[ad_1]
Topline
India is now reporting more daily coronavirus cases than any other country in the world, averaging above 60,000 cases each day, putting it ahead of Brazil and the U.S. as the pandemic continues to steadily climb in the country.
India has continued to see steady growth in Covid-19 cases as lockdown measures have been eased … [+]
Key Facts
According to data from the New York Times, India has reported an average of more than 66,000 cases over the past week, with numbers nearly reaching 70,000 last Friday.
Cases in Brazil and the United States, which were previously dealing with larger outbreaks, seem to have peaked in late July, steadily declining since.
India, which imposed one of the strictest lockdowns at the start of the outbreak, has seen daily case counts grow steadily since April with no clear sign of a peak.
Several top political leaders in the country including the country’s Home Minister Amit Shah, former President Pranab Mukherjee, and many other union and state ministers have tested positive for the virus, with the 84-year-old former president being put on ventilator support.
India’s problem has been compounded by poor availability of healthcare resources in rural parts of the country where nearly 600 million Indians live.
Drugmaker Serum Institute of India has begun Phase-I trials of ‘Covishield’, a licensed version of the vaccine candidate that is being developed by Oxford University and Astrazeneca.
Key Background
india, which now has the third-highest caseload in the world after the u.s. and brazil, initially took some of the strictest measures to slow the spread of the virus, implementing a nationwide lockdown that was deemed the world’s largest. while the lockdown was effective at first, keeping case counts low, it severely impacted the country’s poorest. the lockdown left millions of migrant workers stranded in cities, with no income and no means to return to their home villages. most eventually walked hundreds of miles back home, likely taking the virus with them to india’s rural regions.
Tangent
The WHO reported on tuesday that while the rise in cases and deaths from covid-19 have slowed globally, southeast asia and the eastern mediterranean regions are still seeing an increase. the world body added that southeast asia, has reported a jump accounting for 28% of new cases and 15% of deaths in the past week.
Further Reading
Pandemic pace slows worldwide except for southeast Asia, eastern Mediterranean, WHO says (Reuters)
How India’s fast-growing cases topped 3 million (Associated Press)
[ad_2]
Source link