Covid: WHO says virus strain in India a variant of concern as Europe eases curbs
AFP/Geneva
Photo: AFP
The devastating wave has overwhelmed India’s healthcare system, and experts have said official figures for cases are much lower than the actual numbers.
Schools and stores reopened in parts of Europe on Monday, easing out of months of Covid-19 lockdowns, but the devastating outbreak raged on across the sub-continent and health experts declared the virus mutation in India a “variant of concern”.
The World Health Organization in Geneva said the B.1.617 variant spreading in India appears to be more contagious.
People gather in a macrobotellon (drinking and dancing session) on a street, as the state of emergency decreed by the Spanish Government to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) gets lifted in Barcelona. Spain, May 10, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce
MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government and opposition blamed each other on Monday after crowds of mostly maskless youths partied in the streets of Madrid and Barcelona when a state of emergency imposed to curb the pandemic ended at the weekend.
Imposed last October amid an alarming second wave of infections, the state of emergency allowed the temporary suspension of some civil liberties, including a nationwide curfew and local travel bans.
The Spanish government believes that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is now over, and that there is no need to extend the state of alarm. The emergency situation, which had been in place for six months and gave the regions the legal backing they needed to limit fundamental rights such as movement, officially came to an end at 12am Sunday morning. Regional chiefs, however, many of whom are from different political stripes than the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos coalition government, have complained that they have been left high and dry in this new situation and do not have the necessary tools to control the epidemic.
Schools and stores reopened in parts of Europe on Monday, easing out of months of Covid-19 lockdowns, but the devastating outbreak raged on across the sub-continent and health experts declared the virus mutation in India a “variant of concern”.
The World Health Organization in Geneva said the B.1.617 variant spreading in India appears to be more contagious and might possibly have some increased resistance to vaccine protections.
“As such, we are classifying this as a variant of concern at the global level,” said WHO’s Covid-19 lead Maria Van Kerkove.
The virus is still surging in many countries and the pandemic has killed close to 3.3 million people worldwide since late 2019, upending normal life and causing global economic chaos.
Spain’s government has called for “responsibility”, insisting health restrictions were still in place after weekend images showed people celebrating the state of emergency’s end without masks or social distancing.
The end of the state of emergency does not mean the end of restrictions. Far from it. The virus threat still exists,” Justice Minister Juan Carlos Campo wrote in an opinion piece in
El Pais daily.
“That’s why the authorities will continue to take action and the public must keep on behaving responsibly.”
After more than six months of curfews and a ban on travel between Spain’s 17 regions under a state of emergency which was imposed in late October, Spaniards were afforded new freedoms when the measure expired in the early hours of Sunday.