Read more about From exporter of vaccine to importer: Priyanka Gandhi taks dig at govt on Business Standard. Amid unprecedented surge in Covid cases, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday attacked the government for exporting vaccine without having sufficient stock
Facing a sudden surge in coronavirus infections, India is once again home to the world’s second-largest outbreak, overtaking Brazil after the latter moved ahead in March. But behind the bleak statistical jockeying is an epidemiological enigma over why the Latin American country has been far more devastated by the pathogen. When it comes to the scale of infections, the two nations are similarly matched, with cases hovering around 14 million and hospitals from Mumbai to Sao Paulo under increasing pressure as admissions continue to rise. But it’s the divergence in fatalities that has scientists puzzled. Brazil, home to almost 214 million, has seen more than 365,000 people die from Covid-19, more than double the number of deaths in India, which has a far greater population of 1.4 billion.
Read more about Second Covid-19 wave poses threat to India s economic recovery: Moody s on Business Standard. Given the focus on "micro-containment zones" to deal with the latest wave of infections, as opposed to a nationwide lockdown, the impact on economic activity will be less severe than that seen in 2020
Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray will on Friday meet senior civil servants to discuss the state’s spurt in Covid-19 cases, said news agency ANI. The state on Thursday reported 43,183 new Covid-19 cases and 249 deaths, making the numbers the highest one-day rise since the pandemic began. It was the state’s highest number of deaths since October. Mayor Kishori Pednekar on Thursday said that Mumbai may announce restrictions from April 2, claiming people do not listen to safety precautions. Hotels could be asked to operate at 50 per cent seating capacity and religious places might be shut completely. Mumbai reported 8,646 cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, making it the highest one-day spike since the pandemic hit the city early last year. The city reported 18 deaths in the last 24 hours.
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases has surpassed the grim milestone of 120 million as the pandemic is still raging, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.65 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University. In its latest update on Tuesday morning, the University s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 120,180,835 and 2,659,623, respectively. The US is the worst-hit country with the world s highest number of cases and deaths at 29,492,616 and 535,596, respectively, according to the CSSE. Brazil follows in the second place with 11,519,609 cases and 279,286 fatalities. The other countries with more than a million confirmed coronavirus cases are India (11,385,339), Russia (4,350,728), the UK (4,276,840), France (4,132,104), Italy (3,238,394), Spain (3,195,062), Turkey (2,894,893), Germany (2,585,385), Colombia (2,305,884), Argentina (2,201,886), Mexico (2,166,290), Poland (1,917,527),