Delta variant ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving new spike in deaths: WHO

Agencies
July 13, 2021

The Delta variant is ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving a new spike in cases and deaths, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, warning that the variant, now in over 104 countries, is expected to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide.

Addressing a press briefing on Monday, he said that last week marked the fourth consecutive week of increasing cases of Covid-19 globally, with increases recorded in all but one of WHO’s six regions, adding with concern that after 10 weeks of declines, deaths are increasing again.

“The Delta variant is ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving a new spike in cases and deaths,” the Director-General of the World Health Organization said.

“Delta is now in more than 104 countries and we expect it to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide,” he said adding that the world is watching in real-time as the Covid-19 virus continues to change and become more transmissible.

“My message today is that we are experiencing a worsening public health emergency that further threatens lives, livelihoods and a sound global economic recovery. It is definitely worse in places that have very few vaccines, but the pandemic is not over anywhere,” he said, underscoring that the world should battle together to put out this pandemic inferno everywhere.

Noting that as the Delta variant spreads, not everywhere is taking the same hit, the WHO chief said “we’re in the midst of a growing two-track pandemic where the haves and have-nots within and between countries are increasingly divergent.”

In places with high vaccination coverage, Delta, first detected in India, is spreading quickly; “especially infecting unprotected and vulnerable people and steadily putting pressure back on health systems.”

In countries with low vaccine coverage, the situation is “particularly bad”, he warned, stressing that Delta and other highly transmissible variants are driving catastrophic waves of cases, which are translating into high numbers of hospitalisations and deaths.

“Even countries that successfully managed to ward off the early waves of the virus, through public health measures alone, are now in the midst of devastating outbreaks.”

Ghebreyesus emphasised that for health workers that have been in a “titanic battle” for more than a year and have record waiting lists to attend to, increased hospitalisations at any level is a challenge to them and their patients and to the overall capacity of the health system.

He stressed that as countries lift public health and social measures, they must consider the impact on health workers and health systems.

He also voiced concern that particularly in low-income countries, exhausted health workers are battling to save lives in the midst of shortages of personal protective equipment, oxygen and treatments.

Ghebreyesus underlined that while vaccines have never been the way out of this crisis “on their own”, this current wave is demonstrating again just what a powerful tool they are to battle back against this virus.

Voicing concern that the global gap in vaccine supply is hugely uneven and inequitable, he said some countries and regions are actually ordering millions of booster doses before other countries have had supplies to vaccinate their health workers and most vulnerable.

“I ask you, who would put firefighters on the frontline without protection? Who are the most vulnerable to the flames of this pandemic? The health workers on the frontlines, older persons and the vulnerable,” he said.

Reiterating that vaccination offers long-lasting immunity against severe and deadly Covid-19, the WHO chief said the priority now must be to vaccinate those who have received no doses and protection.

“Instead of Moderna and Pfizer prioritising the supply of vaccines as boosters to countries whose populations have relatively high coverage, we need them to go all out to channel supply to COVAX, the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team and low- and low-middle income countries, which have very low vaccine coverage,” he said.

While tens of millions of vaccine dose donations are starting to come through, he said there is a need for more and faster.

“We need an all-out, no regrets, accelerated building up of new vaccine manufacturing hubs. For that to happen quicker, pharmaceutical companies must share their licenses, know-how and technology,” he said.

AstraZeneca has led on licensing their vaccines around the world to increase vaccine capacity quickly.

“As well as Europe, India and the Republic of Korea, I am pleased to announce two more manufacturing sites, in Japan and Australia, which have now received a WHO Emergency Use Listing, bringing AstraZeneca’s EUL’s to five,” he said adding that this gives the green light for COVAX to buy vaccines from these additional facilities, and enables countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and roll out vaccines.

The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, is among the key suppliers of Astra Zeneca doses to the COVAX facility.

''We need other manufacturers to follow this example. Thousands of people are still dying every day and that deserves urgent action...No more talk about vaccinating low-income countries in 2023, 2024. This is no time for a lull, we want to see progress being built on and a surge of action to scale up the supply and sharing of lifesaving health tools."

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News Network
March 18,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 18: The Election Commission on Monday afternoon issued orders for the removal of six Home Secretaries - including the top bureaucrats from Gujarat, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

The poll panel also directed the transfer of West Bengal's Director-General of Police, the top cop of a state that has seen several instances of poll-related violence in recent years. The poll panel further said a shortlist of three potential replacements had to be prepared and submitted by 5 pm.

The re-shuffle, not an uncommon move by the Election Commission before major polls, also includes the transfer of the Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand Home Secretaries, as well as senior officials attached to the offices of the Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh Chief Ministers.

In addition, Iqbal Singh Chahal, who is Commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and other officials in municipalities across Maharashtra, have been removed too.

All of this comes less than a month before the 2024 Lok Sabha poll; the ECI on Saturday said voting will begin on April 19 and run over seven phases till June 1.

This is, in fact, the first bureaucratic re-jig by the ECI since it announced polling dates.

The ECI's move comes after a meeting of Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and his two associates, the newly-appointed Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu. This step comes as part of the poll panel's commitment to ensure a level playing field for all political parties in the forthcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, as well as by-polls for 26 seats in 13 states.

Sources said the personnel removed were found to be holding dual charge in the offices of the respective chief ministers of each state, and this could compromise, or be seen to be compromising, required neutrality, particularly in relation to law-and-order before, during and after polling.

Bengal's ruling Trinamool has not yet reacted to the removal of DGP Rajiv Malik, who is seen by some to be close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party. In the past, the state government has questioned the last-minute re-shuffle of senior civil service and police officials so close to an election, arguing it actually hampers prep work since the new faces need time to adjust to the post.

Bengal has frequently witnessed violence during polling season; in June last year over a dozen people were killed across the state as voting for a panchayat election was underway.

The Trinamool accused the opposition of instigating violence and criticised central forces for their failure to protect voters, while the Congress claimed the state had let thugs loose on the people.

While announcing the dates on Saturday, the Chief Election Commissioner said the poll panel would take a very dim view of any violence during the election. Mr Kumar said the ECI is prepared to come down hard on any such incident. "We're putting political parties on notice," he declared.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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A teenager who led over 100 people to safety during Friday’s terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall, has been hailed as a hero. 15-year-old Islam Khalilov, who worked part-time in one of the cloakrooms at Crocus City, recounted the events of the tragic evening to the Ruptly video agency.

The concert venue situated just outside of Moscow was packed ahead of a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, when a group of terrorists armed with assault rifles forced their way into the building. They fired indiscriminately at fleeing people and then set the concert hall on fire.

According to the latest estimates, the attack has claimed the lives of at least 137 people, with about 180 injured.

Khalilov told the video agency that “it was when people started running from the escalator, from the stairway” that he realized that an emergency was occurring. The teenager said that he was acting on “instincts” at the time and used his thorough knowledge of the premises to quickly arrange visitors’ evacuation toward another building within the Crocus City complex.

“I started shouting all across the foyer, all across Crocus City Hall - ‘Folks, there’s a shooting! All run to the expo!’ – and I was showing where they had to go and was helping everyone,” he explained.

According to the cloakroom attendant, “there was a stampede, and everyone was in shock at first. No one knew what to do and where to go.”

Khalilov added that he himself was running behind the entire group to make sure he had not left anyone behind.

The teenager admitted to being “really scared” all along, but still managed to make the right use the instructions he’d previously been given on how to evacuate patrons in case of an emergency.

He told Ruptly that, at one point, he had caught a glimpse of one of the terrorists.

“I saw one, [he was] bearded and in green fatigues, he was walking around with an assault rifle,” the teenager recounted.

He also recalled seeing a man getting fatally shot by one of the assailants, adding that he “can’t stop thinking about it.”

The 15-year-old said he doesn’t consider himself a hero, and that he was just doing his job.

Explaining what helped him overcome fear, Khalilov reasoned that “It’s better to sacrifice yourself than to let a hundred people die.”

After Khalilov’s feat had been reported-on by several Russian media outlets, his favorite football club, FC Spartak Moscow, invited him to a meeting where he was presented with free passes to their matches.

Popular Russian rap artist Morgenstern said he had transferred 1,000,000 rubles ($11,000) to the teenager – something that Khalilov has confirmed to media.

The leader of Russia's Muslims, Mufti Ravil Guynutdin, has announced that Khalilov would receive a medal for his bravery.

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