COVID-19
Bangladesh reports 10 more Covid cases
Bangladesh reported 10 more Covid cases in the 24 hours to Friday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,240, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,440 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily case test positivity dropped to 0.39 percent from Thursday’s 0.46 percent as 2,596 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality rate and the recovery rate remained unchanged at 1.45 and 97.60 percent.
Read more: Bangladesh reports zero Covid death, 22 new cases
In December last year, the country reported seven Covid-linked deaths and 540 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 in 2021 and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 the same year.
Is China sharing enough COVID-19 information?
As COVID-19 rips through China, other countries and the World Health Organization are calling on its government to share more comprehensive data on the outbreak. Some even say many of the numbers it's reporting are meaningless.
Without basic data like the number of deaths, infections and severe cases, governments elsewhere have instituted virus testing requirements for travelers from China. Beijing has said the measures aren't science-based and threatened countermeasures.
Of greatest concern is whether new variants will emerge from the mass infection unfolding in China and spread to other countries. The delta and omicron variants developed in places that also had large outbreaks, which can be a breeding ground for new variants.
Read More: WHO 'continues to urge' China to share more data amid Covid surge
Here's a look at what's going on with China's COVID-19 data:
WHAT IS CHINA SHARING AND NOT SHARING?
Chinese health authorities publish a daily count of new cases, severe cases and deaths, but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and use a very narrow definition of COVID-related deaths.
China is most certainly doing their own sampling studies but just not sharing them, said Ray Yip, who founded the U.S. Centers for Disease Control office in China.
The nationwide tally for Thursday was 9,548 new cases and five deaths, but some local governments are releasing much higher estimates just for their jurisdictions. Zhejiang, a province on the east coast, said Tuesday it was seeing about 1 million new cases a day.
If a variant emerges in an outbreak, it's found through genetic sequencing of the virus.
Since the pandemic started, China has shared 4,144 sequences with GISAID, a global platform for coronavirus data. That's only 0.04% of its reported number of cases — a rate more than 100 times less than the United States and nearly four times less than neighboring Mongolia.
Read more: Beijing threatens response to ‘unacceptable’ virus measures
WHAT IS KNOWN AND WHAT CAN BE FIGURED OUT?
So far, no new variants have shown up in the sequences shared by China. The versions fueling infections in China “closely resemble” those that have been seen in other parts of the world since July, GISAID said. Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College of Vellore in India, agreed, saying there wasn’t anything particularly worrisome in the data so far.
That hasn't stopped at least 10 countries — including the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, the U.K., France, Spain and Italy — from announcing virus testing requirements for passengers from China. The European Union strongly encouraged all its member states to do so this week.
Health officials have defended the testing as a surveillance measure that helps fill an information gap from China. This means countries can get a read on any changes in the virus through testing, even if they don’t have complete data from China.
“We don’t need China to study that, all we have to do is to test all the people coming out of China,” said Yip, the former public health official.
Canada and Belgium said they will look for viral particles in wastewater on planes arriving from China.
“It is like an early warning system for authorities to anticipate whether there’s a surge of infections coming in,” said Dr. Khoo Yoong Khean, a scientific officer at the Duke-NUS Centre for Outbreak Preparedness in Singapore.
Read More: EU, Beijing heading for collision over China’s COVID crisis
IS CHINA SHARING ENOUGH INFORMATION?
Chinese officials have repeatedly said they are sharing information, pointing to the sequences given to GISAID and meetings with the WHO.
But WHO officials have repeatedly asked for more — not just on genetic sequencing but also on hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern this week about the risk to life in China.
“Data remains essential for WHO to carry out regular, rapid and robust risk assessments of the global situation,” the head of the U.N. health agency said.
The Chinese government often holds information from its own public, particularly anything that reflects negatively on the ruling Communist Party. State media have shied away from the dire reports of a spike in cremations and people racing from hospital to hospital to try to get treatment as the health system reaches capacity. Government officials have accused foreign media of hyping the situation.
Khoo, noting that South Africa’s early warning about omicron led to bans on travelers from the country, said there is a need to foster an environment where countries can share data without fear of repercussions.
Read More: Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern
Beds run out at Beijing hospital as COVID brings more sick
Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China’s capital Beijing.
The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city’s east was packed with newly arrived patients on Thursday. By midmorning beds had run out, even as ambulances continued to bring those in need.
Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.
The surge in severely ill people needing hospital care follows China abandonment of its most severe pandemic restrictions last month after nearly three years of lockdowns, travels bans and school closures that weighed heavily on the economy and prompted street protests not seen since the late 1980s.
It also comes as the the European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its member states to impose pre-departure COVID-19 testing of passengers from China.
Over the past week, EU nations have reacted with a variety of restrictions toward travelers from China, disregarding an earlier commitment to act in unity.
Italy — where the pandemic first exacted a heavy toll in Europe in early 2020 — was the first EU member to require coronavirus tests for airline passengers coming from China, but France and Spain quickly followed with their own measures. That followed the imposition by the U.S. of a requirement that all passengers from China show a negative test result obtained in the previous 48 hours before departure.
China has warned of “countermeasures” if such policies were to be imposed across the bloc.
Still, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday he was concerned about the lack of outbreak data from the Chinese government.
China has sought to get more of its elderly population vaccinated, but those efforts have been hampered by past scandals involving fake medications and previous warnings about adverse reactions to the vaccines among older people.
China’s domestically developed vaccines are also considered less effective than the mRNA jabs used elsewhere.
Global Covid-19 cases so far near 667 million
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases is gradually nearing 667 million, with the sudden surge of the virus’ sub-variant in Asia.
According to latest global data, the total case count mounted to 666,603,048 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,703,798 this morning.
The US has recorded 102,963,370 cases so far, while 1,120,040 people have died from the virus in the country, both highest counts around the world.
India reported 141 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, taking the caseload to 44,680,402.
Read more: EU, Beijing heading for collision over China’s COVID crisis
With no deaths reported across the country during this period, India’s Covid death toll remained static at 530,707.
Meanwhile, France has registered 39,356,184 Covid-19 cases so far, occupying the third position, while 162,377 people have died in the country, as per the Worldometer.
The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that the agency is “concerned about the risk to life in China” amid the coronavirus’ explosive spread across the country and the lack of outbreak data from the Chinese government, reports AP.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency recently met with Chinese officials to underline the importance of sharing more details about Covid-19 issues including hospitalisation rates and genetic sequences, even as the pandemic continues to recede globally since it began in late 2019.
Read more: Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern
The WHO said Chinese scientists have now shared more than 770 sequences, with omicron subvariants BA.5 and its descendants accounting for more than 97% of all local infections. Globally, BA.5 variants comprise about 68% of all sequences.
China reported 9,308 Covid cases in the last 24 hours till Thursday morning, taking the caseload to 461,825. With one more death, the country’s death toll stands at 5,259.
Covid-19 in Bangladesh
Bangladesh registered 21 more Covid-19 cases in 24 hours till Wednesday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,208, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read More: Beijing threatens response to ‘unacceptable’ virus measures
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,440 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily case test positivity fell to 0.62 percent from Tuesday's 0.74 percent as 3,404 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality and recovery rates remained unchanged at 1.45 percent and 97.59 per cent, respectively, it added.
Read More: 1st case of Omicron sub-variant BF.7 detected in Bangladesh
Global Covid cases top 666 million
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases has now surpassed 666 million.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 666,001,230 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,700,964 on Wednesday morning.
The US has recorded 102,747,552 cases so far, while 1,118,757 people have died from the virus in the country, both highest counts around the world.
Read: Beijing threatens response to ‘unacceptable’ virus measures
India reported 134 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, with the active caseload standing at 2,582.
No Covid-19 related death has been reported across the country during the past 24 hours..
Meanwhile, France has registered 39,356,184 Covid-19 cases so far, while 162,377 people have died in the country, as per the Worldometer.
Covid in Bangladesh
Bangladesh registered 31 more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,187, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,440 as no new fatalities were reported.
Read: Children aged 5-11 get Covid jabs on trial basis
The daily case test positivity fell to 0.74 per cent from Monday's 0.84 per cent as 4,189 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.45 percent while recovery rate rose to 97.59 per cent, it added.
Beijing threatens response to ‘unacceptable’ virus measures
The Chinese government sharply criticized COVID-19 testing requirements imposed on passengers from China and threatened countermeasures against countries involved, which include the U.S. and several European nations.
“We believe that the entry restrictions adopted by some countries targeting China lack scientific basis, and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing Tuesday.
“We are firmly opposed to attempts to manipulate the COVID measures for political purposes and will take countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity,” she said. Mao did not specify what steps China might take.
The comments were China’s sharpest to date on the issue. Australia and Canada this week joined a growing list of countries requiring travelers from China to take a COVID-19 test prior to boarding their flight, as China battles a nationwide outbreak of the coronavirus after abruptly easing restrictions that were in place for much of the pandemic.
Other countries including the U.S., U.K., India, Japan and several European nations have announced tougher COVID-19 measures on travelers from China amid concerns over a lack of data on infections in China and fears of the possibility that new variants may emerge.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne defended the tests. Starting Wednesday, anyone flying from China to France will have to present a negative virus test taken within the previous 48 hours and be subject to random testing on arrival.
“We are in our role, my government is in its role, protecting the French,” Borne said Tuesday on France-Info radio.
The U.K. will require that passengers from China take a COVID test before boarding the plane from Thursday. Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the requirement is for “collecting information” because Beijing isn’t sharing coronavirus data.
Health officials will test a sample of passengers when they arrive in the U.K., but no quarantine is required for those who test positive, he said.
“The policy for arrivals from China is primarily about collecting information that the Chinese government is not sharing with the international community,” Harper told the LBC radio station on Tuesday.
Sweden’s Public Health Agency said Tuesday that it had urged the government to require travelers from China to present a recent negative COVID-19 test.
The statement from the agency comes as Sweden, which has taken over EU’s rotating presidency, has called a meeting of the EU’s crisis management mechanism for Wednesday to try to agree on a common European line.
Read more: Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern
The Swedish government “is preparing to be able to introduce travel restrictions. At the same time, we are conducting a dialogue with our European colleagues to get the same rules as possible in the EU,” Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said in a statement.
Austria, too, plans to test the wastewater of all planes arriving from China for new variants of the coronavirus, the Austria Press Agency reported Tuesday, following a similar announcement by Belgium a day earlier.
Chinese health officials said last week that they had submitted data to GISAID, a global platform for sharing coronavirus data.
The versions of the virus fueling infections in China “closely resemble” those that have been seen in different parts of the world between July and December, GISAID said Monday.
Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses in the Christian Medical College of Vellore in India, said that the information from China, albeit limited, seemed to suggest that “the pattern was holding” and that there wasn’t any sign of a worrisome variant emerging.
Mao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said that health authorities had recently held a video conference with the WHO to exchange views on the current COVID situation, medical treatment, vaccination and other technical issues, and agreed to continue technical exchanges to help end the pandemic as soon as possible.
A senior Hong Kong official also criticized the steps taken by some other countries. Some countries have applied the requirements to passengers from Hong Kong and Macao, both semiautonomous Chinese territories, as well as mainland China.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Eric Chan said in a Facebook post that the government had written to various consulates on Monday to express its concerns over the “unnecessary and inappropriate” rules.
Some Canadian experts have questioned the effectiveness of the testing. Kerry Bowman, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, said that people can test positive long after entering the country.
The requirement is “not based on science at this point,” he said after Canada announced measures last weekend.
Read more: China to resume issuing passports, visas as virus curbs ease
China, which for most of the pandemic adopted a “zero-COVID” strategy that imposed harsh restrictions aimed at stamping out the virus, abruptly eased those measures in December.
Chinese authorities previously said that from Jan. 8, overseas travelers would no longer need to quarantine upon arriving in China, paving the way for Chinese residents to travel.
Move on from COVID? Child care disruptions continue
Forty-seven. That’s how many days of child care Kathryn Anne Edwards’ 3-year-old son has missed in the past year.
RSV, COVID-19 and two bouts of the dreaded preschool scourge of hand, foot and mouth disease struck one after another. The illnesses were so disruptive that the labor economist quit her full-time job at the Rand Corp., a think tank. She switched last month to independent contract work to give her more flexibility to care for her son and 4-month-old daughter.
In the first and even second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, multi-week quarantines and isolations were common for many Americans, especially children. But nine weeks of missed child care, nearly three years in?
“The rest of the world has moved on from the crisis that I’m still in,” said Edwards, who studies women’s issues. “That’s sometimes how it feels like to me.”
This fall and winter have upended life for working parents of little children, who thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. The arrival of vaccines for younger children and the end of quarantines for COVID exposure were supposed to bring relief.
Instead, families were treated to what some called a “tripledemic.” Flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus cases collided, stressing children’s hospitals and threatening the already imperiled child care system. Even parents of babies with less serious cases of COVID-19 have run into 10-day isolation rules that have taxed the patience of employers.
A record-high 104,000 people missed work in October because of child care problems, surpassing even early pandemic levels, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. Child care-related absences fell to 59,000 in November, but numbers still surpass typical pre-pandemic levels.
The instability has hurt many working parents’ finances. Most of those who missed work in October because of child care problems didn’t get paid, according to an analysis from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
Now, doctors are bracing for the number of sick children to rise after families gathered for the holidays.
“I think we’re going to have to be ready to do it all over again,” said Dr. Eric Biondi, director of pediatric hospital medicine at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Maryland.
Illnesses among teachers and children have strained a child care system that’s already short-staffed.
“This is the worst year I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” said Shaunna Baillargeon, owner of Muddy Puddles Early Learning Program in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. She faces “a constant battle of staff and children being sick with a different virus every day,” with no backups if a teacher calls in sick.
At the Washington, D.C., day care where Jana Williams teaches, illness has caused classroom shutdowns almost weekly since October. Her 19-month-old daughter is also enrolled there, coming down with the same viruses.
“It’s stressful,” she said before Christmas, when she was home with her sick toddler. “You want to stay home and care for your child. But then it’s like, you have to get to work.”
Read more: Global Covid cases near 634 million
During the early months of the pandemic, women in the prime of their careers left the labor market at a rate far exceeding men. They were more likely to work in the service-oriented fields that were decimated, and they often were caring for children, Edwards said.
Women have since returned to the workforce, particularly women of color, said economist Diane Swonk of professional services firm KPMG.
But the participation of prime-age working women in the U.S. lags most industrialized nations, Swonk said. Advocates have long blamed the country’s lack of universal preschool and paid family leave.
Finding child care and heading back to work has proved far from simple. At the pandemic’s height, more than one-third of day care jobs were lost, Edwards said. Staffing hasn’t fully recovered. As of November, the country had 8% fewer child care workers than before the pandemic, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
The strong labor market has driven up the cost to hire new workers. That means child care spots are pricey and hard to find. Even centers with openings may close when staff or kids are sick.
That babies and toddlers are prone to illnesses adds to the challenge. In the wake of COVID, day cares are more anxious about accepting a snotty toddler.
Isolation guidelines have hit parents of babies especially hard. While older preschoolers who have COVID-19 may return with masks after five days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children under 2 stay home for 10 days, or until they test negative twice, 48 hours apart.
Read more: COVID-19: US vaccine donations to Bangladesh exceed 100 million
One issue is masks aren’t recommended for the under-2 crowd. Their smaller airways mean wearing them can increase the risk of suffocation, according to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio.
Not all centers are adhering to the CDC’s guidance. But many are following it to the letter, or even going further.
When Chicago educator Tamisha Holifield and her daughter had COVID-19 in May, the toddler had to miss 15 days of child care. Bouts of colds have followed, in what Holifield described as a “constant whirlwind” of sickness that has been stressful both financially and emotionally.
“It’s a major inconvenience. But I’m a single parent, so I don’t have a choice. If I drop the ball, the game is over,” Holifield said.
Disruption from illness can have ripple effects on young kids. Unduly stressed parents can become a stress on the baby, which can in turn cause sleep, gastrointestinal or socialization problems, said Dr. Sherri Alderman, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician.
The situation has also strained employers. Brad Lukas, chief nursing officer at Corewell Health Beaumont Grosse Pointe Hospital in Michigan, has seen eight or nine nurses calling out per shift, some because of sick children.
“We’re seeing a lot of people reduce their hours,” Lukas said. His own wife cut back nursing shifts so she can mostly stay home with their young children.
The continued chaos for young families is isolating, especially when other Americans’ lives are back to normal, said Lauren Hipp, early learning chief at MomsRising, an advocacy organization.
“I feel pretty angry about it,” said Hipp, whose own 2-, 6- and 8-year-old children have been wracked with illnesses, including RSV. “To feel like society has passed you by is a really difficult and lonely feeling.”
Bangladesh logs 31 more Covid cases
Bangladesh registered 31 more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,187, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read more: Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,440 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily case test positivity fell to 0.74 per cent from Monday's 0.84 per cent as 4,189 samples were tested during the period.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.45 percent while recovery rate rose to 97.59 per cent, it added.
Read more: Cautionary measures taken at Sonamasjid land port to prevent new sub-variant of Covid-19
In December last year, the country reported seven Covid-linked deaths and 540 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 in 2021 and daily fatalities of 264 on August 5 the same year.
Global Covid cases surpass 665 million
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases has now crossed 665 million.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 665,546,183 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,699,015 on Tuesday morning.
The US has recorded 102,686,752 cases so far, while 1,118,478 people have died from the virus in the country, both highest counts around the world.
Read: Revellers throng to New Year’s parties after COVID hiatus
India reported 173 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, with the active caseload standing at 2,670.
The country also logged two more deaths related to COVID-19, taking the death toll to 530,707 since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.
According to data released on Monday morning by the federal health ministry, a total of 44,145,445 COVID-19 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals.
Read: Lack of info on China’s COVID-19 surge stirs global concern
Meanwhile, Singapore reported 390 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total tally to 2,203,146.
One new death from COVID-19 was reported on Monday, pushing the total death toll to 1,712.
Covid in Bangladesh
Bangladesh registered 14 more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Monday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,156, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,440 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily case test positivity fell to 0.84 per cent from Sunday's 1.07 per cent as 1,667 samples were tested during the period.
Bangladesh logs 17 more Covid cases
Bangladesh reported 17 more Covid cases in the 24 hours till Sunday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,037,142, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case test positivity fell to 1.07 from Saturday’s 1.27 percent as 1,585 samples were tested during the period.
Also Read: Covid-19: Bangladesh registers another death, 23 cases
The mortality and recovery rate remained unchanged at 1.45 percent and 97.59 percent respectively, it added.
In November, the country reported 10 Covid-linked deaths and 1,345 cases.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 the same year.