The World Enters Critical Stage of the Pandemic Again
The world is again facing new pressures from the Covid-19 pandemic. Several countries have recorded a significant increase in new cases and delayed vaccination.
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Ichwan Susanto/Adhitya Ramadhan
·6 minutes read
SALVATORE DI NOLFI/KEYSTONE FILE VIA AP
FILE - In this file photo dated Monday, March 9, 2020, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, centre, speaks during a news conference on updates regarding on the coronavirus COVID-19, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Accompanying Tedros are Michael Ryan, left, executive director of WHO\'s Health Emergencies program, and Maria van Kerkhove, right, technical lead of WHO\'s Health Emergencies program. The way WHO handled the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic is under scrutiny, facing calls for the U.N. health agency to be overhauled and WHO has bowed to demands for an independent review.
BRUSSELS, TUESDAY — The Covid-19 pandemic has reached a critical stage. This phenomenon, among others, is marked by the addition of new cases in a number of countries and the delay in the vaccination process in several countries in Africa. Not only that, in Europe, where the health system is quite supportive, the situation is overshadowed by an increase in the number of deaths due to Covid-19.
The number of deaths due to Covid-19 in 52 countries in Europe has reached more than one million. Meanwhile, Covid-19 has infected a total of more than 136 million people and claimed the lives of more than 2.9 million people.
"We are in a critical point of the pandemic right now. Within the last seven weeks, the trajectory of this pandemic is growing... exponentially," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO\'s technical lead on Covid-19, on Tuesday (13/4/2021).
"This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, when we have proven control measures," Maria told reporters.
India, where previously cases of transmission were reported to have declined, is now in the opposite position. On Monday, reportedly there were additional 168,000 new cases in a day. The number of new cases brought the total Covid-19 cases in India to 13.5 million cases, bigger than Brazil with 13.48 million cases.
This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, when we have proven control measures.
Experts have warned that huge, mostly maskless, crowds at political rallies and religious festivals have fuelled India\'s caseload.
The surge in Covid-19 cases in India has overwhelmed hospitals with patients. The city of Pune, which is the base for the Serum Institute of India (SII), for example, reportedly ran out of ventilators because Covid-19 patients continued to grow and fill the hospitals.
Social media is also full of people looking for beds for abandoned patients. At the same time, the relatives of the patients continued to crowd the pharmacies to find medicine for their relatives because all the hospitals had run out of the medicines they needed.
Kompas
A health worker takes swab sample of a woman for COVID-19 test in New Delhi, India, Monday, April 5, 2021. India\'s daily confirmed coronavirus cases have recorded the biggest single-day spike since the pandemic began, indicating a renewed crush of infections. The government has intensified its vaccination drive in recent weeks, now administering over 3 million jabs a day.
To help control the spread of Covid-19, the Government of India has granted permission to use the Sputnik V vaccine, the Covid-19 vaccine from Russia. That way, there are three Covid-19 vaccines that are now being used by India, after giving permission to use the Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Covaxin made by Bharat Biotech. "The solution is for everyone to stay home for two months and end this (pandemic) once and for all. But the public doesn\'t listen," said Rohit, 28, a waiter at a popular restaurant in Mumbai.
"Nobody follows the rules in the restaurant... If we tell customers to wear masks, they are rude and disrespectful to us," Rohit added. Besides India, Turkey reported a significant addition of new cases. Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Monday that there were 52,676 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. As many as 85 percent of the new Covid-19 cases were Covid-19 cases from the new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that was first identified in the UK.
Koca further said that Turkey\'s Covid-19 scientific council would recommend strict social restrictions to control the "third wave" of Covid-19 infections in Turkey.
Meanwhile, Africa continues to fall behind in pandemic vaccinations, funding and logistics. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for the development of domestically-produced Covid-19 vaccine so as not to be left behind from other continents. "Africa needs to optimize its own capabilities and identify opportunities for collaboration," he said.
Ramaphosa hoped that India and Brazil, which have succeeded in developing their pharmaceutical industry, can help Africa. However, the two countries are also currently busy struggling to deal with the latest surge in Covid-19 cases.
Stay optimistic
From Geneva, Switzerland, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the COVID-19 pandemic is a long way from over. However, there are still many reasons for optimism. The decline in cases and deaths during the first two months of the year shows that the spread of the virus can be stopped.
“We too want to see societies and economies reopening, and travel and trade resuming. But right now, intensive care units in many countries are overflowing and people are dying – and it’s totally avoidable,” Tedros told a news briefing.
That optimism also appears in England. Despite the mourning mood that has engulfed Europe, Britain is loosening restrictions for the first time in the last few months. More than 32 million people, or more than 60 percent of the country\'s adult population, have had their first injection and nearly 15 percent of them have received a second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
We too want to see societies and economies reopening, and travel and trade resuming. But right now, intensive care units in many countries are overflowing and people are dying.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the progress of recovered patients as of Tuesday exceeds 1.4 million people with the percentage at 90.4. This cumulative recovery rate has increased after yesterday there were 6,349 additional daily recovery patients.
Based on the official information of the Committee for Mitigating Covid-19 and National Economic Recovery, Tuesday, five provinces recorded the highest daily number of recovering patients. The five provinces were Central Java with additional 1,952 people and the cumulative was 142,318 people, West Java with 1,073 people and the cumulative was 230,668 people, Jakarta with 900 people and the cumulative was the highest, namely 381,406 people, Yogyakarta with 231 people, and the cumulative was 30,236 people, and East Java with 223 people and the cumulative was 130,815 people.
With regard to the Covid-19 vaccination program as of Tuesday, the number of vaccine recipients had reached 10,373,963 people. This increase was made possible due to the addition of 112,172 daily vaccine recipients. Meanwhile, the number of recipients of the second vaccination increased to 5,431,997 people. The target of vaccination is 40,349,049 people. Furthermore, looking at the number of active cases or patients who still need treatment, it decreased by 773 cases and its total number decreased to 108,599 cases with the percentage at 6.9 percent. However, the number of patients who were confirmed positive through the RT-PCR/TCM and rapid antigen examination methods, yesterday, increased by 5,702 cases.
Five provinces with the highest additional number were West Java with 1,456 additional cases and a cumulative of 261,504 cases, Central Java with 859 additional cases and the cumulative of 175,316 cases, Jakarta with 828 additional cases and the cumulative was still the highest reaching 394,118 cases, Riau with 253 additional cases and the cumulative of 37,394 cases, and East Java with 249 additional cases and the cumulative was 143,054 cases. The total positive cases of Covid-19 in Indonesia, starting from the first case, were 1,577,526 cases.
