health
Vaccine hesitancy puts India’s gains against virus at risk
In Jamsoti, a village tucked deep inside India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, the common refrain among the villagers is that the coronavirus spreads only in cities. The deadly infection, they believe, does not exist in villages.
So when a team of health workers recently approached Manju Kol to get vaccinated, she locked up her house, gathered her children and ran to the nearby forest.
The family hid there for hours and returned only when the workers left in the evening.
“I would rather die than take the vaccine,” said Kol.
Read:Virus surge claims brightest minds at Indian universities
A deadly surge of coronavirus infections that ripped through India in April and May, killing more than 180,000, has tapered off and new cases have declined. But the relief could be fleeting as a significant amount of the population is still reluctant to get the shots. This has alarmed health experts who say vaccine hesitancy, particularly in India’s vast hinterlands, could put the country’s fragile gains against COVID-19 at risk.
“Vaccine hesitancy poses a risk to ending the pandemic in India,” said retired virologist and pediatrician Dr. T. Jacob John. “The more the virus circulates, the more it can mutate into dangerous new variants that can undermine vaccines.”
Delivering vaccines in the world’s second-most populous country was always going to be challenging. Even though India did relatively well at the beginning of its mammoth vaccination drive, the campaign hit a snag almost immediately due to shortages and a complicated vaccine policy, exacerbating existing inequalities.
Only less than 5% of India’s people are fully immunized. Experts caution that by the end of the year, vaccination rates must go up significantly to protect most Indians from the virus that has so far already killed more than 386,000 people — a figure considered to be a vast undercount.
Starting Monday, every adult in India will be eligible for a shot paid for by the federal government. The new policy, announced last week, ends a complex system of buying and distributing vaccines that overburdened states and led to inequities in how the shots were handed out.
There is still widespread hesitancy fueled by misinformation and mistrust, particularly in rural areas where two-thirds of the country’s nearly 1.4 billion population lives.
Health workers face stiff resistance from people who believe that vaccines cause impotence, serious side effects and could even kill. Some simply say they do not need the shots because they’re immune to the coronavirus.
Rumors about jabs disrupting the menstruation cycle and reducing fertility have also contributed to fear and skewed the data in favor of men. In almost every Indian state, more men are getting vaccinated than women — and that gap is widening further every day.
Quashing such rumors and conspiracy theories is a tough order for many, particularly in India’s tribal-dominated districts that have recorded disproportionately lower vaccine coverage in comparison with other districts, according to official data.
Yogesh Kalkonde, a public health doctor in Gadchiroli, a tribal area in the western state of Maharashtra, said his district was overrun with the belief that the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus.
Some in the area have raised the untrue claim that the shots can cause infertility, Kalkonde said. Others simply question its effectiveness.
Read: How India is changing vaccine plan amid shortages
“We have to convince people, go door to door, and rely on people who have taken the vaccine to spread the word,” he said. “It’s an extremely slow process.”
There is some pushback. State governments have mounted aggressive awareness campaigns through posters and radio announcements to allay some of the anxiety and confusion. Some local administrations have started giving rides to vaccination centers, especially from remote villages. Volunteers are conducting door-to-door surveys and even small rallies to encourage people to get the jab.
For months, Vibha Singh, a government-appointed nurse, has gone door-to-door in the villages of Uttar Pradesh.
“People tell us to leave or they would beat us,” said Singh. “Sometimes they also throw stones and bricks at us.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders have routinely spoken about the need to shun vaccine hesitancy, but health experts say more needs to be done.
“We need to explain it clearly to people, ideally through local trusted networks,” said K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. He said state governments should bolster local self-help groups, village councils and ask local religious leaders to step in.
“It requires a conversation, not just top-down messaging,” he said.
Dr. Vinod K. Paul, head of the country’s COVID-19 task force, acknowledged the immediate need to address the problem but said public participation to dispel rumors and misinformation was important.
“It is the responsibility not only of the government but also the society as a whole to create such an environment in which an unfounded hesitancy is addressed,” said Paul.
Virologists and public health experts say eradicating doubts about the vaccine in rural India and inoculating people quickly should be of paramount importance since the majority of Indians live in the hinterlands. Already, urban dwellers are getting the shots much faster.
“If they are protected, much of India will be protected,” Reddy said of rural areas. “Their vulnerability to a sweeping pandemic is much, much more. So vaccinating them quickly must be a priority.”
Read:To launch J&J Covid shot in India, Biological E begins talks with govt lab to test vaccine
Not everyone is convinced.
When a team of health workers last week attempted to vaccinate Panna Lal, a resident of Sikanderpur village in Uttar Pradesh, they were met with an absolute refusal.
Lal even discouraged the rest of his family from getting the jab.
“The vaccine will not protect me,” the 56-year-old told the workers. “God has sent me here safely, and he will continue to protect me.”
Khulna sees record 28 deaths in a single day
Health authorities have recorded 28 deaths in Khulna division in the last 24 hours until Sunday morning, the highest ever fatalities logged in a day.
Read:Khulna set to go under 7-day strict lockdown from June 22
Of them, seven people died in Kushita district, two each in Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat districts, four each in Jashore and Jhenaidah districts, five in Chuadanga and one each in Narail and Magura districts.
Besides, 763 people turned out to be positive in the division during the same period, said Rasheda Sultana, director (Health) of Khulna division.
She said 194 people made recovery from Covid-19 during the period.
Read: 11 die of Covid at Khulna hospital
Health authorities recorded 22 deaths on Saturday, eight on Friday and 18 on Thursday in the division.
The first death in Khulna division was reported from Chuadanga on March 19.
So far, 45,032 people have been found infected with the virus in ten districts of the division and the death toll from the virus reached 825.
Read:A battle for breath in Khulna as Covid cases surge
A total of 34,320 people have recovered to date.
US sending Taiwan 2.5 million vaccine doses, tripling pledge
The U.S. is sending 2.5 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, tripling an earlier pledge in a donation with both public health and geopolitical meaning.
The shipment was due to arrive by plane later Sunday, the de facto U.S. embassy said. “The donation reflects our commitment to Taiwan as a trusted friend, and a member of the international family of democracies,” the American Institute in Taiwan wrote on its Facebook page.
Read:Senators say US donating vaccines to Taiwan amid China row
Taiwan, which had been relatively unscathed by the virus, has been caught off-guard by a surge in new cases since May and is now scrambling to get COVID-19 vaccines. It has ordered 5.05 million doses directly from Moderna but so far received only 390,000, including a second shipment that arrived Friday.
The U.S. donation also signals its support for Taiwan in the face of growing pressure from China, which claims the self-governing island off its east coast as its territory. The U.S. does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan under what is known as the one-China policy, but is legally bound by its own laws to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself.
The U.S. promised 750,000 vaccine doses for Taiwan earlier this month, sending Sen. Tammy Duckworth and two of her Senate colleagues to the island aboard a military transport plane to make the announcement. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said the U.S. had decided to increase the donation through efforts on both sides over the past two weeks.
Read: China may buckle down to reunify Taiwan after crackdown on Hong Kong
In a Facebook post, Tsai joined the U.S. in drawing attention to their shared democratic systems. China, which has been ruled single handedly by the Communist Party since 1949, says Taiwan must eventually come under its control and reserves the right to use force if necessary.
“Whether it is for regional peace and stability or the virus that is a common human adversary, we will continue to uphold common ideas and work together,” Tsai wrote in Chinese.
She has accused China of blocking Taiwan from getting the Pfizer vaccine through BioNTech, the German co-developer. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied the charge, and say China is willing to provide vaccines to Taiwan. Taiwanese law, however, bans the import of Chinese-made medicine.
Read:Taiwan struggles with testing backlog amid largest outbreak
The U.S. donation follows Japan’s shipment of 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in early June. Taiwan has ordered 10 million doses from AstraZeneca but has yet to receive most of them.
Afghanistan running out of oxygen as COVID surge worsens
Afghanistan’s is racing to ramp up supplies of oxygen as a deadly third surge of COVID-19 worsens, a senior health official told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday.
The government is installing oxygen supply plants in 10 provinces where up to 65% of those tested in some areas are COVID positive, health ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastigir Nazari said.
By WHO recommendations, anything higher than 5% shows officials aren’t testing widely enough, allowing the virus to spread unchecked. Afghanistan carries out barely 4,000 tests a day and often much less.
Read: NATO leaders bid symbolic adieu to Afghanistan at summit
Afghanistan’s 24-hour infection count has also continued its upward climb from 1,500 at the end of May when the health ministry was already calling the surge “a crisis,” to more than 2,300 this week. Since the pandemic outbreak, Afghanistan is reporting 101,906 positive cases and 4,122 deaths. But those figures are likely a massive undercount, registering only deaths in hospitals — not the far greater numbers who die at home.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan received 900 oxygen cylinders from Iran on Saturday, part of 3,800 cylinders Tehran promised to deliver to Kabul last week. The shipment was delayed by Iran’s presidential elections, said Nazari.
Afghanistan has even run out of empty cylinders, receiving a delivery of 1,000 last week from Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile hospitals are rationing their oxygen supplies. Afghans desperate for oxygen are banging on the doors of the few oxygen suppliers in the Afghan capital, begging for their empty cylinders to be filled for COVID infected loved ones at home.
Abdul Wasi, whose wife has been sick for nearly 10 days, has been waiting four days for one 45-liter cylinder to be filled at the Najb Siddiqi oxygen plant in east Kabul. Scores of mostly men were banging on the 10-foot steel gate of the oxygen plant. Some rolled their empty oxygen cylinders up against the gate, while others waved small slips of paper carrying the number of their cylinder inside the plant, waiting to be filled.
Wasi said there were no hospital beds for his wife, whose oxygen level hovers around 70-80%. They are rationing her, he said giving her small amounts of oxygen when it drops to around 45 -50%.
“How can I do anything else? I have been waiting four days for my cylinder to be filled,” he said. The oxygen plant refills cylinders for 400 Afghanis (roughly $5), while in the market it costs 4,000 Afghanis (roughly $50).
For the country’s poor — over half of Afghanistan 36 million people according to World Bank figures — the situation has become desperate.
Wasi said on Friday as he waited outside the oxygen plant that a patient on a stretcher was carried to the door while the family begged for oxygen. The patient died.
“Right there,” he said pointing to the gate. “I saw them carrying the patient. They were crying and begging and then he died.”
Read:Afghan Hazaras being killed at school, play, even at birth
Barat Ali had arrived at the plant at 6 a.m. Saturday. It was his third day waiting for his cylinder to be filled.
“The poor people in this country have nothing. I have been standing in the sun for eight hours,” he said clutching his small piece of paper that contained his cylinder number. The government “has eaten all the (international) donations.”
Necephor Mghendi, who is the Afghanistan delegation head for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told the AP in an interview in Kabul that the groups are working to get an oxygen generation plant into the country. The Afghan Red Crescent runs a 50-bed hospital devoted to COVID patients and uses roughly 250 cylinders a day, but in recent days it has been receiving barely half that many.
The needs are critical he said, offering as an example one patient currently at the Red Crescent hospital who needs one 45-litre cylinder every 15 minutes to stay alive, he said.
“The situation is very concerning,” he said.
Inside the Najib Siddiqi oxygen plant dozens of cylinders were being filled, but owner Najib Siddiqi said he can’t keep up. He supplies hospitals but has cut output to them by half, with the other half going to the crowds banging on his gates. He even fills smaller cylinders for free, but he has only the capacity to fill 450-500 cylinders a day.
“It’s not enough. They are outside like this all day,” he said.
Read:Amid brutal case surge, Afghanistan hit by a vaccine delay
Sakhi Ahmad Payman, chairman of the Afghanistan Chamber of Industries and Mines, who was inside the plant having made a tour of the oxygen plants in the city, said all nine facilities in Kabul were overwhelmed. Countrywide he said Afghanistan has 30 oxygen producing plants, and all are unable to keep up with demand.
Payman blasted the government.
“They knew we were in the middle of a crisis and didn’t do anything until it was too late,” he said.
As Brazil tops 500,000 deaths, protests against president
Anti-government protesters took to the streets in more than a score of cities across Brazil on Saturday as the nation’s confirmed death toll from COVID-19 soared past half a million — a tragedy many critics blame on President Jair Bolsonaro’s attempt to minimize the disease.
Thousands gathered in downtown Rio de Janeiro waving flags with slogans such as “Get out Bolsonaro. Government of hunger and unemployment.”
Read:Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal
“Brazil is experiencing a great setback. The country was an exemplary country for vaccination in the world. We have widely recognized institutions, but today we are in a sad situation ”, said Isabela Gouljor, a 20-year-old student who joined the protest in Rio.
Other marchers hoisted posters reading: “500 thousand deaths. It’s his fault,” alluding to Bolsonaro.
Similar marches took place in at least 22 or Brazil’s 26 states, as well as in the Federal District, Brasilia. They were promoted by left-wing opposition parties who have been heartened by Bolsonaro’s declining poll ratings with next year’s presidential race looming.
“Get out Bolsonaro, genocidal,” yelled Rio demonstrators, some of them wearing t-shirts or masks with the image of former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who leads Bolsonaro in some polls.
Read:In Brazil’s Amazon, rivers rise to record levels
In São Paulo, protesters dropped red balloons as a tribute to the victims of the virus
Bolsonaro’s supporters have taken more often to the streets over the past month, in large part because many agree with his dismissal of restrictions meant to stifle the coronavirus and anger that lockdown measures have hurt businesses.
Critics say such messages, as well as Bolsonaro’s promotion of disproven treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, have contributed to the soaring death toll and a sluggish vaccine campaign that has fully inoculated less than 12% of the population. The country of some 213 million people is registering nearly 100,000 new infections and 2,000 deaths a day.
“For the leftists, putting their followers in the streets is a way of wearing Bolsonaro down for the election,” said Leandro Consentino, a political science professor at Insper, a university in Sao Paulo. “But at the same, time they are contradicting themselves and losing the discourse of maintaining health care, because they are causing the same agglomerations as Bolsonaro.”
Read:Why are so many babies dying of Covid-19 in Brazil?
Saturday’s marches came a week after Bolsonaro led a massive motorcycle parade of supporters in Sao Paulo, though his allies and foes differ dramatically on the size of that event.
“Bolsonaro needs to show that he maintains significant support to give a message of strength to those who are investigating the actions of his government in Congress”, Consentino said.
14-day lockdown in Damurhuda to contain Covid spread
Authorities on Tuesday imposed a 14-day lockdown in Damurhuda upazila of Chuadanga district to contain the spread of Covid-19.
The lockdown will remain in force till June 28 midnight.
Read: Lockdown in 7 villages of Chuadanga
The decision to enforce the lockdown was taken at an emergency meeting on Monday, presided over by the Deputy Commissioner of Chuadanga, Nazrul Islam.
During the lockdown, all business establishments, shops and eateries in the upazila will remain closed. However, local grocery stores shops will be allowed to operate only for limited hours.
There will be strict restrictions on public movement in the upazila. No one will be allowed to step out without any valid reason, according to the Deputy Commissioner.
Read:Indefinite lockdown in Magura city and Mohammadpur Upazila from Sunday
Moreover, no social or religious gatherings can take place during the period.
Earlier, the local administration had imposed strict restrictions in sixteen villages under three unions of the upazila.
Besides, the health authorities have registered as many as 57 new corona infections in Chuadanga upazila in the past 24 hours till Monday morning, raising the total caseload to 2,279.
Read:Week-long lockdown in Kushtia municipality areas to contain Covid spread
So far, 71 people have died of Covid-19 in the district.
Novavax: Large study finds COVID-19 shot about 90% effective
Vaccine maker Novavax said Monday its COVID-19 shot was highly effective against the disease and also protected against variants in a large study in the U.S. and Mexico, potentially offering the world yet another weapon against the virus at a time when developing countries are desperate for doses.
The two-shot vaccine was about 90% effective overall, and preliminary data showed it was safe, the American company said. That would put the vaccine about on par with Pfizer’s and Moderna’s.
While demand for COVID-19 shots in the U.S. has dropped off dramatically and the country has more than enough doses to go around, the need for more vaccines around the world remains critical. The Novavax vaccine, which is easy to store and transport, is expected to play an important role in boosting supplies in poor parts of the world.
Read:As COVID-19 cases wane, vaccine-lagging in USA still see risk
That help is still months away, however. The company, which has been plagued by raw-material shortages that have hampered production, said it plans to seek authorization for the shots in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere by the end of September and will be able to produce up to 100 million doses a month by then.
“Many of our first doses will go to … low- and middle-income countries, and that was the goal to begin with,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said.
While more than half of the U.S. population has had at least one vaccine dose, less than 1% of people in the developing world have had one shot, according to a data collection effort run in part by the University of Oxford.
The Novavax shot stands to become the fifth Western-developed COVID-19 vaccine to win clearance. The Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are already authorized for use in the U.S. and Europe. Europe also uses AstraZeneca’s formula.
Novavax’s study involved nearly 30,000 people ages 18 and up. Two-thirds received two doses of the vaccine, three weeks apart, and the rest got dummy shots. Nearly half the volunteers were Black, Hispanic, Asian American or Native American, and 6% of participants were in Mexico. Altogether, 37% had health problems that made them high risk, and 13% were 65 or older.
There were 77 cases of COVID-19 — 14 in the group that got the vaccine, the rest in volunteers who received the dummy shots. None in the vaccine group had moderate or severe disease, compared with 14 in the placebo group. One person in that group died.
Read:G-7 leaders agree on vaccines, China and taxing corporations
The vaccine was similarly effective against several variants, including the one first detected in Britain that is now dominant in the U.S., and in high-risk populations, including the elderly, people with other health problems and front-line workers in hospitals and meatpacking plants.
“These consistent results provide much confidence in the use of this vaccine for the global population,” said Dr. Paul Heath, director of the Vaccine Institute at the University of London and St. George’s Hospital.
Side effects were mostly mild — tenderness and pain at the injection site. There were no reports of unusual blood clots or heart problems, Erck said.
A study underway in Britain is testing which of several vaccines, including Novavax’s, works best as a booster shot for people who received the Pfizer or AstraZeneca formula. Industry analyst Kelechi Chikere said the Novavax shot could become a “universal booster” because of its high effectiveness and mild side effects.
Novavax reported the results in a news release and plans to publish them in a medical journal, where they will be vetted by independent experts. The Gaithersburg, Maryland-based company previously released findings from smaller studies in Britain and South Africa.
COVID-19 vaccines train the body to recognize the coronavirus, especially the spike protein that coats it, and get ready to fight the virus off. The Novavax vaccine is made with lab-grown copies of that protein. That’s different from some of the other vaccines now widely used, which include genetic instructions for the body to make its own spike protein.
Read:China’s children may be next in line for COVID-19 vaccines
The Novavax vaccine can be stored in standard refrigerators, making it easier to distribute.
As for the shortages that delayed manufacturing, Erck said those were due to restrictions on shipments from other countries.
“That’s opening up,” he said, adding that Novavax now has weeks’ worth of needed materials in its factories, up from just one week.
The company has committed to supplying 110 million doses to the U.S. over the next year and a total of 1.1 billion doses to developing countries.
In May, vaccines alliance Gavi, a leader of the U.N.-backed COVAX project to supply shots to poorer countries, announced it signed an agreement to buy 350 million doses of Novavax’s formula. COVAX is facing a critical shortage of vaccines after its biggest supplier in India suspended exports until the end of the year.
Novavax has been working on developing vaccines for more than three decades but hasn’t brought one to market. Its coronavirus vaccine work is partly funded by the U.S. government.
Read: Biden outlines US vaccine-sharing commitment
Dr. Peter English, a vaccine expert previously with the British Medical Association, called the Novavax results “excellent news.” English said that because vaccine production is complicated, it’s crucial to have as many shots as possible.
“Any minor imperfection in the production plant can shut down the production for days or weeks,” he said in a statement. “The more different manufacturers we have producing vaccine, the more likely it is we will have availability of vaccines.”
He said it was also encouraging news that Novavax would be able to adapt its vaccine to any potentially worrying variants in the future if necessary.
As summit ends, G-7 urged to deliver on vaccines, climate
The Group of Seven leaders aim to end their first summit in two years with a punchy set of promises Sunday, including vaccinating the world against coronavirus, making huge corporations pay their fair share of taxes and tackling climate change with a blend of technology and money.
They want to show that international cooperation is back after the upheavals caused both by the pandemic and the unpredictability of former U.S. President Donald Trump. And they want to convey that the club of wealthy democracies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — is a better friend to poorer nations than authoritarian rivals such as China.
But it was uncertain how firm the group’s commitments will be on coronavirus vaccines, the economy and the environment when the leaders issue their final communique. Also unclear was whether all of the leaders would back the United States’ call to chastise China for repressing its Uyghur minority and other abuses.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, wanted the three-day meeting to fly the flag for a “Global Britain,” his government’s initiative to give the midsized country outsized influence when it comes to global problem-solving.
Read: Biden urges G-7 leaders to call out and compete with China
Brexit cast a shadow over that goal during the summit on the coast of southwest England. European Union leaders and U.S. President Joe Biden voiced concerns about problems with new U.K.-EU trade rules that have heightened tensions in Northern Ireland.
But overall, the mood has been positive: The leaders smiled for the cameras on the beach at cliff-fringed Carbis Bay, a village and resort that became a traffic-clogged fortress for the meeting. The last G-7 summit was in France in 2019. The pandemic scuttled the planned 2020 event in the United States.
The leaders mingled with Queen Elizabeth II at a royal reception on their first evening, and were served steak and lobster at a beach barbecue on their second.
America’s allies were visibly relieved to have the U.S. back as an engaged international player after the “America First” policy of the Trump administration.
“The United States is back, and democracies of the world are standing together,” Biden said as he arrived in the U.K. on the first foreign trip of his 5-month-old presidency. After the G-7 summit, the president is to have tea with the queen on Sunday, attend a NATO summit in Brussels on Monday and hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday.
At the G-7, Johnson described Biden as a “breath of fresh air.” French President Emmanuel Macron, after speaking one-to-one with Biden, said, “It’s great to have a U.S. president part of the club and very willing to cooperate.”
Read: Biden sells G-7 on global tax, but U.S. Congress is a hurdle
The re-energized G-7 made ambitious declarations during their meetings about girls’ education, preventing future pandemics and using the finance system to fund green growth. Above all, they vowed to share vaccine doses with less well-off nations that urgently need them. Johnson said the group would pledge at least 1 billion doses, with half that coming from the United States and 100 million from Britain.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commended the vaccine pledge but said it’s not enough. To truly end the pandemic, he said, 11 billion doses are needed to vaccinate at least 70% of the world’s population by the middle of next year.
“We need more and we need them faster,” Tedros said.
Public health advocates said much more than just doses was needed, including money and logistical help to get shots into the arms of people in poorer countries.
“It’s not enough to just get vaccines flown into capitals,” said Lily Caprani, head of COVID-19 vaccines advocacy for UNICEF. “We can’t let them potentially go to waste or be at risk or be at risk of not being delivered. So it’s a real end-to-end solution that’s needed.”
The leaders’ final communique is expected to formally embrace placing a global minimum tax of at least 15% on large multinational companies to stop corporations from using tax havens to shift profits and to avoid taxes.
Read: G-7 nations expected to pledge 1B vaccine doses for world
The minimum rate was championed by the U.S., and dovetails with the aim of Biden — and Johnson — to focus the summit on ways the democracies can collaborate to build a more inclusive and fair global economy and to compete with rising autocracies like China.
Non-G-7 nations India, South Korea, Australia and South Africa were invited to attend as guests to bolster the group’s support for fellow democracies.
The White House said the leaders had also agreed an infrastructure plan, the Build Back Better world plan, to help low and middle-income countries. The move is a response to China’s “belt and road” initiative, which has increased Beijing’s influence in countries around the world.
White House officials said Biden wants the G-7 leaders to speak in a single voice against the forced labor practices targeting China’s Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities. Biden hopes the denunciation will be part of a joint statement Sunday, but some European allies are reluctant to split so forcefully with Beijing.
The summit was also supposed to focus on climate change and to set the stage for the U.N. climate conference being held in November in Scotland.
Climate activists and analysts have said filling a $100 billion annual fund that is intended to help poor countries tackle the effects of global warming should be at the top of the G-7′s to-do list.
Read:G-7 to put off agreement on when to end coal-fired power generation
Johnson’s office said he met with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Saturday and that the two agreed on the need for countries to step up and make ambitious commitments to cut carbon emissions and phase out the use of coal.
But very little substance on the topic has so far emerged from the talks, to the frustration of environmental protesters who gathered nearby to make their message heard.
Large crowds of surfers and kayakers took to the sea in a mass paddle protest Saturday to urge more action on protecting the oceans, while thousands chanted and beat drums as they marched outside the summit’s media center in Falmouth.
“G-7 is all greenwashing,” the protesters sang. “We’re drowning in promises, now’s the time to act.”
Pandemic relapse spells trouble for India’s middle class
Ram Babu moved from his village to the Indian capital New Delhi in 1980, to clean cars. Soon, he learned to drive and got a job as a tour bus driver. Decades later, he set up his own company, Madhubani Tours and Travels.
In March 2020, a stringent nationwide lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic froze economic activity overnight. Babu’s business collapsed, and he drove his family back to their village.
“Since March last year, we haven’t earned a single rupee,” he said. “All of my three buses are standing still for more than a year. We are completely broken.”
India’s economy was on the cusp of recovery from the first pandemic shock when a new wave of infections swept the country, infecting millions, killing hundreds of thousands and forcing many people to stay home. Cases are now tapering off, but prospects for many Indians are drastically worse as salaried jobs vanish, incomes shrink and inequality is rising.
Read:India reports 80,834 new COVID-19 cases
Decades of progress in alleviating poverty are imperiled, experts say, and getting growth back on track hinges on the fate of the country’s sprawling middle class. It’s a powerful and diverse group ranging from salaried employees to small business owners like Babu: many millions of people struggling to hold onto their hard-earned gains.
The outbreak of the pandemic triggered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s and as it gradually ebbs, many economies are bouncing back. The World Bank foresees 5.6% global growth for 2021, the best since 1973.
India’s economy contracted 7.3% in the fiscal year that ended in March, worsening from a slump that slashed growth to 4% from 8% in the two years before the pandemic hit. Economists fear there will be no rebound similar to the ones seen in the U.S. and other major economies.
“Coronavirus was the latest in a series of blows to hit India’s economy in recent years,” said Mahesh Vyas, chief executive at the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). “But the shocks brought on by the virus have had a very debilitating effect on the economy and I fear it is going to be long lasting.”
The economy was one of the fastest growing when Prime Minister Narendra Modi suddenly yanked most of India’s currency out of circulation in 2016, targeting corruption. A major tax reform whose kinks are still being ironed out followed. Modi’s flagship Make in India program to energize manufacturing has floundered and unemployment has surged.
The poor are suffering the most from the pandemic. But this is the first time in several decades that India’s middle class has taken such a big hit, said Vyas.
After 40 years of hard work, tour company owner Babu was taking home about $2,000 a month. Business was going so well he took out a loan to buy his third tour bus.
Read:Indian state revises death counts up by 70%
In May 2020, he used one of those buses to drive his wife and three children back to Bhugol village in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. He could no longer afford the rent on their modest one-bedroom apartment in New Delhi.
Estimates of the size of India’s middle class vary from 200 million to 600 million, but all experts agree that its prosperity is crucial for reviving the economy.
“They are the primary consumers — if their consumption doesn’t revive, growth will continue to be slow and the economy will not recover,” said economist Arun Kumar.
An analysis from the Pew Research Center, published in March, estimates 32 million Indians had been pushed out of the middle class by the pandemic.
Read: India's cumulative Covid-19 vaccine coverage crosses 240 million-mark
The report defined the middle class as people earning $10 to $20 a day. It estimated the number of India’s poor -- those with incomes of $2 or less a day -- has increased by 75 million because of the crisis.
To cushion the impact, the government provided $266 billion in extra spending in May 2020, with over $40 billion meant to help small and medium-sized businesses through measures like collateral-free loans from banks. Another $36 billion was promised in November to help create jobs, boost consumer spending and support manufacturing, agriculture and exports.
But for many, the measures haven’t been enough. No relief has yet been announced for the tourism sector, so Babu is still paying business taxes on his buses.
Last year’s lockdown destroyed more than 120 million jobs, according to the CMIE. Many returned soon after the lockdown ended in June, but the rebound was mostly of low-paying jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction.
Read: India reports record high of 6,148 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours
Economists worry about a longer term decline in salaried jobs, of which 12.5 million remain lost, according to CMIE data, and about the fate of small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of India’s vast informal economy.
Many people have had to settle for far more precarious employment than before, according to the State of Working India 2021 report by researchers at Azim Premji University.
“What this signals is that people in distress are having to resort to any kind of employment, even if it pays substantially less than what they were making and comes with fewer protections,” said Rosa Abraham, one of the report’s lead authors. “It’s clear that the employment recovery we’re seeing now is characterized to a significant extent by far more informality.”
That’s true for Bijender and Kanika Gautam, owners of the Ultra Bodies Fitness Studio on the outskirts of New Delhi.
Gyms were among the last types of venues allowed to reopen from the 2020 lockdown and they were closed again during the latest outbreaks. The Gautams had been thriving on income from their 100 gym members, making enough to rent their two-story space and pay five trainers. Now, they’re relying on whatever they can scrape together from offering online fitness training, and struggling to afford rent and school fees for their two children.
“Earlier, we didn’t have to think twice about spending money when we went to the market with our children or went out to eat,” said Bijender. “But now, the situation is so bad that we are somehow just trying to survive. We don’t know if we will be able to keep our business,” he said.
On a wider scale, such setbacks on a wide scale may undermine confidence and future growth, said CMIE’s Vyas.
Read: India's COVID-19 death toll crosses 350,000
“You need that aspiration or drive to go to college, get a good job, save money to buy a home -- you need that ambition to make your life better than what your parents had. This is what makes the economy thrive, and this is a crucial thing that has taken a big hit,” he said.
Babu says he fears his life is now moving in reverse. He had hoped his youngest daughter, aged 13, might become a pilot. Now that he’s had to pull her out of her school in New Delhi, that seems impossible.
His dreams of buying a home in the city have been crushed by the loans he can no longer repay, he said in a phone call from his village.
“I’m not used to living in the village now. Everything we own, everything we are, it’s all in Delhi,” he said. “I should have just continued working as a driver, maybe then I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
China’s children may be next in line for COVID-19 vaccines
If China is to meet its tentative goal of vaccinating 80% of its population against the coronavirus by the end of the year, tens of millions of children may have to start rolling up their sleeves.
Regulators took the first step last week by approving the use of the country’s Sinovac vaccine for children aged 3 to 17, and on Friday announced the same for the Sinopharm vaccine. No date has been set for the shots to start.
Children have been largely spared the worst of the pandemic, becoming infected less easily than adults and generally showing less severe symptoms when they do catch the virus. But experts say children can still transmit the virus to others and some note that if countries are going to achieve herd immunity through their vaccination campaigns, inoculating children should be part of the plan.
“Vaccinating children is an important step forward,” said Jin Dong-yan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong’s medical school.
Read: Senators say US donating vaccines to Taiwan amid China row
Doing so, however, may be easier said than done for reasons ranging from vaccine hesitancy to vaccine availability.
Even in countries with enough vaccines to go around, some governments are having problems convincing adults that the shots are safe and necessary despite studies demonstrating they are. Such concerns can be amplified when dealing with society’s youngest.
There’s also the issue of approval. Few regulators around the world have evaluated the safety of COVID-19 shots in kids, with the majority of shots approved only for adults right now. But the approvals are starting. The United States, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong are all allowing the use of the Pfizer vaccine in children as young as 12.
The Sinovac and Sinopharm announcements could open the way for the vaccines, already in use in dozens of countries from Brazil to Indonesia, to be given to children across the world.
In Thailand, where Sinovac makes much of the country’s vaccine supply, Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul welcomed the news that China had approved emergency use for children.
“Once it gets approved, we are ready to provide the vaccine to cover all ages,” Anutin said Monday.
Read:Asia welcomes US vaccine donations amid cold storage worries
Other vaccine makers are also working to expand access to younger people. Moderna is seeking permission to use its shot in children as young as 12, like Pfizer. Both companies have studies underway in even younger children, down to age 6 months.
Another obstacle to vaccinating children is that many countries are still struggling to get enough doses to inoculate their higher-risk adult populations. Thailand, for example, has vaccinated only 4% of its population so far and adult demand for vaccines far outweighs supply.
“Right now given the shortages of vaccines, any available vaccine should be placed in age-based prioritization and risk-based prioritization,” said Jerome Kim, head of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul. “It’s really important to get this vaccine out in the places it’s needed now.”
In many places there are also concerns among the public about the efficacy of the Chinese vaccines versus Western rivals. While efficacy rates cannot be compared directly, owing to the trials being conducted under different conditions, the Western vaccines have shown to be very effective in preventing infection in real world tests. Sinovac’s shot has been shown to be effective in preventing severe disease and hospitalization. Sinopharm’s shot has revealed comparatively less data.
The World Health Organization have approved both vaccines for emergency use in adults aged 18 and older, paving the way for its use in global programs aiming to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. The WHO has given no indication of when it might approve it for those younger.
Vaccines are often approved separately for adults and children because younger immune systems may react differently to the doses. Experts say inactivated vaccines are generally considered safe for children, as the technology has been in use for a long time, such as in mandatory childhood immunization programs, and have shown low risk.
Nikolai Petrovsky, a vaccine expert at Flinders University in Australia, said that while it is reasonable to assume the vaccines would safe for children, he questioned the necessity of vaccinating them against a virus they are relatively protected from using a vaccine that has yet to show it blocks transmission.
Read:Asia-Pacific trade ministers mull vaccine access, supply
“As far as I am aware there is no data to suggest the Sinovac vaccine will block transmission in children,” he wrote in an email. “Without such evidence we need to ask why we are immunising the children.”
China has a population of 1.4 billion, meaning it needs to inoculate 560 million people to reach its goal of 40% vaccination by June and 1.12 billion people to get to the 80% goal. It will be hard to do the latter without vaccinating many of its 254 million children who are younger than 14.
When China starts inoculating children will be determined by the government’s National Health Commission in accordance with the epidemic situation, Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong told state broadcaster CCTV last week.
A spokesperson for Sinovac did not respond to a call requesting comment. China’s National Health Commission directed the AP to a news report that summarized Yin’s comments.