coronavirus pandemic
China punishes 30 officials for pandemic failing
More than 30 Chinese officials have been fired or received other punishments over accusations they failed to respond properly to the latest surge of the coronavirus in the country.
Among those fired were a vice mayor, heads of city districts and health commissions, and staff in hospital management, airport and tourism departments.
Read:China pledges 2 billion vaccines globally through year’s end
China’s National Health Commission on Monday announced 94 new cases of domestic transmission had been recorded over the previous 24 hours.
The latest outbreak is linked to the airport in the eastern city of Nanjing. The highly contagious delta variant spread among airport workers and has since spread from tropical Hainan province in the south to Inner Mongolia in the far north.
Read:Thousands jam Philippine vaccination sites over false news
The outbreak has prompted renewed travel restrictions, community lockdowns and the sealing off of the entire city of Zhangjiajie, with a population of 1.5 million.
Covid Surge: Bangladesh sees 241 more deaths, 10,299 new cases
Covid-19 in Bangladesh continued its relentless havoc as the country saw 241 more deaths and 10,299 new cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning.
The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatality to 22,652 and the total caseload to 1,353,695, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The new cases were detected after testing 42,003 samples which lowered the country’s case positivity rate to 24.52% from Saturday’s 25.65%.
The country overwhelmed by the Delta variant Covid surge has been seeing over 200 deaths daily since July 25 while over 13,000 cases daily on average for a week.
However, the case fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.67% during the period, said the DGHS.
Besides, the recovery rate rose to 89.05% from 88.89 % with 16,627 new patients recovering from Covid-19 during this time.
Of the recent deaths, 105 people died in Dhaka alone, the highest ever in the division.
Deaths in Bangladesh’s capital on a single day crossed the grim landmark of 100 for the first time on Saturday with 101 deaths.
Read: Govt eases lockdown from Aug 11 with some guidelines to follow
Besides, 59 people died in Chattogram division, 30 in Khulna, 12 each in Rajshahi and Barishal, 10 in Rangpur, seven in Sylhet and six died in Mymensingh.
Of them, 128 were men and 113 women.
As per their age breakup, one was below 10 years, one between 11-20, nine between 21-30, 17 between 31-40, 28 between 41-50, 54 between 51-60, 70 between 61-70, 49 between 71-80, nine between 81-90 and three were between 91-100 years of age.
Govt eases lockdown from Aug 11 with some guidelines to follow
The government has decided to ease the ongoing nationwide lockdown from Aug. 11 with a few guidelines to follow in different sectors and people’s movement and gatherings.
The Cabinet Division issued a notification in this regard Sunday saying with some restrictions imposed during the lockdown will be lifted following the decision taken in an inter-ministerial meeting held on Aug. 3.
From August 11, all the government, private offices and banks will be opened following the health guidelines, said the notification issued on Sunday.
It said Bangladesh Supreme Court will issue necessary directives about the courts.
Read: Lockdown or no lockdown, life is the same in Dhaka
Road, railways and river transports will be allowed to carry passengers in full passenger capacity. However, in regard to road transports local administrations (Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners) are allowed to order half of the public transport to move every day after consulting with the relevant authorities and law enforcement forces.
Once lagging, Europe catches up to the US in vaccinations
Despite a sluggish start, the European Union’s COVID-19 vaccination drive has caught up to that of the United States, where the slowdown of the country’s once-vaunted campaign has contributed to the virus’s deadly comeback.
In mid-February, less than 4% of people living in the 27-nation EU were at least partially vaccinated against the coronavirus, compared with nearly 12% in the U.S, according to Our World in Data, an online science publication connected to the University of Oxford.
Read:Pizza for shots: UK targets young with vaccine incentives
Now the EU has surpassed the U.S. by that same measure, with some 60% of the bloc’s residents receiving at least one dose, versus less than 58% of Americans.
In Italy, where roughly 63% of people 12 and older are fully protected, Premier Mario Draghi took a victory lap this past week.
“I said that I don’t want to celebrate successes, but it must be said that Italy has inoculated more doses per 100 inhabitants than France, Germany, the United States,” he said as the country’s vaccine verification program went into effect Friday.
People in Italy must now show proof they have had at least one vaccine dose, recovered from COVID-19 or recently tested negative for the virus if they want to dine indoors, use gyms or go to concerts, theaters, museums and tourist sites such as the Colosseum.
European authorities attribute success in Italy and elsewhere to nationalized health care and a history of public confidence in the safety of immunizations.
The EU’s slow process for approving the vaccinations set the bloc back at the beginning, but that is now paying dividends because it is instilling more confidence in the rapidly developed formulas, said Dr. Peter Liese, a European Parliament member from Germany.
While the U.S. and Britain issued emergency authorizations of vaccines to get shots into arms quickly, the EU went through the longer process of granting full approvals, putting it weeks behind.
“I am convinced that we have a good argument to explain to people still hesitating that the vaccine was properly tested in Europe,” Liese said recently. “Now it becomes clear that not only the pace of vaccination in the first months but also the long-term strategy is important.”
The turnaround in Spain has been pronounced. In mid-April, when nearly a quarter of all Americans were fully vaccinated, only 7% of Spaniards were similarly protected, according to Our World in Data. Now, nearly 60% of Spain’s roughly 47 million people are fully vaccinated, while about half the U.S. is.
Portugal, with around 10 million people, had fully vaccinated around a third of its population by the end of June. Now officials say it is on track to reach 70% by the end of the summer.
Read:UK recognises Bangladesh's Dr Jara as 'Vaccine Luminary'
Like the American vaccination drive, the European Union effort started around Christmas and struggled to meet initial demand. But it quickly turned into a major political embarrassment for European officials, as the U.S. and Britain jumped ahead.
The major factor holding back the EU initially was its decision to purchase vaccines as a bloc instead of as individual countries. The move ensured smaller member nations weren’t left out, but it ended up taking more time to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, said Giovanna De Maio, a visiting fellow in international relations at George Washington University.
The U.S. was also more efficient in distributing the vaccine, quickly setting up large-scale vaccination sites and also supplying shots to neighborhood pharmacies, groceries and other places, while the EU initially focused on hospitals and other medical facilities, she said.
EU nations were also overly confident manufacturers would deliver. As it turned out, Astra-Zeneca failed to produce its shots on time and delivered a paltry number of doses. Concerns over its safety and effectiveness also contributed to vaccine skepticism. But with the major rollout of the Pfizer shot, things turned around.
Meanwhile, the U.S. vaccination effort peaked and then dropped off dramatically in the face of significant hesitancy and outright hostility, fueled by misinformation and partisan politics.
As of the end of July, the U.S. was dispensing under 600,000 shots a day on average, down from a peak of over 3.4 million a day in April. The highly contagious delta variant has sent new daily cases soaring over the past month to levels not seen since February. The vast majority of those hospitalized were not vaccinated.
Still, not all is well within the EU. Discrepancies between member states are huge. For example, in the Netherlands, 85% of adults have received at least one dose. In Bulgaria, it is less than 20%.
There are also troubling signs that Europe’s campaign is losing steam.
In Germany, where 54% of the population is fully vaccinated, the number of shots being dispensed per day has declined from more than 1 million in May to about 500,000.
Officials there have begun pushing for more vaccinations at megastores and in city centers and are offering incentives. A vaccination drive in Thuringia state included free bratwurst, while sites in Berlin planned to have DJs play music this weekend in hopes of encouraging young people to get inoculated.
Read:UK urges commitment to vaccinate the world by end of 2022
De Maio said she believes nationwide vaccine mandates like her native Italy’s Green Pass program could help EU nations avoid America’s fate.
“European politicians see it coming and they’re taking these measures,” she said of the potential for vaccination efforts to stall in Europe. “They’re desperate trying to avoid that because Europe can’t afford another lockdown, given the big economic toll COVID has already taken.”
No alternative to building field hospitals to save lives: GM Quader
As Covid cases continue to surge in Bangladesh, Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader on Friday said there is no alternative to setting up field hospitals to save the lives of the virus-infected people.
In a statement, he said it has become urgent to construct field hospitals for Covid treatment in the areas where the virus transmission is very high. “Since the outbreak of corona is not waning, there’s no alternative to building the field hospitals at this moment to save the lives of the country’s people.”
Read: Govt losing trust with ministers’ ‘funny’ remarks: GM Quader
If necessary, the Jatiya Party chief said, members of Bangladesh Army can be given the responsibility to build field hospitals.
He said the Delta variant has spread to remote areas. “Gradually, the entire country has become a hotspot for corona. Already, about 90 percent of beds in Covid dedicated hospitals are now packed and ICU beds are occupied in most hospitals.”
Referring to Health Minister Zahid Maleque’s comment that the government is thinking of renting hotels for providing treatment to Covid patients with mild complications, GM Quader said setting up field hospitals is relatively more convenient and less risky for the treatment of the highly contagious coronavirus.
Read: Mass vaccination only solution to Covid crisis: GM Quader
“China, Thailand and Indonesia have already had successes in corona treatment by building field hospitals to deal with corona,” he observed.
The Jatiya Party chairman said the members of Bangladesh Army’s engineering corps build field hospitals hurriedly during various military exercises every year. “They’ve a great experience in building field hospitals. The country will benefit only if the Bangladesh Army is given the responsibility to build field hospitals.”
Read:GM Quader demands probe into vaccine, Covid test costs
For the past few weeks, Bangladesh has been experiencing the worst coronavirus wave spurred by the highly transmittable Delta variant which was first identified in India.
According to a survey by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), 98 percent of the Covid patients recently detected in Bangladesh are of the highly contagious Delta variant.
Global Covid cases top 200 million
The global Covid-19 caseload has now surged past the grim milestone of 200 million, as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to devastate several countries even with mass inoculations underway.
The total caseload and fatalities from the virus stand at 200,136,419 and 4,254,976, respectively, as of Thursday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
So far, 4,265,470,393 Covid vaccine doses have been administered across the globe, as per the university data.
Read: US plans to require COVID-19 shots for foreign travelers
The US has logged 35,331,683 cases and 614,797 deaths to date, according to the university data. The death toll in the United States is the highest in the world.
India recorded the world's second largest caseload of 31,769,132, followed by Brazil with 20,026,533 cases as well as the world's second largest death toll of 559,607. Besides, India’s death toll reached 425,757 on Thursday morning.
Countries with more than four million cases include Russia, France, Britain, Turkey, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy and Iran, while those with over 100,000 deaths include India, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Britain, Italy, Colombia and France.
The global caseload reached the grim milestone of 100 million on January 26, and doubled in more than half a year.
Situation in Bangladesh
As the Covid infection rate continues to swell in Bangladesh, the country recorded 241 more deaths in 24 hours till Wednesday morning.
Read: 241 more die in Bangladesh as Covid refuses to slow down
According to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), 13,817 more people came out positive with the virus during the period after the test of 49,514 samples.
The fresh numbers have pushed the country’s death tally to 21,638, with the caseload mounting to 1,309,910.
Meanwhile, the daily test positivity rate fell slightly to 27.91 % from Tuesday’s 28.58%, while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 5% or below rate.
The recovery rate, however, rose to 87.12%, and the case fatality remained static at 1.65% compared to the same period, said the DGHS.
Read:Covid: Khulna aims to inoculate over 1.16 lakh residents
With the vaccination drive slowly gaining momentum, 216,534 people got their first Sinopharm jab during the period.
Besides, 11,898, 10,931 and 1,026 people received their second dose of Astrazeneca, Sinopharm and Moderna vaccines, respectively, during this period.
Bangladesh is planning to vaccinate one crore people during a special drive from August 7 to 12.
US plans to require COVID-19 shots for foreign travelers
The Biden administration is taking the first steps toward requiring nearly all foreign visitors to the U.S. to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official said Wednesday.
The requirement would come as part of the administration’s phased approach to easing travel restrictions for foreign citizens to the country. No timeline has yet been determined, as interagency working groups study how and when to safely move toward resuming normal travel. Eventually all foreign citizens entering the country, with some limited exceptions, are expected to need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the U.S.
Read: Biden to launch vaccine push for millions of federal workers
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the policy under development.
The Biden administration has kept in place travel restrictions that have severely curtailed international trips to the U.S., citing the spread of the delta variant of the virus. Under the rules, non-U.S. residents who have been to China, the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa and India in the prior 14 days are prohibited from entering the U.S.
All travelers to the U.S., regardless of vaccination status, are required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of air travel to the country.
Read: Biden says getting vaccinated ‘gigantically important’
The Biden administration has faced pressure to lift some restrictions from affected allies, the air travel industry and families who have been kept separated from loved ones by the rules. Many have complained that the travel restrictions don’t reflect the current virus situation — particularly as caseloads in the U.S. are worse than in many of the prohibited nations.
Airlines for America, a trade group for major U.S. airlines, said it was pleased by reports that the administration plans to make it easier for more foreign travelers to enter the country if they have been vaccinated.
Barishal division sees 16 new Covid deaths
Barishal division has logged as many as 16 new Covid deaths in the past 24 hours, health officials said on Wednesday morning.
Of the deceased, six were confirmed Covid patients while the remaining showed symptoms of the virus.
Read: Barishal division logs record 31 Covid deaths in a day
All of them died at Sher-E-Bangla Medical College and Hospital (SBMCH), the officials said.
Divisional Health Director Dr Basudev Kumar Das said that 500 patients have died of Covid-19 in the division so far.
Besides, 773 people have tested positive for Covid in Barishal division in the past 24 hours.
Read: Barishal division sees 20 more Covid deaths
Of the fresh Covid cases in the division, 337 have been identified in Barisal district alone.
Some 36,140 active Covid patients have been identified in the division to date, according to the officials.
Read:Barishal division logs 854 new Covid cases
According to SBMCH authorities, 53 more patients have been admitted to the hospital in 24 hours till Wednesday morning.
Moreover, 349 Covid patients are currently undergoing treatment at the corona unit of SBMCH.
7 more die of Covid at Kushtia hospital
Seven more people have died of Covid-19 at Kushtia General Hospital in the past 24 hours, officials said on Wednesday morning.
“All the deceased had tested positive for Covid,” said Md Mejbaul Alam, statistics officer of the hospital.
Read:Covid-19 :9 more lives lost in Kushtia
Besides, 143 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the district in the past 24 hours amid a devastating Covid situation across the country.
"Some 389 samples were tested during the period," he said. On the other hand, the positivity rate currently stands at 36.76%.
Read:Kushtia man ends up 'fully vaccinated' in ten minutes
Meanwhile, 227 people are currently undergoing treatment with Covid symptoms at the leading medical facility.
So far, 15,272 people have been infected with the virus in the district, while the death toll from Covid topped 606. Besides, 11,526 people have recovered from corona to date.
Covid: 10 more die in Chattogram
Ten more people have died of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours in Chattogram, officials said on Tuesday morning.
Read:Dengue alert: CU survey team finds Aedes larvae at 15 spots in Chattogram
Of the deceased, four were from the city and the remaining six belonged to different upazilas.
During this period, 1,273 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in the district, according to the officials.
A total of 3,450 samples were tested at nine public and private labs and various antigen booths in Chattogram.
Read: First case of black fungus reported in Chattogram
So far, 85,144 people have been identified with Covid-19 of which, 994 people died in the district.