NEW DELHI: India reported another record number of new COVID-19 infections on Friday with daily deaths also hitting their highest in more than five months as the country battles a second wave of infections and states complain of a persistent vaccine shortage.
The world’s second most-populous country reported 131,968 new infections and 780 deaths on Friday – the biggest daily increase since mid-October.
That took India’s overall caseload to 13.06 million – the world’s third-highest after the United States and Brazil – and total deaths from COVID-19 to 167,642. India’s total number of infections inched closer to Brazil’s 13.28 million.
With several states having expanded curbs to control the rapid spread of the virus, migrant workers have started packing into trains toward their villages from major cities such as Mumbai, potentially risking a wider outbreak in smaller towns.
The government blames the resurgence mainly on crowding and a reluctance to wear masks as businesses gradually reopened since the middle of last year.
“We all know that it’s because of the casual approach that has been adopted unfortunately by the society and some sort of laxity everywhere in following the discipline of the COVID- appropriate behavior,” Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told a news conference.
He said on Thursday there was no shortage of shots for the groups eligible for vaccination, with more than 43 million doses in stock or in the pipeline. India has been inoculating about 4 million people a day.
The surge in cases has been far sharper than last year, triggering widespread calls for the vaccination of younger people. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected the idea on Thursday, citing the need to prioritize the more vulnerable, elderly population.
Inoculations are currently limited to those aged over 45 and health and frontline workers.
Much of the country has fallen behind safety protocols, the most glaring example being election rallies, where politicians including Modi and Interior Minister Amit Shah have greeted hundreds of thousands of supporters, most of whom were not wearing masks.
The government has refused to impose another national lockdown, but Modi said night curfews were an effective way to keep people alert.
India’s new COVID-19 infections hit record, deaths at over five-month high
https://arab.news/m3j9v
India’s new COVID-19 infections hit record, deaths at over five-month high
- The world’s second most-populous country reported 131,968 new infections and 780 deaths on Friday
- Several states have expanded curbs to control the rapid spread of the virus
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
