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Tragedy in India
This is beyond awful.
It always seemed likely that India, with it's dense population centres, would be a prime candidate for COVID. Well they are just entering their "Wave 2" & it's ghastly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-56826645
No doubt some loony, sitting comfortably in their armchair in front of their large screen TV in rural England, will be along in due course to blithely inform us that there is no such thing as COVID. Ugh.
It always seemed likely that India, with it's dense population centres, would be a prime candidate for COVID. Well they are just entering their "Wave 2" & it's ghastly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-56826645
No doubt some loony, sitting comfortably in their armchair in front of their large screen TV in rural England, will be along in due course to blithely inform us that there is no such thing as COVID. Ugh.
Comments
They're going to need some aid, big time.
India's health infrastructure has been brought to its knees by a second wave which is three times higher than the first, with medics pointing to a new variant believed to be more infectious. At the start of the year, India thought it had beaten the pandemic and had kicked off a mass vaccination drive. Face masks and social distancing were cast aside and huge crowds flocked to religious festivals, election rallies and cricket matches. But now cities are on lockdown again, anti-viral drugs like redesivir are being sold on a flourishing black market and oxygen cylinders are being looted, with tankers given armed escorts to transport supplies. While India's infections have risen higher than any other country in the world, their deaths have remained conspicuously low. Local news reports from the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar reveal that while at least 1,833 people died of coronavirus recently, based on the number of cremations, just 228 have been officially tallied.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9498829/Indias-Covid-death-toll-TEN-TIMES-higher.html
Heathrow refuses to allow extra flights from India because of border queues as passengers scramble to Britain before nation is added to red list at 4am tomorrow amid new variant surge
Four airlines asked the west London airport for a total of eight extra flights to arrive at the hub before the Friday deadline so that returning UK travellers can avoid the gruelling 10-day hotel quarantine
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9498647/Covid-UK-Heathrow-refuses-allow-extra-flights-India-passengers-scramble-Britain.html
The only caveat I would offer would be that any such aid, help, assistance, call it what you will is directly inputted to where it's needed and bypasses the corruption and self serving of those in power.
I'm not saying the airlines aren't being exploitative but it's happening everywhere.
I'm in my caravan in Rhyl right now and there are people charging up to £1500 for a weeks stay in July August and getting bookings.
Guest houses and BnBs are reporting attempts at gazumping by people desperate to get away for a break, and the hotels are going to be coining it in.
As for me I refuse to be a part of it and the people who regularly rent my van will pay the same as they always have.
Hundreds of devotees, including nine top saints, have tested positive for Covid-19 in India's Haridwar city where huge crowds have gathered to participate in the Kumbh Mela festival.
More than three million Hindu devotees bathed in the Ganges river on Tuesday to mark one of the most auspicious days of the two-month-long festival.
Millions are expected to repeat the ritual on Wednesday.
India reported 184,372 new cases on Tuesday - its highest-daily spike yet.
Many have criticised the government for allowing the festival to go ahead amid a raging pandemic.
Officials said that nearly 900,000 people had taken a dip in the holy river by afternoon on Wednesday, which is considered to be the most auspicious day of the entire festival.
I wholly agree with you @lucy4
It's hard for me to grasp how important Religion is in those parts though. But yes, seemed very odd they allowed these huge gatherings. It really was tempting fate.
Still a tragedy for the people though, whoever we choose to blame.
Now they have to do it the hard way, with a severe Lockdown.
The Asian nation is now recording a global record of 315,000 cases per day (inset) as a virulent variant of coronavirus sweeps the subcontinent, while the health ministry said there were 2,074 daily fatalities but experts say the true figure could be at least ten times higher. The last chartered flight from India landed at Heathrow at 7pm last night (main picture) but others hired $10,000-an-hour private jets for the 12-hour, 6,000-mile trip, to get to the UK, MailOnline can reveal today. One, chartered from Mumbai to Luton, took the decision to fly over wartorn Iraq, a route usually shunned by pilots, to get back to Britain in time. This morning at 7am the first flights from India landed in the UK, but the hundreds on board each flight must now stay in a government-approved quarantine for ten days on arrival. India's health infrastructure has been brought to its knees by a second wave which is three times higher than the first, with medics pointing to a new variant believed to be more infectious.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9502963/India-joins-red-list-Passengers-enter-UK-hotel-quarantine.html
Another 314,835 infections were reported in India on Thursday, the world record for a daily cases figure, while the health ministry said there were 2,074 fatalities, a conspicuously low figure. AMRIT DHILLON writes that epidemiologists in the country are reporting virulent new variants driving this surge, including a 'double mutation' variant B1617 that does not always show up in tests even in those patients with full-blown symptoms and whose CT scans show all the tell-tale signs of coronavirus damage. There is even more frightening talk, too, of a 'triple' mutation variant. Will vaccines be effective against such variants? That would be more of a worry here, perhaps, if more people had been vaccinated - it stands at less than 10 per cent of the population so far. It is no exaggeration to say that it feels near calamitous at times. Government and hospital helplines ring out unanswered while the streets of cities and small towns are thronged with panic-stricken daughters, sons, husbands and wives doing what Mr Rastogi did - driving for hours to find oxygen or a hospital bed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9501663/Riddle-Indias-Covid-tsunami-Miraculously-escaped-worst-pandemic-now.html
The science fiction of tomorrow becomes todays nightmare as the virus mutates almost at will and yet the Government instead of immediately sealing the borders allow thousands to scramble back before a deadline.
This mutation will reek havoc in the UK because we let people back in from a mass infection area knowing that testing is not effective in picking this mutation up and why.
If the country has to go into another lockdown because of this imported strain then we are going to see mass rebellion against the authorities.
We are an island, it's not that difficult to go total exclusion, I.O.M managed it.
They took the p1ss out of a guy that arrived from Peru, who wanted to see Big Ben.
These arrivals were from all over the world, and not just India, but why let anyone in?
India has only just been included on the red list, despite having three times the infections of countries that have been on the red list for some time.
I saw a woman in India that was looking to return to the UK with her family, being interviewed on the news yesterday, and she claimed that it was not possible to book a hotel to quarantine in, as the website was down.
P1ss ups and breweries spring to mind.
Leading virologist Shahid Jameel today warned that India has still yet to hit the peak of its ferocious second wave, with studies suggesting it may record 500,000 cases per day in the first week of May. India's current fatality rate per 100,000 cases is 1.14 per cent, meaning if the nation reaches this anticipated peak there is the potential for 5,700 deaths per day. Desperate hospitals across the country are buckling under the strain of this second wave, with many quickly running out of oxygen and being forced to turn stricken patients away due to overcrowding. Harrowing images from a makeshift crematorium in New Delhi today illustrated the extent of the pandemic in India, with Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford (right) describing the situation as the 'tip of an iceberg' to a much larger crisis. The crematorium was set up outside a hospital in the capital by desperate people who 'cannot cope' with the number of dead - and were forced to say goodbye to their loved ones at an ad hoc funeral pyre site. It comes as the High Court in New Delhi, which is home to some 30million people, today met to impose a strict ruling that if anyone is found to be restricting oxygen supplies to hospitals, they 'will be hanged'. Pictured middle: Funeral pyres in New Delhi today.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9506681/Indias-devastating-second-wave-wont-peak-May.html
Scrub Malaysia, maybe Indonesia.
But, we’ve not gone to a truly Muslim country yet. Bit odd🤔
Where was the tragedy in Mexico or Brazil thread?
Stay alert.