public health
Dispiriting setback: COVID deaths, cases rise again globally
COVID-19 deaths and cases are on the rise again globally in a dispiriting setback that is triggering another round of restrictions and dampening hopes for a return to normal life.
The World Health Organization reported Wednesday that deaths climbed last week after nine straight weeks of decline. It recorded more than 55,000 lives lost, a 3% increase from the week before.
Cases rose 10% last week to nearly 3 million, with the highest numbers recorded in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Britain, WHO said.
The reversal has been attributed to low vaccination rates, the relaxation of mask rules and other precautions, and the swift spread of the more-contagious delta variant, which WHO said has now been identified in 111 countries and is expected to become globally dominant in the coming months.
Read:US COVID-19 cases rising again, doubling over three weeks
Sarah McCool, a professor of public health at Georgia State University, said the combination amounts to a “recipe for a potential tinderbox.”
“It’s important that we recognize that COVID has the potential for explosive outbreaks,” warned Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University.
Amid the surge, the death toll in hard-hit Argentina surpassed 100,000. Daily coronavirus deaths in Russia hit record highs this week. In Belgium, COVID-19 infections, driven by the delta variant among the young, have almost doubled over the past week. Britain recorded a one-day total of more than 40,000 new cases for the first time in six months.
In Myanmar, crematoriums are working morning to night. In Indonesia, which recorded almost 1,000 deaths and over 54,000 new cases Wednesday, up from around 8,000 cases per day a month ago, people near Jakarta are pitching in to help gravediggers keep up.
“As the diggers are too tired and do not have enough resources to dig, the residents in my neighborhood decided to help,” Jaya Abidin said. “Because if we do not do this, we will have to wait in turn a long time for a burial.”
In the U.S., with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, newly confirmed infections per day have doubled over the past two weeks to an average of about 24,000, though deaths are still on a downward trajectory at around 260 a day.
Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the U.S., reported its fifth straight day Tuesday of more than 1,000 new cases.
Tokyo is under a fourth state of emergency ahead of the Summer Games this month, with infections climbing fast and hospital beds filling up. Experts have said caseloads could rise above 1,000 before the Olympics and multiply to thousands during the games.
The spike has led to additional restrictions in places like Sydney, Australia, where the 5 million residents will remain in lockdown through at least the end of July, two weeks longer than planned. South Korea has placed the Seoul area under its toughest distancing rules yet because of record case levels.
Parts of Spain, including Barcelona, moved to impose an overnight curfew. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said masks will be required on buses and trains even after other restrictions in England are lifted next week. Italy warned all those going abroad that they might have to quarantine before returning home.
Read: Immunized but banned: EU says not all COVID vaccines equal
Chicago announced that unvaccinated travelers from Missouri and Arkansas must either quarantine for 10 days or have a negative COVID-19 test.
Connecticut lawmakers voted Wednesday to again extend Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s emergency declarations, despite pushback from Republicans and some Democrats who argued it is time to get back to normal. Among other things, the move keeps in place orders requiring masks in certain settings.
An Alabama military base has ordered troops to show proof of vaccination before they can go maskless as the state sees an uptick in COVID-19 cases, a rise attributed to low vaccination rates. The measure was put in place Tuesday at Fort Rucker, home to the Army’s aviation program.
As troubling as the figures are around the world, they are still well below the alarming numbers seen earlier this year.
Seven months into the vaccination drive, global deaths are down to around 7,900 a day, after topping out at over 18,000 a day in January, according to Johns Hopkins data. Cases are running at around 450,000 a day, down by half since their peak in late April.
WHO acknowledged that many countries are now facing “considerable pressure” to lift all remaining precautions but warned that failing to do it the right way will just give the virus more opportunity to spread.
Pressure is growing worldwide to boost vaccination rates to counter the rise.
“If you have been waiting, if you have been on the fence, sign up and get that shot as soon as possible,” New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi pleaded.
Eighteen-year-old actress and singer Olivia Rodrigo appeared at the White House on Wednesday as part of an effort by President Joe Biden to persuade more young people. Getting a vaccination is something “you can do more easily than ever before,” she said.
While nearly 160 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, or over 55% of the population, young adults have shown less interest.
Read:FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine
Ohio is planning another prize program to encourage vaccinations, and Gov. Mike DeWine urged the government to give the vaccines full approval instead of just emergency authorization to ease people’s doubts.
“The reality is we now have two Ohios,” said Bruce Vanderhoff, the state’s chief medical officer. “An Ohio that is vaccinated and protected on the one hand, and an Ohio that is unvaccinated and vulnerable to delta on the other.”
Michigan already started a COVID-19 vaccine sweepstakes and announced the first four $50,000 winners Wednesday. Bigger prizes, including a $2 million jackpot, are coming.
In Missouri, second only to Arkansas with the worst COVID-19 diagnosis rate over the past week, political leaders in and around St. Louis have stepped up efforts to get people vaccinated through gift cards and by enlisting beauty salons and barbershops to dispense information.
Rural Kentucky health officials press on, one shot at a time
John Rogers waited months after becoming eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. It was only after talking with friends that the 66-year-old retiree from rural Spencer County, Kentucky, was persuaded to get the shot.
“They said, ‘You know, the vaccine may not be 100%, but if you get COVID, you’re in bad shape,’” Rogers said. “You can die from it.”
With the nation falling just short of President Joe Biden’s goal of dispensing at least one shot to 70% of all American adults by the Fourth of July, public health officials in places like Spencer County have shifted the emphasis away from mass vaccination clinics toward getting more information out in a more targeted way about the benefits of getting inoculated.
Health departments have offered the vaccine at concerts, parades and fairs and plan to make it available at back-to-school events. They have encouraged local doctors to raise the issue with patients and promoted shots by way of printed materials and social media.
Read:Vaccination 'most patriotic thing', COVID not yet finished: Biden
The hope is that word of mouth will ease fears and misperceptions about the vaccine and change people’s minds, one person at a time if necessary.
That’s especially important in places like Spencer County, an area of rolling green hills and farmland southeast of Louisville, where the state reports that about 22% of eligible adults are at least partially vaccinated. Public health officials there think the numbers are improving and may already be higher.
Biden administration officials are increasingly turning their attention nationwide to some 55 million unvaccinated adults seen as persuadable, a group they have dubbed the “movable middle.”
Many of those being targeted are under 30, an age group that has an especially low vaccination rate. But they also include people like Rogers, who said many people in his community are hesitant to get shots because “they just don’t trust the government.”
Rogers, who worked for a packaging supplier in nearby Shelbyville, said he shook off the skepticism and is now looking forward to a summer of “things going back to normal as they can be.”
Nationally, resistance to getting vaccinated tends to run higher in conservative and rural parts of the country. Overall, 49% of all Kentuckians have received at least one dose, compared with about 55% nationwide.
Stephanie Lokits, who oversees vaccination efforts in the county for the public health department, has watched immunizations slow since a peak in March, when clinics drew hundreds of residents. Now only 10 to 20 trickle through a weekly vaccine clinic held in the county seat of Taylorsville, a town of 1,600 with an old theater, a courthouse, some empty storefronts and a few small businesses slowly finding their way out of the pandemic.
Read:Biden urges shots for young adults as variant concern grows
While Kentucky has seen a decline in cases in the past seven weeks, nearly all confirmed infections and deaths reported in the past month have been in unvaccinated residents.
“I think that the philosophy that we have really tried to go by is that every single shot that we can get administered to a person is a positive thing,” Lokits said. “I think that’s kind of the place where a lot of health departments and a lot of providers are at.”
Lauren Slone, a nurse practitioner leading the vaccine effort at a community health center in Taylorsville, said she has learned through conversations with her patients that misconceptions about long-term effects pose real problems.
She has found that most people she talks to eventually get vaccinated. The challenge, she said, is “getting people to talk to me about it in the first place.”
While appointments in the center aren’t filling up as quickly as she would like, Slone thinks an effort to distribute information at local middle and high schools led to more vaccine appointments.
“I thought, you know, one way to get adults in is when teenagers know about it,“ Slone said. ”If your teenager asks to get it, then maybe that encourages you a little bit as well.”
A June drive-thru clinic held after the information push was well-attended by young adults. That’s another good sign, Slone said. Only one-third of Kentuckians 18 to 29 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 83% of residents 65 and up.
Read:Biden promotes milestone of 300M vaccine shots in 150 days
Still, getting the word out can be harder in a rural county, because some residents aren’t on social media or don’t have consistent access to the internet. And in spread-out, sparsely populated places like Spencer County, some people may not feel the need to get the vaccine as quickly, said district health department director Roanya Rice.
Also, Spencer County has lower cases per-capita than neighboring counties and the state as a whole, meaning the threat can seem far away to some.
Rogers, now fully vaccinated, is enjoying the freedom to take off his mask for good, eat at a restaurant or visit with relatives without worrying.
“I waited a long time,” he said. “I should have gotten it a long time ago.”
Focus on public health: Health complexes to get specialist doctors
All the 50-bed health complexes across the country are going to have 10 specialist physicians each under a government programme to reach quality healthcare to the common people.
According to an official document, the government is going to create 10 posts of Junior Consultant (Specialist Physician) in health complexes that have recently been upgraded to 50-bed ones.
The health complexes will be equipped with modern equipment, such as ECG, nebuliser, autoclave and ultrasonography machines, and blood collection monitors.
The document says the government is implementing a project to set up a full-fledged 100-bed cancer treatment unit at every government medical college hospital in divisional towns.
This is being done considering the lack of adequate facilities for the treatment of cancer patients in the country.
Also read: Bangladesh shatters its all-time records of daily Covid cases
To take healthcare services to the doorsteps of people at the earliest, recruitment of doctors, nurses and other health professionals is under way along with installing necessary equipment and facilities, according to the document.
In this connection, 213 new doctors have been recruited through the 38th BCS within a short span of time to ensure that the Covid-19 infected patients get treatment, and they have already joined different hospitals.
As the government has a constitutional responsibility to ensure healthcare services for all it is working tirelessly to build a healthy, strong and active population by providing affordable and quality health, nutrition and family welfare (HNP) services to people.
Also read:Shots in little arms: COVID-19 vaccine testing turns to kids
As a result, the document claims, the country has already made commendable progress in the development of the HNP sector.
For example, maternal mortality rate, neonatal mortality rate, under-5 mortality rate, malnutrition, underweight, low-birth weight are continuously being improved along with an increase in life expectancy.
Despite limited resources, Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in achieving the MDGs related to health, and is building on that success.
The government is currently working to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Sector-wise activities are being implemented during the period of 2017-2022 under 29 operational plans of the 4th Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Program (4th HPNSP).
Also read:No risk of contracting Covid-19 due to vaccination: DGHS
Activities under the programme include the provision of nutrition and health services for mothers and children, controlling infectious and non-communicable diseases and climate change induced new diseases, developing a modern and efficient pharmaceutical sector, and development of skilled human resources, including training to doctors.
US sending Taiwan 2.5 million vaccine doses, tripling pledge
The U.S. is sending 2.5 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, tripling an earlier pledge in a donation with both public health and geopolitical meaning.
The shipment was due to arrive by plane later Sunday, the de facto U.S. embassy said. “The donation reflects our commitment to Taiwan as a trusted friend, and a member of the international family of democracies,” the American Institute in Taiwan wrote on its Facebook page.
Read:Senators say US donating vaccines to Taiwan amid China row
Taiwan, which had been relatively unscathed by the virus, has been caught off-guard by a surge in new cases since May and is now scrambling to get COVID-19 vaccines. It has ordered 5.05 million doses directly from Moderna but so far received only 390,000, including a second shipment that arrived Friday.
The U.S. donation also signals its support for Taiwan in the face of growing pressure from China, which claims the self-governing island off its east coast as its territory. The U.S. does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan under what is known as the one-China policy, but is legally bound by its own laws to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself.
The U.S. promised 750,000 vaccine doses for Taiwan earlier this month, sending Sen. Tammy Duckworth and two of her Senate colleagues to the island aboard a military transport plane to make the announcement. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said the U.S. had decided to increase the donation through efforts on both sides over the past two weeks.
Read: China may buckle down to reunify Taiwan after crackdown on Hong Kong
In a Facebook post, Tsai joined the U.S. in drawing attention to their shared democratic systems. China, which has been ruled single handedly by the Communist Party since 1949, says Taiwan must eventually come under its control and reserves the right to use force if necessary.
“Whether it is for regional peace and stability or the virus that is a common human adversary, we will continue to uphold common ideas and work together,” Tsai wrote in Chinese.
She has accused China of blocking Taiwan from getting the Pfizer vaccine through BioNTech, the German co-developer. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied the charge, and say China is willing to provide vaccines to Taiwan. Taiwanese law, however, bans the import of Chinese-made medicine.
Read:Taiwan struggles with testing backlog amid largest outbreak
The U.S. donation follows Japan’s shipment of 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in early June. Taiwan has ordered 10 million doses from AstraZeneca but has yet to receive most of them.
Haiti fights large COVID-19 spike as it awaits vaccines
Ever since the pandemic began, Haiti had perplexed experts with seemingly low infection and death rates from COVID-19 despite its rickety public health system, a total lack of vaccines and a widespread disdain for safety measures like masks and distancing.
That is no longer the case.
The few Haitian hospitals treating COVID cases have been so swamped in recent days that they report turning away patients, while plans to open another hospital to treat the infected have been delayed.
Official figures remain relatively low for a nation of more than 11 million people: Just 2,271 cases and 62 deaths have been recorded over the past month in government data collected by Johns Hopkins University. A total of 15,700 cases and more than 330 deaths have been reported since early last year.
Read:Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal
But experts are united in saying those figures miss the true scale of what they say is the largest spike in cases since the new coronavirus first landed.
The government declared a health emergency on May 24 and imposed a curfew and safety measures — though few Haitians appear to be following them. Most shun, or can’t afford, face masks and it’s nearly impossible to keep a distance while shopping in bustling marketplaces or riding the crowded, colorful buses known as tap taps that most Haitians rely on to get around.
“There is no time to waste,” said Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, which is working with the government to scale up testing to identify and isolate infected people — a difficult task in a place where few think they can afford to be sick.
Sanorah Valcourt, a 27-year-old mother and hairstylist, said she felt sick for for two weeks last month with a fever and symptoms including loss of taste. But she didn’t get tested, or even take measures such as wearing face masks she finds uncomfortable.
“I didn’t feel well enough to hop on a tap tap and spend hours at a hospital to get tested,” she said.
The lack of cases early this year had led authorities to reduce the number of beds available for COVID patients to about 200 — more than half of those at the nonprofit St. Luke Foundation for Haiti in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
But by early this month, that clinic was at capacity and announced it was turning away patients.
“Many people are dying on arrival in ambulances,” the foundation said. “We have received many nuns as patients, a sure sign (COVID-19) is in the poorest areas.”
Marc Edson Augustin, medical director of the St. Luke hospital, said he’s especially worried about the deaths he has seen among those aged 17 to 22, and that groups of up to seven people are showing up at the same time seeking treatment for COVID.
Read:In Argentina, doctors adapt as COVID-19 strains hospitals
“The situation is real, and we want to tell people that the situation is getting worse,” he said. “We’re working to keep people alive as much as possible.”
Haiti’s Health Ministry had planned to have another 150 beds elsewhere for COVID-19 patients, but that effort was delayed. Meanwhile, Bruno Maes, representative in Haiti for UNICEF, said the children’s agency is working to help hospitals get oxygen and fuel.
“It’s not enough, for sure,” he said. “We have to be ready for a bigger influx of cases. ...It could get out of control.”
So far, Haiti hasn’t received a single vaccine, though officials say they expect to get 130,000 AstraZeneca doses this month.
The U.S. government also said it would donate a portion of six million doses for Haiti, though officials haven’t specified how many or when they will arrive.
Some 756,000 doses of AstraZeneca shots had been slated to arrive in May via the United Nations’ COVAX program for low-income countries, but they were delayed due to the government’s concern over possible clotting as a side effect and a lack of infrastructure to keep the vaccines properly refrigerated.
PAHO said it would help Haiti’s Health Ministry solve those problems, and is prioritizing vaccinating health workers.
The medical system also has been struggling with other problems, including unpaid wages for some workers. President Jovenel Moïse recently asked the Ministry of Economy and Finance to ensure they get paid.
Even when vaccines arrive, experts worry many people may not get a jab — some for fear of venturing through crime-wracked neighborhoods to reach a clinic.
Read:Why are so many babies dying of Covid-19 in Brazil?
Valcourt mentioned such dangers as one reason why she avoided getting tested. Like many Haitians, she turned to a home remedy — in her case, a tea made with parsley, garlic, lime, thyme and cloves.
Manoucheka Louis, a 35-year-old street merchant who sells plantains and potatoes, said she got sick earlier this year but didn’t have the roughly $20 needed to see a private doctor, who she trusts more than public institutions.
“Health care is not something I can afford,” she said, adding that she was coughing a lot and was fighting a fever, loss of taste and an aching body and head. Her two children had the same symptoms, and they all relied on homemade teas and regular cold medicine.
She said she still can’t afford to always wear a mask. They can cost about 50 cents each in a country where many people make less than a dollar or two a day.
EXPLAINER: The US investigation into COVID-19 origins
Once dismissed by most public health experts and government officials, the hypothesis that COVID-19 leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab is now receiving scrutiny under a new U.S. investigation.
Experts say the 90-day review ordered on May 26 by President Joe Biden will push American intelligence agencies to collect more information and review what they already have. Former State Department officials under President Donald Trump have publicly pushed for further investigation into virus origins, as have scientists and the World Health Organization.
Many scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, say they still believe the virus most likely occurred in nature and jumped from animals to humans. Virus researchers have not publicly identified any key new scientific evidence that might make the lab-leak hypothesis more likely.
Virologists also say it is unlikely that any definitive answer about virus origins will be possible in 90 days. The work to fully confirm origins and pathways of past viruses — such as the first SARS or HIV/AIDS — has taken years or decades.
Read: ‘This IS INSANE’: Africa desperately short of COVID vaccine
A look at what is known about the U.S. investigation of the virus.
WHAT ARE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES REVIEWING?
Biden ordered a review of what the White House said was an initial finding leading to “two likely scenarios,” an animal-to-human transmission or a lab leak. The White House statement says two agencies in the 18-member intelligence community lean toward the hypothesis of a transmission in nature; another agency leans toward a lab leak.
One document drawing new attention is a State Department fact sheet published in the last days of Trump’s administration. The memo notes that the U.S. believes three researchers at a Wuhan, China, lab sought medical treatment for a respiratory illness in November 2019. However, the report is not conclusive: The origin and severity of the staffers’ illness is not known — and most people in China regularly go to hospitals, not primary-care physicians, for routine care.
The memo also pointed to “gain of function” studies — which in theory could enhance the lethality or transmissibility of a virus — allegedly done at the Wuhan lab with U.S. backing. However, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins has since adamantly denied that the U.S. supported any “gain-of-function” research on coronaviruses in Wuhan.
David Feith, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs under Trump, said he supported Biden’s call for an enhanced review. “Implicit in the president’s statement is that there is more to analyze and more to collect than has been analyzed or collected to date,” Feith said.
The Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
IS CHINA HAMPERING INVESTIGATIONS?
The White House statement criticized China for a lack of transparency, echoing previous criticisms by Democrats and Republicans. “The failure to get our inspectors on the ground in those early months will always hamper any investigation into the origin of COVID-19,” the White House said.
The Associated Press has reported on China’s interference in the World Health Organization’s probes of the virus and its fanning of conspiracy theories online. China has also forced journalists to leave the country in recent years and silenced or jailed whistleblowers from Wuhan and elsewhere.
The lack of transparency in China is a significant and familiar challenge. But that does not in itself signal that something in particular is being hidden.
“The problem is when you make that announcement (Biden’s call for investigation) in a highly politicized environment, it makes it even less likely that China will cooperate with efforts to find the origins of the virus,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Read: WTO panel considers easing protections on COVID-19 vaccines
WHAT DO SCIENTISTS BELIEVE ABOUT VIRUS ORIGINS?
The most compelling argument for investigating the possibility of a lab leak is not any new hard evidence, but rather the fact that another pathway for virus spread has not been 100% confirmed.
“The great probability is still that this virus came from a wildlife reservoir,” said Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Saskatchewan, Canada. He pointed to the fact that spillover events – when viruses jump from animals to humans – are common in nature, and that scientists already know of two similar beta coronaviruses that evolved in bats and caused epidemics when humans were infected, SARS1 and MERS.
However, the case is not completely closed. “There are probabilities, and there are possibilities,” said Banerjee. “Because nobody has identified a virus that’s 100% identical to SARS-CoV-2 in any animal, there is still room for researchers to ask about other possibilities.”
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO CONFIRM THE ORIGIN OF A VIRUS?
Confirming with 100% certainty the origin of a virus is often not fast, easy, or always even possible.
For example, scientists never confirmed the origin of smallpox before the disease was eradicated through a global vaccination program.
In the case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) – a disease caused by a beta coronavirus, like the current coronavirus – researchers first identified the virus in February 2003. Later that year, scientists discovered the likely intermediary hosts: Himalayan palm civets found at live-animal markets in Guangdong, China. But it wasn’t until 2017 that researchers traced the likely original source of the virus to bat caves in China’s Yunnan province.
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO UNDERSTAND THE ORIGIN?
From a scientific perspective, researchers are always keen to better understand how diseases evolve. From a public health perspective, if a virus has transitioned to being spread mostly by human-to-human contact, discovering its origins is not as essential to strategies for containing the disease.
“Questions of origins and questions of disease control are not the same thing once human-to-human transmission has become common,” said Deborah Seligsohn, an expert in environment and public health at Villanova University.
Republicans have pressed for more inquiries into a possible lab leak as part of a broader effort to blame China and vindicate Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Nearly 600,000 people in the United States have died of COVID-19, the highest toll of any country.
Read:US to swiftly boost global vaccine sharing, Biden announces
WHAY HAPPENS AFTER THE 90 DAYS?
Many scientists caution that it’s unlikely a 90-day investigation will yield definitive new answers.
“We rarely get a ‘smoking gun,’” said Stephen Morse, a disease researcher at Columbia University. “Even under the best of circumstances we rarely get certainty, just degrees of likelihood.”
Any findings will likely be politically explosive, especially if new evidence comes to light supporting or dismissing the zoonotic transfer or lab-leak theory. And a failure to reach definitive conclusions, almost inevitable after a 90-day review, could provide grist for Trump supporters and opponents alike, as well as embolden conspiracy theorists.
Meanwhile experts like the Council on Foreign Relations’ Huang suspect China may simply clamp down more, adding another complication to already tense relations. “This will likely make it even more challenging to extract concessions from China to allow another team to visit Wuhan, or have unfettered access to investigate there,” he said.
Slow to start, China mobilizes to vaccinate at headlong pace
In the span of just five days last month, China gave out 100 million shots of its COVID-19 vaccines.
After a slow start, China is now doing what virtually no other country in the world can: harnessing the power and all-encompassing reach of its one-party system and a maturing domestic vaccine industry to administer shots at a staggering pace. The rollout is far from perfect, including uneven distribution, but Chinese public health leaders now say they’re hoping to inoculate 80% of the population of 1.4 billion by the end of the year.
As of Tuesday, China had given out more than 680 million doses — with nearly half of those in May alone. China’s total is roughly a third of the 1.9 billion shots distributed globally, according to Our World in Data, an online research site.
Read: China reports human case of H10N3 bird flu, a possible first
The call to get vaccinated comes from every corner of society. Companies offer shots to their employees, schools urge their students and staffers, and local government workers check on their residents.
That pressure underscores both the system’s strength, which makes it possible to even consider vaccinating more than a billion people this year, but also the risks to civil liberties — a concern the world over but one that is particularly acute in China, where there are few protections.
“The Communist Party has people all the way down to every village, every neighborhood,” said Ray Yip, former country director for the Gates Foundation in China and a public health expert. “That’s the draconian part of the system, but it also gives very powerful mobilization.”
China is now averaging about 19 million shots per day, according to Our World in Data’s rolling seven-day average. That would mean a dose for everyone in Italy about every three days. The United States, with about one-quarter of China’s population, reached around 3.4 million shots per day in April when its drive was at full tilt.
It’s still unclear how many people in China are fully vaccinated — which can mean anywhere from one to three doses of the vaccines in use — as the government does not publicly release that data.
Zhong Nanshan, the head of a group of experts attached to the National Health Commission and a prominent government doctor, said on Sunday that 40% of the population has received at least one dose, and the aim was to get that percentage fully vaccinated by the end of the month.
In Beijing, the capital, 87% of the population has received at least one dose. Getting a shot is as easy as walking into one of hundreds of vaccination points found all across the city. Vaccination buses are parked in high foot-traffic areas, including in the city center and at malls.
Read: China easing birth limits further to cope with aging society
But Beijing’s abundance is not shared with the rest of the country, and local media reports and complaints on social media show the difficulty of getting an appointment elsewhere.
“I started lining up that day at 9 in the morning, until 6 p.m., only then did I get the shot. It was exhausting,” Zhou Hongxia, a resident of Lanzhou, in northwestern Gansu province, explained recently. “When I left, there were still people waiting.”
Zhou’s husband hasn’t been so lucky and has yet to get a shot. When they call the local hotlines, they are told simply to wait.
Central government officials on Monday said they’re working to ensure supply is more evenly distributed.
Before the campaign ramped up in recent weeks, many people were not in a rush to get vaccinated as China has kept the virus, which first flared in the country, at bay in the past year with strict border controls and mandatory quarantines. It has faced small clusters of infections from time to time, and is currently managing one in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Although there are distribution issues, it is unlikely that Chinese manufacturers will have problems with scale, according to analysts and those who have worked in the industry.
Sinovac and Sinopharm, which make the majority of the vaccines being distributed in China, have both aggressively ramped up production, building brand new factories and repurposing existing ones for COVID-19. Sinovac’s vaccine and one of the two Sinpharm makes have received an emergency authorization for use from the World Health Organization, but the companies, particularly Sinopharm, have faced criticism for their lack of transparency in sharing their data.
“What place in the world can compare with China on construction? How long did it take our temporary hospitals to be built?” asked Li Mengyuan, who leads pharmaceutical research at Western Securities, a financial firm. China built field hospitals at the beginning of the pandemic in just days.
Read: China, Philippines swap protests over Manila-occupied island
Sinovac has said it has doubled its production capacity to 2 billion doses a year, while Sinopharm has said it can make up to 3 billion doses a year. But Sinopharm has not disclosed recent numbers of how many doses it actually has made, and a spokesman for the company did not respond to a request for comment. Sinovac has produced 540 million doses this year as of late May, the company said on Friday.
Government support has been crucial for vaccine developers every step of the way — as it has in other countries — but, as with everything, the scope and scale in China is different.
Yang Xiaoming, chairman of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group, recounted to state media recently how the company initially needed to borrow lab space from a government research center while it was working on a vaccine.
“We sent our samples over, there was no need to discuss money, we just did it,” he said.
Chinese vaccine companies also largely do not rely on imported products in the manufacturing process. That’s an enormous benefit at a time when many countries are scrambling for the same materials and means China can likely avoid what happened to the Serum Institute of India, whose production was hobbled because of dependence on imports from the U.S. for certain ingredients.
But as the availability of the vaccine increases so, too, can the pressure to take it.
In Beijing, one researcher at a university said the school’s Communist Party cell calls him once a month to ask him if he has gotten vaccinated yet, and offers to help him make an appointment.
Read:China may buckle down to reunify Taiwan after crackdown on Hong Kong
He has so far declined to get a shot because he would prefer the Pfizer vaccine, saying he trusts its data. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns he could face repercussions at his job at a government university for publicly questioning the Chinese vaccines.
China has not yet approved Pfizer for use, and the researcher is not sure how long he can hold out — although the government has, for now, cautioned against making vaccines mandatory outright.
“They don’t have to say it is mandatory,” Yip, the public health expert, said. “They’re not going to announce that it’s required to have the vaccine, but they can put pressure on you.”
Doctors for raising tobacco tax to protect public health
Scores of prominent doctors have urged the government to hike tobacco tax in the budget to protect public health.
In a joint statement on Friday, initiated by Dhaka Ahsania Mission, 121 doctors said tobacco was involved in six of the eight leading causes of preventable death worldwide.
The statement noted that cigarettes are very cheap and readily available in the market due to the multi-layered tax structure of cigarettes in Bangladesh depending on the features and brands.
As a result, consumers are able to choose cheaper cigarettes instead of quitting, and the use of cigarettes has been relatively similar in recent years. The availability of tobacco products must be reduced through tax increases, said the doctors.
Also read: Speakers want specific taxes imposed to increase price of tobacco products
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), tobacco users have a 57 percent higher risk of developing tobacco-related diseases such as heart disease, stroke, COPD or lung cancer, and a 109 percent higher risk of other tobacco-related cancers.
According to the statement, more than 1,61,000 people die of tobacco-related diseases every year in Bangladesh.
Antimicrobial resistance can even threaten food security: PM Hasina
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) will not only endanger human, animal and plant health, but also threaten food security and the progress achieved in SDGs.
"The Covid-19 pandemic is the defining public health crisis of our time that has already taken more than three million lives. However, the impending pandemic, in the form of antimicrobial resistance, will cause even more harm to the global health," she said.
The Prime Minister said this in her pre-recorded video message in the 'One Health Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (GLG-AMR)' as co-chair with Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley.
Sheikh Hasina said antimicrobial resistance can affect anyone, regardless of geographical location and socioeconomic condition.
Also read: PM Hasina suggests 5 actions to deal with drug-resistant diseases
"For AMR containment, we’ve to ensure strict adherence to Infection Prevention and Control-IPC measures. That’s possible through implementation of Global Action Plan-2015 on AMR and 2016 UN political declaration on AMR," she said.
In this regard, she put forward seven suggestions for addressing the challenges of AMR which is crucial for preventing future pandemics.
These include: Setting up of global, regional, and national targets and inclusive monitoring as well as reporting system to achieve the goals of ARC, developing guidelines and policies at different tiers for the appropriate use of antimicrobials and Sharing of scientific knowledge and technical assistance for ensuring effective and inclusive AMR surveillance and capacity building.
The others are: Ensuring equitable access to affordable and effective antibiotics and other medical facilities through technology transfer and sharing of ownership, sufficient and sustainable financing for AMR-specific and AMR-sensitive actions with special attention to low- and middle-income countries, public-private partnerships for investment in AMR containment; and inclusive, affordable and sustainable universal health care coverage.
Also read: People’s lives come first: PM Hasina
Talking about Bangladesh, she said the government has adopted numerous initiatives to ensure effective antimicrobial usage at the domestic level.
"We’ve developed a six-year National Strategic Plan and National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance Containment (ARC)," she said.
The Prime Minister said the plans aim to ensure rational use of antimicrobials in human health, livestock, fisheries, and agricultural sector.
She said Bangladesh is providing AMR data to WHO GLASS platform from 2019.
Besides, she said, the government is also involving the media to increase awareness among the mass people about the antimicrobial resistance.
Also read: Covid-19: Hasina for balancing livelihoods and public health
Hasina, as the co-chair of the Global Leaders Group on AMR, reiterated her call to the global leaders to establish AMR as a top priority issue in the political agenda to combat the threat of AMR and create a universal health care system.
The Prime Minister iterated her commitment to work together with the Prime Minister of Barbados as the co-chair of the Global Leaders Group on AMR.
She also appreciated the ongoing efforts of WHO, FAO, and OIE to formulate global strategies for tackling the upcoming challenges of AMR through a comprehensive and collaborative approach with diverse stakeholders.
After lives & livelihoods: Covid strikes at culture, with Pahela Baishakh forced indoors
The country will be forced to abandon its traditional Bengali New Year celebration on April 14 for a second consecutive year, as the local outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic witnesses a resurgence, forcing the festive occasion of Pahela Baishakh to be welcomed and celebrated once again through online platforms and symbolic programmes like the last year.
Although millions are bound to be disappointed by the turn of events, most of them would not be surprised that it came to such a pass, where the year 1428 in the Bengali calendar will be ushered in by most people indoors, same as 1427 was a year ago.
With its celebration of the changing of the seasons, rooted in nature through its relation with the spring harvest, and rife with symbolism drawn from the region's flora and fauna, Pahela Baishakh is an essentially outdoor event. No one can look forward to recreating any of its traditional magic in an indoor setting. Besides, Covid restrictions mean very few can even gather under the same roof to be with their near and dear ones at least.
Renowned cultural organizations and institutions including Chhayanaut, the Faculty of Fine Arts (FFA) of Dhaka University, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA), Liberation War Museum Bangladesh (LWM) and more will observe the day with online-based festivities and programmes, to welcome the new calendar year 1428.
Also read: People’s lives come first: PM Hasina
The marquee events of the dawn are the traditional Borsho-Boron programme by Chhayanaut at Ramna Batamul in the capital and the Mangal Shobhajatra parade of the Faculty of Fine Arts (FFA), Dhaka University, which will not be arranged live this year.
However, both Chhayanaut and FFA have informed UNB that they are going to showcase pre-recorded programmes on national televisions in the morning.
First observed in 1989 by FFA as a colourful procession celebrating the Bengali New Year with the participation of people from all walks of life, the annual Mangal Shobhajatra has received the recognition of UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage on November 30, 2016.
With the theme "Kal Bhoyankorer Beshe, Abar Oi Ashe Sundor", FFA was forwarding to celebrate this year's procession and started preparation for making props on April 6, as it could not organize the parade last year due to the lockdown and COVID-19 restrictions.
Also read: Bangladesh’s complete lockdown set to begin on Apr 14; notification issued
Unfortunately, plans for organizing the large procession this year had to be cut down, and instead of cancelling the event, FFA has pre-recorded a symbolic programme at the premises of the Faculty of Fine Arts.
"Initially, the Dhaka University authorities decided to arrange a symbolic event on FFA premises on the day of Pahela Baishakh, as it has always been culturally very significant and this year marks the Golden Jubilee of our Independence. As per the government's directive regarding the lockdown restrictions to curve the ongoing pandemic, we decided and pre-recorded a symbolic Mangal Shobhajatra for 1428 on a very limited scale at the premises of FFA with the participation of our State Minister for Cultural Affairs and fewer than 20 people, showcasing our banner and 100 prop items made by our students and teachers including face shields and masks," Nisar Hossain, Dean of the FFA, told UNB on Tuesday.
The press and electronic media were not allowed to broadcast the recording, however, The DU authority will provide a video and press elements of the programme to the press and electronic media tomorrow, he informed.
Also read: Covid-19 in Bangladesh: 69 more die, 6,028 infected
On Monday, Chhayanaut general secretary Laisa Ahmed Lisa stated, “As we could not celebrate Pahela Baishakh 1427 through arranging our traditional cultural festivity under the banyan tree at Ramna Park, we had been preparing and rehearsing to organize the festivity this year without the crowd at the venue and also we had plans to pre-record the programme if the situation restricts us to arrange on that day. Sadly, as we have been observing the recent surge of the pandemic and also as some of our artists are being infected with COVID-19 - we have decided to broadcast this year’s festivity through a special collaborative programme with Bangladesh Television (BTV) as last year."
“The programme will broadcast from 7 am to 8 am, and it will be showcasing a compilation of some of the new and previous performances of Chhayanaut artists, and this year we are featuring performances focusing on the Golden Jubilee of our glorious Independence. Aside from BTV, Chhayanaut will also broadcast the programme on its YouTube Channel Chhayanaut Digital - Platform," she added.
Also read: Chhayanaut cancels Pahela Baishakh festivities at Ramna, goes back to virtual celebration with BTV
Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) will broadcast a live webinar and cultural programme on its official Facebook page and YouTube channel from 11 pm onwards, which is scheduled to be joined by former Cultural Affairs Minister and eminent thespian Asaduzzaman Noor as its chief guest.
BSA Director General Liaquat Ali Lucky will preside over the virtual event, which will also be joined by prominent eductator and writer prof Syed Manzoorul Islam as the speaker and renowned cultural personalities including Nazrul Sangeet maestro Khairul Anam Shakil, folk singer Akramul Islam, Rabindra Sangeet singer Lily Islam, performing students from the Govt Music College and more.
Liberation War Museum (LWM) will also broadcast a virtual programme on its official Facebook page at 11 am.
Also read: Pahela Baishakh celebrated without outdoor programmes
Wrishiz Shilpi Goshthi will arrange an online programme on Facebook as well. It will be broadcast at 9 am on Pahela Baishakh, according to legendary folk icon Fakir Alamgir, President of the cultural group.
Earlier, the government restricted all sorts of outdoor celebrations of Pahela Baishakh and asked to organize virtual events for online celebrations. Therefore, all the major outdoor celebrations of Pahela Baishakh are called off for the second consecutive year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
This year, April 14 also marks the first day of Ramadan in Bangladesh and some other Muslim countries in the world.