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The US is determined to repay India for the help it sent early in the pandemic, President Joe Biden tweeted Sunday night.
Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need. https://t.co/SzWRj0eP3y
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 25, 2021
His government joined the EU, France, Germany and the UK in responding to India’s call for help as it registered 349,691 new cases and 2,767 deaths.
Meanwhile, The Netherlands became the latest country to announce it would be banning flights from India because of the new strain that has driven this new wave in India.
Italy announces €222bn Covid package
The Italian government has announced a €222 billion (£193 billion) package to boost business and help young people and women who have been hit the hardest by unemployment during the pandemic
Mostly financed by the EU’s coronavirus recovery fund, the five-year plan will also include investment into the internet network, infrastructure, education and a “green revolution”.
The plan was approved after talks with the EU Commission and is being presented to parliament on Monday.
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The US will send India medical equipment and the materials to produce more Covid-19 vaccines, the White House said.
National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne also said they would be sending PPE and rapid testing kits.
The US is also considering sending some of its stockpiled AstraZeneca vaccines, according to Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor.
Earlier today both the UK and France promised to provide ventilators for Indian hospitals, which have been short of oxygen to treat the rising numbers of patients.
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Celebrated Indian classical singer Rajan Mishra has died after being hospitalised with Covid-19, the Indian Express reported.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his condolences on Twitter, calling Mishra’s death an “irreparable loss”.
Part of a duo with his brother Sajan that toured the world, Mishra’s death is being mourned by politicians, artists and writers.
"We are one soul singing." Broken in half today, and a little bit of my heart breaks too at the sad, sad news that the great Rajan Mishra has died of Covid. https://t.co/0zx8UIHM7p
— Nilanjana Roy (@nilanjanaroy) April 25, 2021
Deaths in Italy caused by Covid-19 fell slightly to 217 from 322 the day before, the Italian health ministry announced on Sunday.
The number of new cases also fell to 13,158 from 13,817.
The country has suffered 119,238 coronavirus-linked deaths since the outbreak last year and has more than 20,000 hospitalised patients.
I’m Kaamil Ahmed and I’m taking over for the rest of the evening.
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Summary
Here are the latest developments:
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Foreign governments are deploying resources to India, as the nation of 1.3 billion people struggles to cope with a growing Covid-19 crisis during which infections and deaths have hit record highs. The UK said it would send more than 600 pieces of equipment – including ventilators and oxygen concentrators from surplus stocks – to India while the EU and US also said they would rapidly deploy resources there. India recorded 349,691 fresh cases and 2,767 deaths in the last 24 hours – the highest since the start of the pandemic.
- Greece today became the latest European nation to say it has detected a case of the Covid-19 variant that has helped drive the explosion in infections in India. The virus strain was detected in a foreign woman aged 33 who lives in the Athens area and had travelled to Dubai on 4 April.
- A fire on Saturday at a hospital in south-eastern Baghdad that had been equipped to house Covid-19 patients killed 82 people and wounded 110 more, the Iraqi interior ministry said The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in the Diyala Bridge area of the Iraqi capital is believed to have occurred after an accident caused an oxygen tank to explode.
- Coronavirus has killed at least 3,100,659 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP
- A Spanish man with Covid symptoms who coughed on work colleagues and told them “I’m going to give you all the coronavirus” has been charged with intentionally causing injury after allegedly infecting 22 people. Police said none of those infected at his workplace on the island of Mallorca required hospitalisation.
- Germany’s finance minister Olaf Scholz said he did not expect moves to ease curbs before the end of May as its seven-day average of cases per 100,000 people rose to 166.
- Thailand has announced its highest number of coronavirus deaths, for the second consecutive day. It reported 2,438 new coronavirus cases and 11 new deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 55,460 and fatalities to 140 since the pandemic started last year.
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The UK is to send more than 600 pieces of medical equipment to India following a huge surge in coronavirus cases in the country, the government has said (via PA Media).
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office said the assistance package would include ventilators and oxygen concentrators from surplus stocks, with the first of nine planeloads of kit arriving in New Delhi early on Tuesday.
In a statement, Boris Johnson said:
We stand side by side with India as a friend and partner during what is a deeply concerning time in the fight against Covid-19.
Vital medical equipment, including hundreds of oxygen concentrators and ventilators, is now on its way from the UK to India to support efforts to prevent the tragic loss of life from this terrible virus.
We will continue to work closely with the Indian government during this difficult time and I’m determined to make sure that the UK does everything it can to support the international community in the global fight against (this) pandemic.
A total of 38,792,402 Covid-19 vaccinations, including first and second doses, took place in England between 8 December and 24 April, according to NHS England data - a rise of 602,866 on the previous day – PA Media reports
NHS England said 28,227,710 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 124,858 on the previous day, while 10,564,692 were a second dose, an increase of 478,008.
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The president of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has received a coronavirus vaccination under a nationwide vaccination drive, his office today, Reuters reports.
The statement from the presidency did not give details on the type of vaccine Sisi received. Egypt has started administering doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine under the global Covax agreement to provide vaccines for lower-income countries, as well as jabs produced by China’s Sinopharm.
Awad Tag el-Din, Sisi’s adviser for health affairs, told a local news channel on Friday that around half a million people in Egypt had been vaccinated so far.
The number of coronavirus cases has been steadily rising in recent weeks and the health ministry reported 912 new cases and 39 more deaths as of yesterday.
Last month, Egyptian authorities forced Guardian journalist Ruth Michaelson to leave the country after she reported on a scientific study that said Egypt was likely to have many more coronavirus cases than have been officially confirmed. Sisi, the former commander-in-chief of the armed forces, became president in 2014, after the military took power the previous year.
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The EU is preparing rapid assistance for India as it copes with a growing Covid-19 crisis during which infections and deaths have hit record highs, AFP reports, citing the European commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen tweeted
Alarmed by the epidemiological situation in India. We are ready to support.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 25, 2021
The EU is pooling resources to respond rapidly to India’s request for assistance via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
We stand in full solidarity with the Indian people! https://t.co/Pv8ezFPdS3
The mechanism allows European Union countries to coordinate their aid in cases of emergency.
The EU commissioner for humanitarian aid Janez Lenarcic said oxygen and medicine contributions were already being coordinated from member states.
The German chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier today her government was preparing emergency aid for India.
There were no immediate details on what would be offered by Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, but Der Spiegel weekly has reported that the country’s armed forces had received a request to help organise oxygen supplies.
India’s healthcare system has struggled to cope with the huge surge in infections, with reports of severe oxygen and medicine shortages and patients’ families pleading for help on social media.
The vast nation of 1.3 billion people recorded 349,691 fresh cases and 2,767 deaths in the last 24 hours – the highest since the start of the pandemic.
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Some reaction to the anti-lockdown protests in London, England, yesterday, in which the Metropolitan police said eight officers were injured. Two were taken to hospital, although their injuries are not believed to be serious. The Met said five people were arrested for offences including assault on police and public order offences.
Ken Marsh, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents thousands of rank-and-file officers, said:
We can assure everyone that we shall be raising the scenes we witnessed in Hyde Park yesterday with senior management in the Metropolitan police with utmost urgency.
The safety of our police officers should be top of the agenda. We wish all our injured colleagues a swift recovery and will be supporting them as best as we can.
Peaceful protest may well be the cornerstone of democracy - and police officers have a role in facilitating that - but the scenes we saw in Hyde Park yesterday of a thin blue line of brave and sadly bloodied police officers coming under attack from thugs were anything but peaceful.
Police officers are human beings who go out every day to keep people safe. Many people seem to have forgotten that right now but we will keep reminding them.
Our colleagues have every right to go home to their families at the end of their shifts. Not to hospital.
The home secretary tweeted:
Our brave police are the best of us and should not be the target of senseless violence by a criminal minority for just doing their job.
— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) April 25, 2021
I am getting tough on these thugs and will be doubling the sentence for assault of an emergency worker.
I wish the officers a speedy recovery. https://t.co/oSkZkI7fl1
Meanwhile, Prof Stephen Reicher, from the University of St Andrews and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (Spi-B), which advises ministers, said anti-lockdown protesters who touch, shout and shun masks are “at the very least a potential risk” to the spread of coronavirus, adding there is some evidence of mass events having an impact.
He said counties in the US that held Trump rallies recorded bigger spikes in infection than those who did not.
Moreover, the mass election rallies in India and the permission to bring huge religious festivals forward from 2022 to 2021 (the Kumbh Mela at Haridwar) is one explanation for the huge rise of cases in India.
Much depends on how people behave in these events. If they maintain distance and wear masks, there is little danger.
If they explicitly ignore restrictions, if they reject masks, stand close together, touch, shout and sing, then – going back to first principles – there is likely to be a risk.
Given that the anti-lockdown protests do all of these things, they are at the very least a potential risk.
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Greece has become the latest European nation to detect a case of the Covid-19 variant that has helped drive an explosion in infections in India, authorities said today, reports AFP.
The country’s public health agency said in a statement that the virus strain was detected in a foreign woman aged 33 who lives in the Athens area and had travelled to Dubai on 4 April .
The woman had a negative PCR virus test result when she left Dubai, the agency said, adding that the variant was detected during a large collection of samples by health services.
“It is the first case of the Indian variant in Greece,” a source in the Greek health ministry told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The woman had symptoms but was not hospitalised, the agency statement said. Her symptoms have since subsided and her period of quarantine is over.
“The B.1.617.1 strain was isolated and originates from Maharashtra in India, the region where this variant was first known by this name,” it said.
Switzerland on Saturday reported having detected its first case of the Indian variant.
Belgian authorities on Thursday said a group of 20 Indian nursing students who arrived from Paris had tested positive for the variant in the country.
India’s capital New Delhi on Sunday extended its lockdown as the country’s Covid-19 crisis grew with infections and deaths hitting record highs.
A number of countries have suspended flights from India.
Summary
Here’s a round-up of the latest developments:
- India’s prime minister Narendra Modi today urged all citizens to take Covid-19 vaccines and exercise caution, saying a “storm” of infections had shaken the country, after it recorded 349,691 in the past 24 hours – the fourth consecutive day of record infections
- A fire on Saturday at a hospital in south-eastern Baghdad that had been equipped to house Covid-19 patients killed 82 people and wounded 110 more, the Iraqi interior ministry said The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in the Diyala Bridge area of the Iraqi capital is believed to have occurred after an accident caused an oxygen tank to explode.
- Coronavirus has killed at least 3,100,659 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP
- A Spanish man with Covid symptoms who coughed on work colleagues and told them “I’m going to give you all the coronavirus” has been charged with intentionally causing injury after allegedly infecting 22 people. Police said none of those infected at his workplace on the island of Mallorca required hospitalisation.
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Germany’s finance minister Olaf Scholz said he did not expect moves to ease curbs before the end of May as its seven-day average of cases per 100,000 people rose to 166.
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Germany’s coronavirus infection rate rose at the weekend despite stricter restrictions and finance minister Olaf Scholz said he did not expect moves to ease curbs before the end of May, reports Reuters.
“We need a timetable how to get back to normal life, but it must be a plan that won’t have to be revoked after just a few days,” Scholz told Bild am Sonntag.
The federal government should be able to outline “clear and courageous opening steps” for the summer by the end of May, allowing restaurants to adjust reopening plans and citizens to plan holidays, he said.
Scholz said the steps would also clarify when visits to concerts, theatres and soccer stadiums would be possible.
Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday urged Germans to stick to tougher rules imposed in areas with high infection rates, saying measures imposed at the weekend were needed to break a third wave of infections.
Germany is struggling to contain infections, complicated by the more contagious B117 variant that first emerged in Britain. It also follows a relatively slow start to Germany’s vaccination campaign.
Germany’s seven-day average of cases per 100,000 people rose to 166 at the weekend, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said today.
Parliament approved amendments to the Infection Protection Act last week to give the federal government more powers in the pandemic. Merkel drew up the changes after some of the 16 federal states refused to implement tougher measures.
The new law enables the government to impose curfews between 10pm and 5am in districts where cases exceed 100 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days. The rules also include stricter limits to private gatherings and shopping.
Schools will have to close and return to online lessons if cases reach 165 per 100,000 residents on three consecutive days.
Updated
Coronavirus has killed at least 3,100,659 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 10am GMT today.
At least 146,337,640 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.
These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.
On Saturday, 13,540 new deaths and 823,179 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 3,076 new deaths, followed by India with 2,767 and United States with 801.
The US is the worst-affected country with 571,921 deaths from 32,045,235 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 389,492 deaths from 14,308,215 cases, Mexico with 214,853 from 2,326,738 cases, India with 192,311 from 16,960,172 cases, and the UK with 127,417 deaths from 4,403,170 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared with its population is Hungary, with 273 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Czech Republic with 270, Bosnia-Herzegovina 250, Montenegro 233 and Bulgaria 228.
Europe overall has 1,048,699 deaths from 49,375,162 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 893,425 from 28,053,624 infections, and the US and Canada 595,837 deaths from 33,215,081 cases.
Asia has reported 315,531 deaths from 23,598,028 cases, the Middle East 126,290 from 7,554,019 cases, Africa 119,837 from 4,499,110 cases, and Oceania 1,040 deaths from 42,625 cases.
Since the start of the pandemic, the number of tests conducted has greatly increased while testing and reporting techniques have improved, leading to a rise in reported cases. However the number of diagnosed cases is only a part of the real total number of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases always remain undetected.
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Italy has joined other countries by imposing restrictions on travel from India to avert the spread of a Covid-19 variant as the Asian nation struggles with a surge in infections, Reuters reports:
Italy’s health minister Roberto Speranza said on Twitter he had signed an order barring foreign travellers who have been in India in the past 14 days from entering the country.
India, which is facing a health crisis, is battling a “double mutant” strain of Covid-19. The country today posted the world’s highest single-day increase in cases for a fourth consecutive day.
Italian residents will be allowed to return from India with a negative test result at their departure and one at their arrival and then have to go into quarantine, the minister said.
Those already in Italy and who travelled from India in the past 14 days were requested to undergo a swab.
“Our scientists are at work to study the new Indian variant,” Speranza said.
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Western Australia’s international arrivals cap for the next month will be halved, officials said on today, as the state is battling a coronavirus outbreak that forced more than two million people into a three-day lockdown from Saturday, Reuters reports.
The lockdown was ordered after a traveller likely became infected while in quarantine in a hotel and unknowingly passed it on to two other people in the community.
Australia closed its borders more than a year ago and allows mostly only its citizens and permanent residents to return. All, except from New Zealand, must undergo two weeks of mandatory hotel quarantine at their own expense.
The hotel quarantine system, together with snap lockdowns and swift tracking limiting coronavirus has helped Australia to keep its Covid numbers low compared with other developed countries, with just over 29,500 cases and 910 deaths.
Western Australia’s Premier Mark McGowan said today that the federal government had agreed to halve the current rate of 1,025 returning travellers per week to Perth for at least a month.
“The high number of returned overseas travellers is putting continued strain and pressure on our hotel quarantine system,” McGowan said at a televised briefing.
On Saturday, he urged the federal government to find new quarantine facilities away from crowded downtown hotels.
With the row escalating between Western Australia and Canberra, the federal government reiterated in a statement over the weekend that it has been working to expand the Howard Springs facility in the Northern Territory.
A Spanish man with Covid symptoms who coughed on work colleagues and told them “I’m going to give you all the coronavirus” has been charged with intentionally causing injury after allegedly infecting 22 people, AP reports:
Spanish police said their investigation began after a coronavirus outbreak at the company where the 40-year-old man worked on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca.
Days before the outbreak, the man showed Covid symptoms but refused his colleagues’ suggestions to go home and self-isolate, police said in a statement.
After work, and showing no improvement, he went for a PCR test before visiting a gym and returning to work the next day. Though his superiors told him to go home after he allegedly had showed a temperature of 40 degrees C, the man refused.
He walked around his workplace, lowering his face mask and coughing on people, saying “I’m going to infect you all with the coronavirus,” according to police.
At the end of the day, his PCR test came back positive. His colleagues were then tested, with five returning positive results. They in turn infected family members, including three infants, police said. At the gym the man visited, three people tested positive and also infected family members.
None of those infected required hospitalisation, police said.
A judge charged the man, who was not identified by police, and released him on Saturday evening to await trial, Spain’s Europa Press news agency reported.
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82 killed by fire at Iraq Covid hospital
Grim news from Iraq, where the interior ministry says the death toll from the hospital in Baghdad equipped to treat Covid patients has risen to 82 with 11o wounded, Reuters reports.
In the UK, the opposition Labour party has called for a full investigation into the government’s “VIP lane” for politically connected suppliers for Covid contract, PA Media reports.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show:
There is [sic] serious questions now that the Conservatives need to answer around how they’ve dealt with their mates who have been fast-tracked through a VIP list to get contracts.
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Iraq’s prime minister has dismissed key hospital officials on Sunday hours after a fire broke out in an intensive care unit for coronavirus patients in Baghdad, causing deaths and injuries, AP reports.
AFP said at least 23 people died and Reuters put the figure at least 27 after the blaze, believed to be caused by an oxygen cylinder exploding. More than 200 people were rescued, according to the health ministry.
The fire was put out in the early hours of the morning.
From AP:
In response to the fire, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi fired the director-general of the Baghdad Health Department in the al-Rusafa area, where the hospital is located. He also fired the director of Ibh al-Khatib Hospital and its director of engineering and maintenance, according to a statement from the Health Ministry and his office.
After the fire first broke out, al-Khadhimi held an emergency meeting at the headquarters of the Baghdad Operations Command, which coordinates Iraqi security forces, according to a statement on his Twitter account.
In the meeting he said the incident amounted to negligence.
“Negligence in such matters is not a mistake, but a crime for which all negligent parties must bear responsibility,” he said. He gave Iraqi authorities 24 hours to present the results of an investigation.
UN envoy to Iraq Jeannine Hennis-Plasschaert expressed “shock and pain” over the incident in a statement and called for stronger protection measures in hospitals.
AFP reported that the government’s human rights commission has called on the prime minister to fire Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi and “bring him to justice”. It said the incident was “a crime against patients exhausted by Covid-19 who put their lives in the hands of the health ministry and its institutions and instead of being treated, perished in flames”.
Al-Khademi has declared three days of national mourning.
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Russia reported 8,780 new coronavirus cases today, including 2,526 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 4,762,569 since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
The coronavirus crisis centre said 332 more deaths of coronavirus patients had been confirmed in the past 24 hours, taking the national death toll to 108,232.
The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and reported a toll of more than 225,000 from April last year to February.
India’s number of cases surged by 349,691 in the past 24 hours.
Its crematoriums and burial grounds are being overwhelmed by the devastating new surge of infections, AP reports:
Burial grounds in the Indian capital New Delhi are running out of space and bright, glowing funeral pyres light up the night sky in other badly hit cities.
In central Bhopal city, some crematoriums have increased their capacity from dozens of pyres to more than 50. Yet, officials say, there are still hours-long waits.
At the city’s Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematorium, workers said they cremated more than 110 people on Saturday, even as government figures in the entire city of 1.8 million put the total number of deaths at just 10.
“The virus is swallowing our city’s people like a monster,” said Mamtesh Sharma, an official at the site.
The unprecedented rush of bodies has forced the crematorium to skip individual ceremonies and exhaustive rituals that Hindus believe release the soul from the cycle of rebirth.
“We are just burning bodies as they arrive,” said Sharma. “It is as if we are in the middle of a war.”
The head gravedigger at New Delhi’s largest Muslim cemetery, where 1,000 people have been buried during the pandemic, said more bodies are arriving now than last year. “I fear we will run out of space very soon,” said Mohammad Shameem.
Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. India remains the centre of attention after a fourth straight day of world-record Covid case numbers.
Here is a summary of the latest developments from India and elsewhere:
- India’s prime minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged all citizens to take Covid-19 vaccines and exercise caution, saying a “storm” of infections had shaken the country.
- The US has said it is in talks to “rapidly deploy” aid to beleaguered healthcare workers in India and that it is gravely concerned about the situation there. Meanwhile, Delhi has extended its lockdown by a week.
- The Met police said eight of its officers were injured as anti-lockdown protests in central London England turned violent. The force said five people were arrested for offences including assault on police and remain in custody.
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The number of Covid-19 jabs administered globally surpassed the 1bn mark on Saturday.
- At least 27 people were killed and 46 injured in a fire on Saturday at a hospital in south-eastern Baghdad that had been equipped to house Covid-19 patients, medical sources at three nearby hospitals told Reuters. The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in the Diyala Bridge area of the Iraqi capital occurred after an accident caused an oxygen tank to explode, the sources said.
- Thailand has announced its highest number of coronavirus deaths, for the second consecutive day. It reported 2,438 new coronavirus cases and 11 new deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 55,460 and fatalities to 140 since the pandemic started last year.
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