New Delhi (AFP)
India continues to sink into a major health crisis, beating on Thursday a world record of nearly 315,000 new cases of Covid-19 contamination in 24 hours, while in Europe several countries are preparing to ease the measures of restrictions.
This exponential upsurge in India, with nearly 3.5 million new infections since the beginning of April, is notably attributed to a "double mutation" of the virus and to mass events, such as the Hindu religious festival Khumb Mela which drains millions. devotees since January.
Faced with an oxygen shortage, several hospitals and clinics in New Delhi, confined for a week, have made a desperate appeal to the central government to urgently provide supplies to feed hundreds of patients on ventilators. .
Hospitals in the state of Maharashtra (West), and its overcrowded capital, Bombay, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, are also experiencing severe shortages.
Twenty-two patients died in a hospital in Nashik, due to an oxygen supply cut-off to ventilators for half an hour.
India's cemeteries and crematoriums are taken aback by the growing number of deaths.
The Indian Ministry of Health on Thursday reported 314,835 new infections, a daily toll that no country in the world had previously recorded.
India has counted 15.9 million cases in total since the start of the pandemic, the second most affected country in terms of number of cases ahead of the 14.12 million recorded in Brazil.
But Brazil with its 212 million inhabitants deplores some 381,000 deaths, twice as many as India with its 1.3 billion inhabitants.
The United States now advises against travel to India even for fully vaccinated people, Britain has added India to its "red list", Hong Kong and New Zealand have banned flights.
France now imposes compulsory isolation of ten days on arrival from India.
The situation is also dramatic in Iraq, which has exceeded one million contaminations, a figure unmatched in the Arab world, recorded in a country of 40 million inhabitants in shortage of drugs, doctors and hospitals for decades.
The death toll from Covid-19 also exceeded 60,000 in Argentina where the number of cases of contamination increased sharply to nearly 26,000 for Wednesday alone.
"Argentina is going through the worst moment of the pandemic since March 3 of last year. It is the most risky moment", declared the press the Minister of Health Carla Vizzotti.
- "Incredible success" -
The pandemic of the new coronavirus has killed at least 3,060,859 people worldwide since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease at the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP from from official sources Thursday at midday.
But the vaccination campaigns are starting to bear fruit, as in the United States where President Joe Biden on Wednesday hailed the "incredible" success of his administration, which is the injection of 200 million doses of anti-Covid vaccines before the hundredth day of his mandate.
"Today we have done it, today we have reached 200 million injections", welcomed the president during a speech.
The United States, the country deploring the highest number of deaths from Covid-19, carried out an effective vaccination campaign, ahead of certain European countries, and neighboring Canada.
On the Old Continent, vaccination campaigns are slower and Germany said Thursday it plans to buy 30 million doses of the Russian anti-Covid Sputnik vaccine, which has not yet received the green light from Europe.
The fragile decline in the epidemic, however, encourages governments to ease restrictions.
Starting with Italy where, from April 26, restaurants will be authorized to open to the public for lunch, and also for dinner for the first time since the end of October, but only in the open air and in regions classified as "yellow", with the lowest risk of contagion.
Cinemas, theaters and concert halls will also be able to reopen next Monday, respecting the distancing and remaining below 50% of their maximum capacity, while schools, colleges and universities will give priority to face-to-face lessons.
In France, the executive maintains its objective of removing the 10 km travel limit on the evening of May 2 and reopening the terraces in mid-May.
Finland also plans to lift several of its restrictions starting next week.
For its part, faced with an improvement in the health situation, Denmark has already decided to speed up its reopening and museums, cafes, bars and restaurants reopened their doors on Wednesday to people with the "coronapas", the health passport.
In Greece, the terraces of bars and restaurants will reopen on May 3, but travel between regions will still be prohibited for the Easter holidays, celebrated on May 2 by the Orthodox.
© 2021 AFP