Covid fears rise as now India issues urgent warning over feared mutations from China’s ‘thermonuclear’ outbreak
COVID fears are growing after India issued an urgent warning about possible new variants from China’s “thermonuclear” outbreak.
India’s health minister has warned the public to take precautions against the deadly virus as the country remains on alert about potential mutations emerging from the current wave of infections from its neighbour China.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told Parliament that India would begin randomly testing 2 per cent of international travellers arriving at the country’s airports, after he asked regional authorities to send positive samples to laboratories monitoring for new Covid strains.
Mandaviya said: “States have been told to make people aware of (the need to) wear masks, use hand sanitisers, maintain respiratory hygiene and social distancing.”
Speaking Wednesday at a meeting to review the Covid situation in the country amid rising cases in several Asian nations, Mandaviya said: “Covid is not over yet. I have directed all concerned to be on the alert, and strengthen surveillance.”
India relaxed its mask-wearing rules earlier this year after coronavirus cases began dropping sharply.
It has reported the most Covid-19 cases in the world since the pandemic began, but confirmed infections have fallen sharply in the past few months.
According to health ministry data, India currently has about 3,400 active coronavirus cases.
The increase in cases in China has also prompted Indian health experts to issue advisories for the public to wear face masks and receive vaccine booster doses.
On Thursday, India’s top doctors’ body, the Indian Medical Association, also appealed to people to wear masks in all public places and get vaccine boosters.
It urged people to avoid public gatherings such as weddings, political and social meetings, and international travel.
“As of now, the situation is not alarming and therefore there is no need to panic. Prevention is better than cure,” it said in a statement.
‘NO NEED TO PANIC’
India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, has administered more than 2.2 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, but only 27 per cent of the population has received a third booster dose.
Last year, India was devastated by a second wave of Covid, which killed tens of thousands and overwhelmed the country’s health system.
According to the Health Ministry, India had seen a “steady decline” in cases, with an average of about 150 infections a day nationwide as of December 19.
India’s warning comes as China struggles to get a grip on its outbreak which was triggered by its rushed dismantling of it zero-Covid strategy earlier this month.
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern on Wednesday over the rising number of cases in the Communist country, emphasising he was worried about “increasing reports of severe disease.”
He told a news conference: “In order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground, WHO needs more detailed information on disease severity, hospital admissions and requirements for ICU support.”
A study released last week by three professors at the University of Hong Kong estimated China’s current surge could lead to nearly one million deaths in the country.
It warned the rise in infections was likely to overload many local health systems.
The severe problems China faces was highlighted earlier this week when footage emerged showing hearses in long queues outside crematoriums and bodies piling up in hospitals.
CHINA’S ‘THERMONUCLEAR’ OUTBREAK
In one video, vehicles were seen queueing at a Beijing crematorium, which is reportedly overwhelmed with a 20-day backlog as the “thermonuclear” outbreak ravages China
Other footage claims to show corpses in yellow body bags being filling the floor of a funeral home.
Another shows bodies piled on shelves and in boxes in a hospital store room as space ran out in the face of mounting death.
Official figures show just two new Covid deaths and 4,666 new daily cases.
The footage of the hearses was shared by epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, who has said the situation was now “thermonuclear bad”.
“Staff at Beijing‘s largest Babaoshan funeral house confirmed that all of its incinerators were working but were still unable to meet demand, resulting in a 20-day backlog,” he tweeted.
Dr Feigl-Ding is chief of the Covid Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute and one of the first scientists to warn about the ability of Covid to spread, when he worked at Harvard.
Despite the official figures, even accounts in tightly controlled official media are now saying 50,000 people are reporting symptoms in one city, Guangzhou, alone.
In Beijing, the authorities have increased the number of so-called ‘fever clinics’ from 94 to 1,263 to cope with the surge in patients.
Some Chinese experts are warning that the worst may be yet to come.
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said last week that China is being hit by the first of three expected waves of infections this winter.
