Australia s tough border closure with India is working to reduce the number of positive coronavirus cases in Australia, Scott Morrison said today.
Direct commercial flights from India were banned last week as the nation of 1.4 billion battles a surge in illnesses and death, with 357,229 fresh cases on Tuesday.
Chartered rescue flights were suspended until May 15 after the Howard Springs quarantine facility near Darwin suffered an explosion of cases among returned travellers from India.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in Townsville, Mr Morrison said the travel ban was working to keep Australians safe
After the ban was implemented on April 27, there have been only two new cases in the facility and none since April 30.
India’s virus deaths surge again; global aid flown in
DESPERATE SEARCH: ’We rushed to multiple hospitals, but were denied admission everywhere,’ said the son of an 84-year-old woman, who ended up dying at home
AFP, KOLKATA, India
India’s COVID-19 disaster yesterday deepened with its daily death toll surpassing 3,600, as more international aid was flown in, with the US sending nearly 1 million test kits.
This week, the US and several European countries have started to ease restrictions, following successful vaccination campaigns, but the COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen in many parts of the world.
Among the most devastating of those waves is in India, where the death and infection rates have been rising exponentially throughout this month.
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Negligent manslaughter.
That’s the only way to describe the Modi government’s abominable, grotesque mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. India has passed the grim milestone of 200,000 dead. Every day, more than 350,000 Indians are added to the 18 million COVID cases already recorded.
Every four minutes someone dies of COVID in the nation’s capital, Delhi with infection rates spiking among younger people. Hospitals are overflowing: often, two COVID patients share a bed.
Beset by oxygen shortages, hospitals are sending SOS tweets begging the government for supplies. There’s looting of oxygen canisters from hospitals at gunpoint. Haryana’s Health Minister accused the Delhi government of stealing his state’s oxygen tankers. State governments have deployed armed police at oxygen production plants.
Push for grandparents and parents of Australians to be allowed into the country dailymail.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailymail.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will immediately be made available for India, a White House statement said.
Washington has also identified supplies of therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that will immediately be made available for India, the statement, from National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne, said.
But it did not mention whether the US would send millions of surplus AstraZeneca vaccine doses to India, after top US pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci said Sunday that would be considered.
The United States has around 30 million doses of the low-cost AstraZeneca vaccine that are not approved for use in the country, and Fauci told ABC s This Week news program the idea of sending them to India will be something that is up for active consideration.