The two serving and two former Ministers were arrested barely 10 days after Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar approved the CBI's plea to prosecute the four accused in the Narada tapes scandal.
The Governor then claimed that his approval "is more than enough" for the arrest of the accused as he had presided over their swearing-in ceremony. "Governor accorded sanction for prosecution... being the appointing authority of ministers @MamataOfficial under article 164 and thus competent authority," he tweeted on May 9.
Read:Two top Bengal Ministers get bail in cash-for-favours scam
The Narada scandal was a sting operation carried out by a journalist that caught on tape several ministers and senior officials of the erstwhile Mamata government accepting cash bribes in exchange for doling out unofficial favours to a private firm looking to set up business in Bengal.
Earlier this month, Mamata scripted history by single-handedly pulling off an astounding victory in the assembly election. She not only defied anti-incumbency and staved off a huge challenge from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP, but also decimated the Left Front. However, the 66-year-old lost her own seat in Nandigram.
Bengal witnessed the most high-profile contest in India's recently held state elections. While Mamata harped on being Bengal’s daughter, the BJP asked people to vote for "change and socio-economic development" after 50 years of Communist and Trinamool Congress rule.
NATO chief says Afghan forces can cope alone
NATO has helped provide security in Afghanistan for almost two decades but the government and armed forces in the conflict-torn country are strong enough to stand on their own feet without international troops to back them, the head of the military organization said Thursday.
NATO took charge of security efforts in Afghanistan in 2003, two years after a U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban for harboring former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Fewer than 9,000 troops remain, including up to 3,500 US personnel, and they are scheduled to leave by Sept. 11 at the latest.
“I think that the Afghans, they also realize that we have been there now for 20 years and we have invested heavily in blood and treasure in Afghanistan,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Associated Press, aboard a U.K. aircraft carrier involved in wargames off the coast of Portugal.
Also read: Afghan forces demoralized, rife with corruption
“Afghanistan has come a long way, both when it comes to building strong, capable security forces, but also when it comes to social and economic progress. At some stage, it has to be the Afghans that take full responsibility for peace and stability in their own country,” Stoltenberg said in an interview.
But as NATO troops leave, much of the country stands as contested ground. The government in Kabul holds hold sway in towns and cities, but the Taliban dominate the countryside. Some of the heaviest fighting this year took place just this week, in Laghman province in the east.
Stoltenberg said that NATO countries would continue to support Afghanistan through civilian experts who will help to advise government ministries, by funding the security forces and with support for slow-moving peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban.
He said that NATO is also “looking into the possibility of providing some training out of country for the Afghan security forces, but no final decision has been taken.”
U.S. military leaders are still grappling with how best to carry out President Joe Biden’s order to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by September while helping Afghan forces and monitoring the threat that prompted the U.S. invasion of the country 20 years ago.
Biden and Stoltenberg will meet with the other leaders of the 30-nation military alliance on June 14 to usher in a new era in trans-Atlantic ties after four tumultuous years of the former Trump administration. The other big issue will be Afghanistan, although no Afghan leaders are due to attend the Brussels summit.
Also read: Afghans who helped the US now fear being left behind
Asked about the impact of leaving Afghanistan without the security guarantee that has helped keep the Taliban at bay, Stoltenberg conceded that “there are risks entailed to the decision of ending NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan. We have been very transparent and clear-eyed about that.”
“At the same time, to continue to stay means that we will also have to take some risks; the risk of more fighting, the risk of being forced to increase the number of troops there, and the risk of remaining with a (military) mission,” he said.
Many of the international troops in Afghanistan will already have left by the time the leaders meet next month. America’s allies in Europe, plus Canada, rely on U.S. logistical and transport help to operate in Afghanistan and could only follow once Biden announced the withdrawal.
Many officials have expressed concern that once the U.S. leaves, the government and its armed forces will be quickly overrun by the Taliban. Violence has steadily mounted in recent months as the drawdown gathered pace.
It remains unclear what level of security might be needed, and who would provide it, to protect international embassies spread around the capital Kabul. The city’s airport, the main international gateway to Afghanistan, and the route to it must also be protected.
Stoltenberg said that NATO plans to provide financial support to keep Kabul airport up and running, but — just a few months before the alliance ends its biggest, costliest and most ambitious mission ever — the details of how all this might play out remained unclear.
China may buckle down to reunify Taiwan after crackdown on Hong Kong
China is expected to buckle down on reunifying Taiwan after the mainland almost completely excluded pro-democracy and anti-Communist activists from the political arena in Hong Kong by overhauling the territory's electoral system.
If China tries to conquer Taiwan by force, it could also become hostile toward Japan as the close U.S. ally is likely to work in tandem with Washington to support the democratic island, complicating the security and diplomatic situation in East Asia.
Despite mounting criticism from many democratic countries, the leadership of President Xi Jinping has accelerated measures to tighten its control over Hong Kong, as the ruling Communist Party marks the 100th anniversary of its founding.
As Xi has pledged to attain "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," his next ambitious goal would be the reunification of Taiwan, which has been separately governed from the mainland since they split in 1949 as the result of a civil war, observers say.
On Thursday, Hong Kong's legislature approved a sweeping electoral overhaul ordered by China to ensure that only Beijing loyalists rule the city. China's parliament in March passed a resolution on altering the electoral system in the territory.
China's move has triggered a backlash from democratic countries and escalated already existing tensions with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, which has criticized Beijing's alleged human rights abuses since it was launched in January.
Xi's leadership, however, has taken strict actions against the special administrative region since large-scale protests sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill with mainland China morphed into a pro-democracy movement in 2019.
In late June 2020, Beijing enacted a controversial national security law for Hong Kong to crack down on what it regards as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
In the mainland, many Chinese citizens have apparently provided positive support for Xi's hard-line policy against Hong Kong.
"Chinese, who have persevered under Communist rule, have basically disliked Hong Kong people, who have benefited from freedom and democracy for the past decades," a diplomatic source said.
Under China's "one country, two systems" policy, the former British colony was promised it would enjoy the rights and freedoms of a semiautonomous region for 50 years following its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Around 20 years ago, Hong Kong's economy accounted for one-fourth of China's gross domestic product as the city developed as an international financial hub, but the scale is now only about 3 percent, analysts say.
"Hong Kong people have been adequately blessed with democracy and freedom and recently received economic benefits from China, although they have always acted like victims of the mainland," a 39-year-old Chinese woman told Kyodo News.
As for Taiwan, most Chinese citizens believe that the self-ruled island should be reunified with the mainland in the future, given that it has been dependent on the world's second-biggest economy, the diplomatic source said.
"Many of them think peaceful reunification should be achieved on the back of China's overwhelming economic power, but some argue that the Communist Party should use military might," he said.
Beijing has endeavored to undermine the island's quest for international recognition, while its repeated incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone and naval exercises in nearby waters have fanned concern about a possible Chinese invasion.
For years, meanwhile, China has extended an olive branch to its neighbor Japan, the world's third-largest economy, as its relations with the United States have shown few signs of improving soon.
But China has been irritated by Japan since Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga confirmed with Biden at their summit in Washington in April "the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."
It marked the first time in 52 years that Japanese and U.S. leaders have mentioned Taiwan in a joint statement.
Immediately after the summit, the Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned a senior official of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing to lodge a protest against the agreement between Washington and Tokyo.
"China has begun to adopt a tougher attitude toward Japan," the diplomatic source said. "To put pressure on Tokyo, it may send more coast guard ships to the waters near the Senkaku Islands and conduct military drills in the East China Sea more often."
Beijing claims that the uninhabited islets administered by Tokyo in the East China Sea are part of its territory, calling them Diaoyu in the country.
In February, China enforced a bill allowing its coast guard to use weapons when foreign vessels involved in illegal activities in waters it claims do not obey orders, raising fears that Japanese ships navigating around the Senkakus would be targeted.
Moreover, if China and Taiwan are engaged in military conflict, the United States would send its forces to defend the island from its bases in Japan, which would prompt Beijing to take more provocative actions once it sees Tokyo as an "enemy" of the Communist Party.
"We do not know whether China will use forces in a bid to reunify Taiwan, but the Japanese government has to seriously consider how to deal with such a contingency," the source said.
Since the administration of former President Donald Trump, the United States has been stepping up its support to Taiwan amid deepening rifts between the United States and China on issues including trade, technology and Hong Kong's autonomy.
In 1979, when Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act.
Under the act, the United States maintains substantive though unofficial relations with Taiwan and supplies the island with arms and spare parts to enable it to secure sufficient self-defense capabilities.
India's COVID-19 tally rises to 27,369,093
India's COVID-19 tally reached 27,369,093 on Thursday, with 211,298 new cases added during the past 24 hours, said the federal health ministry.
Besides, as many as 3,847 deaths since Wednesday morning took the death toll to 315,235.
Read:Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
There are still 2,419,907 active cases in the country, as there was a decrease of 75,684 cases in the past 24 hours. The number of daily active cases has been on the decline over the past few days, after a continuous surge since mid-April.
A total of 24,633,951 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country, showed the latest data from the federal health ministry.
So far over 202 million (202,695,874) vaccination doses have been administered to the people across the country.
A total of 1,885,805 vaccine doses were given on Wednesday alone.
Read: Sputnik V production starts in India; 100 million doses to be produced annually
Presently the third phase of COVID-19 vaccination is going on, covering all people aged 18 years and above. Though, an acute shortage of vaccines is being felt across the country.
Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country.
As many as 336,969,353 tests were conducted till Wednesday, out of which 2,157,857 tests were conducted on Wednesday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday.
Taiwan struggles with testing backlog amid largest outbreak
Facing Taiwan’s largest outbreak of the pandemic and looking for rapid virus test kits, the mayor of the island’s capital did what anyone might do: He Googled it.
“If you don’t know, and you try to know something, please check Google,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je quipped.
Praised for its success at keeping the virus away for more than a year, Taiwan had until May recorded just 1,128 cases and 12 deaths. But the number of locally transmitted cases started growing this month and it soon became clear that the central government was ill prepared not only to contain the virus, but to even detect it on a large scale due to a lack of investment in rapid testing.
That left officials like Ko scrambling to catch up as the number of new infections climbed to some 300 a day. Ko’s search put him in contact with six local companies who make rapid tests and his government was soon able to set up four rapid testing sites in a district that had emerged as a virus hotspot.
Read: Coronavirus: Taiwan has another jump, capital closing schools
Rapid tests, experts say, are a critical tool in catching the virus in its early days. The alternative that Taiwan has been relying on — tests that have to be sent out to a lab for processing — has led to backlogs that may be obscuring the true extent of the outbreak.
“You want to identify those infected cases as soon as possible,” to contain the spread, said Ruby Huang, a professor in the medical college at National Taiwan University. “And then you’re basically running against time.”
With so few cases, Taiwan had been a bubble of normalcy for most of the pandemic. Schools stayed open, people went to bars and restaurants, and the island’s economy was among the few globally that saw positive growth.
Its success was built largely on strict border controls that primarily allowed in only citizens and long-term residents, who then faced mandatory two-week quarantines.
From time to time it found small clusters of infections and stamped them out through contact tracing and quarantines. Last month authorities found a cluster involving pilots from the state-owned China Airlines.
Stopping the virus this time would prove difficult, in part because under government policy pilots were only required to quarantine for three-days and did not need a negative test to get out of quarantine. Soon employees at a quarantine hotel where China Airlines flight crew stayed started getting sick — and so did their family members.
The virus had escaped quarantine and was spreading locally, mostly in Taipei and surrounding areas.
The government in Taiwan — where only about 1% of the population have been vaccinated — responded by ordering a lockdown, closing schools and switching offices to remote work or rotating shifts. Contact tracers identified 600,000 people that needed to quarantine themselves.
The biggest roadblock has been testing.
Government policy throughout the pandemic has been to rely on polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests, which are seen as the gold standard for diagnosis but must be processed using special machines in a lab. The government has not encouraged rapid tests, which are quicker and cheaper but potentially less accurate.
In and around Taipei, labs have been working overtime in recent weeks but are still struggling to process all the samples.
Tim Tsai said on just a single day last week his lab in New Taipei city received 400 samples from hospitals to test. He said his lab was only able to process about 120 samples a day.
Read:The Latest: Taiwan raises alert amid sharp rise in cases
“Our medical technicians, they were leaving work at midnight,” he said.
The government’s Central Epidemic Command Center said in a statement that all 141 government designated labs have the capacity to process 30,000 PCR tests a day. However, it declined to provide the actual number of tests being processed.
It said it was “continuing to work with relevant labs to research ways to accelerate and expand our capacity, without impacting accuracy.”
Throughout the pandemic the government has maintained there are few benefits to mass testing, with the health minister saying last year that public funds and medical resources could better be used elsewhere.
The government instead has emphasized a strategy of contact tracing and isolation and only testing those with symptoms and direct contact with someone infected.
“This is more efficient, effective and accurate,” said Chen Chien-jen, the island’s former vice president, who led the pandemic response last year before retiring.
Experts say such a strategy may have been appropriate when case numbers were low, but needed to change as infections spread.
“You should have a two-pronged approach. You do the quarantine, but you should do massive widespread testing,” said K. Arnold Chan, an expert on drug and medical products regulation at National Taiwan University. “For whatever reason the government is completely unprepared.”
Taiwanese companies developed rapid tests for COVID-19 early last year, but the majority of their sales have been overseas.
“Back then the CDC didn’t support rapid tests, and there was no epidemic,” said Edward Ting, a spokesperson for Panion and BF Biotech, which has had its own test since March 2020. “We tried to sell, but it wasn’t possible.”
The central government finally appears to be coming around, with the health minister last week asking local governments to set up rapid testing sites. Ting said his company has since had calls from governments across the island asking about its tests.
The central government also is now offering subsidies for labs to buy new machines to process PCR tests.
Read: Why the world should pay attention to Taiwan's drought
Aaron Chen, whose company developed a machine that can process up to 2,000 PCR test samples every four hours, said he has diverted two machines bound for export to be used locally instead.
Ko, the mayor of Taipei, said his city has purchased 250,000 rapid test kits. Though the city is still relying on PCR tests to confirm actual cases, Ko said the rapid tests better allow him to monitor the situation on the ground.
Ko, a former surgeon, said it was important to be open to change.
“There’s a phrase in Chinese: One thrives in times of calamity and perishes in soft times. Because when you’re very successful you are not forced to improve. Only when you fail, then are you forced to improve,” said Ko. “We were too successful in the past year.”
5 killed, damages incurred as cyclone Yaas completes landfall in eastern India
Five people were killed on Wednesday after cyclonic storm Yaas hit the coastal area of the eastern Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha, local media reported.
The cyclone made landfall with marginally lower intensity with a wind speed of 130-140 km/ph.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the cyclone has completed landfall and is likely to move north-northwestwards and weaken gradually into a cyclonic storm during the next six hours.
Officials said the high tidal waves breached embankments in West Bengal and Odisha coast, with a total of five deaths reported in the two states on Wednesday.
In West Bengal, a youth who had moved to a cyclone shelter in the locality had come out of the shelter in Ramnagar 2 block of East Midnapore when the storm hit and he was drowned, local media reportd said.
Two other people are reported to be killed in the coastal town of Digha in West Bengal, with one of them dying in a building collapse and another dragged out to sea, the state's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said.
In the state of Odisha, two deaths have occurred.
"One person was killed in Panchapalli village of Keonjhar district in Odisha after a tree fell on him, while the body of a 15-year-old boy was found in a pond at Jagannath Khunta village in Mayurbhanj district," media reports quoted local officials as having said.
On Tuesday night two people were also electrocuted in West Bengal's Hooghly district during a tornado ahead of the cyclone.
Besides, damages have been reported in both states. Around 20,000 mud houses and temporary shelters were either destroyed or damaged, as seawater entered residential areas and inundated low-lying areas in Digha of West Bengal.
In Odisha, trees have been uprooted in Bhadrak district and some areas have been flooded. The local government has warned people to stay indoors as heavy rains are likely to continue.
Authorities of Odisha have shifted over half a million people from low-lying areas, while as in West Bengal around 1.15 million people were evacuated from the coastal areas and shifted to rescue shelters.
Chief ministers of both states are continuously monitoring the situation and holding review meetings with the disaster management officials.
India's federal government has alerted navy teams and the air force to assist the local governments in relief and rescue operations.
Meanwhile, 115 teams of India's National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed in the affected areas to clear roads of fallen trees and evacuate people from coastal villages and towns.
Last week cyclone Tauktae wreaked havoc in India's coastal areas, killing many people in Karnataka, Goa and Kerala Maharashtra. At least 70 people were also killed after barge P305 sank off Mumbai due to the cyclone.
South Korea mulls dropping masks for vaccinated
South Korean officials say they plan to allow people to drop their masks from July if they have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, as they mull incentives to promote inoculation.
Health Minister Kwon Deok-choel said Wednesday the plan is contingent on the government succeeding in its goal of administering first doses to 13 million people by the end of June. Officials say people will continue to be required to wear mask indoors or at outdoor gatherings where it’s difficult to maintain distance.
Read:Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
Other incentives include providing vaccine-takers with discounts at public parks and museums and allowing them to participate in larger private gatherings. The country is currently clamping down on social gatherings of five or more people.
South Korea has wrestled with a slower vaccine rollout than many other developed economies.
Around 3.9 million people so far have received their first doses since the country launched its mass immunization program in late February, which represents less than 8% of the country’s 51 million population.
Health officials have lamented what they describe as excessive public fear of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been linked to rare blood-clotting side effects.
MORE ON THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
— Countries eager to reopen to travel as pandemic recedes
— UN official: Conflicts make controlling COVID more difficult
— A growing number of public schools in the U.S. are using mascots, food trucks and prize giveaways to encourage students to get vaccinated before summer vacation.
Read:Japan opens mass vaccination centers 2 months before Games
— The British government is facing accusations of reintroducing local lockdowns on the sly after it published new guidelines for eight areas of England that it says are hot spots for the coronavirus variant first identified in India.
Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
As the coronavirus tears through India, night watchman Sagar Kumar thinks constantly about getting vaccines for himself and his family of five amid critical shortages of shots in the country. But even if he knew how to get one, it wouldn’t be easy.
The main way is to register through a government website. But it is in English — a language the 25-year-old Kumar and nearly 90% of Indians can’t speak, read or write — and his family has a single smartphone, with spotty internet service.
And even though his state of Uttar Pradesh gives free shots to those under 45, there is no vaccination site in his village, with the nearest hospital an hour away.
“All I can do now is hope for the best,” Kumar said.
Read:Bharat Biotech submits ‘90% of documents’ for WHO nod
The pandemic’s disparities already were stark in India, where access to health care is as stratified and unequal as many other parts of society. Now wealth and technology is further widening those chasms, and millions are falling through the gaps.
That worries health experts, who say vaccine inequality could hamper India’s already difficult fight against a virus that has been killing more than 4,000 people a day in recent weeks.
“Inequitable vaccination risks prolonging the pandemic in India,” said Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center at Duke University in North Carolina. “Reducing barriers for the most vulnerable populations should be a priority.”
India’s vaccination campaign began in January with a goal of inoculating 300 million of its nearly 1.4 billion people by August. So far, however, it has fully vaccinated a little over 42 million people, or barely 3% of its population.
The government didn’t reserve enough shots for the campaign and it was slow to scale up vaccine production. Then, with the country recording hundreds of thousands of new infections daily, the government on May 1 opened up vaccination to all adults.
That made an already bad shortage even worse.
Amid those challenges, the federal government also changed its policy on who can get vaccines and who must pay for them. It allotted itself half of the shots in the country and said it would give free shots to front-line workers and those 45 and older.
Individual states and private hospitals could then negotiate deals with the country’s vaccine-makers for the other half of the shots, the government said. That effectively put the burden for inoculating everyone under 45 on states and the private sector, who often ask members of the public to pay as much as $20 for a shot.
The disparities already are showing in rich states where private hospitals tend to be concentrated.
The capital of New Delhi has given first shots to 20% of its residents, while Bihar state, one of the poorest, has only given shots to about 7.6% of its population. And even states that are providing free shots often can’t keep them in stock — both because of the shortage and competition with the private sector.
Read:Japan opens mass vaccination centers 2 months before Games
Many experts say the federal policy is a mistake, and it will hit the poorest the hardest.
“Vaccinating people is the national duty of the government and they need to vaccinate everyone for free,” said K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. “Nobody should be denied a vaccine because they are unable to afford it or register for it.”
Vaccine disparity is “not just a question of inequality but also inefficiency,” said developmental economist Jean Dreze.
If people get sick, Dreze said, they will not be able to work. That in turn could push many more into poverty.
Already, the poor have to miss work, forgo the day’s wages and travel long distances to get vaccinated.
“We should not just make vaccines free but also give people incentives to get vaccinated,” Dreze said.
The national government is seeking to address some of the concerns. It has said the website to register for shots will soon be available in Hindi and other regional languages. Still, experts point out half the population lacks internet access, so the better solution would be easier, walk-in registrations for all.
The government also has said it will alleviate the vaccine shortages, insisting there will be about 2 billion doses available between June and December. Experts, however, say the government will likely miss that goal.
India’s health ministry did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
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Kavita Singh, 29, was making the equivalent of $250 a month working as a domestic helper in a wealthy part of the capital. But as cases began to surge in April, she lost her job.
“They were scared I would spread the virus and told me to come back only after I am vaccinated,” Singh said.
She could not afford paying for a shot, so Singh and her three daughters returned to her village in Bihar state. There’s no vaccination center nearby, and Singh said she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to return to New Delhi.
“We barely manage to earn enough for our daily means,” Singh said. “If we use that money for vaccines, then what will we eat?”