Covid-19: US President Biden needs to help India now
Joe Biden, President, USA - AP×
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India has become the terrifying new epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic. New cases have topped 300,000 daily and are still rising; the official death toll of over 2,000 per day is almost certainly an underestimate. Every hour brings horrifying new stories of mass cremations, overwhelmed testing centres, people dying while waiting for a hospital bed. The country desperately needs help — and the United States (US) should provide it.
To this point, the Biden administration has rebuffed pleas to share the huge US supply of vaccine doses with the rest of the world, making a slight exception only for neighbors Mexico and Canada. And India is hardly the only nation buffeted by a new wave of cases. Brazil’s official death toll is far higher. Many African countries are struggling to procure vaccines, whereas India boasts a homegrown pharmaceutical industry that can churn out tens of millions of doses.