MUMBAI: India reported on Saturday its smallest daily increase in coronavirus infections in nearly three weeks, but deaths stayed near the 4,000-mark as the World Health Organization warned that the second year of the pandemic could be worse than the first.
In the past 24 hours, India had 326,098 new infections, taking its tally to 24.37 million, with 3,890 deaths, for a toll of 266,207, health ministry data shows. But the slow growth may also reflect test rates that are at their lowest since May 9.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization’s chief said India was a huge concern, with the second year of the pandemic set to be more deadly than the first.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s remarks to an online meeting came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounded the alarm on Friday over the rapid spread of the disease through the vast countryside.
During the past week, the south Asian nation has added about 1.7 million new cases and more than 20,000 deaths in a second wave of infections that has overwhelmed hospitals and medical staff.
Police are patrolling the banks of the Ganges in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh to stop any dumping of corpses in the river, a government official said.
“We keep recovering 10 to 20 bodies every now and then,” Navneet Sehgal, a spokesman for the northern state, which has more people than Brazil, said.
“We have put a police force on the river and have also sent communications to local authorities that this practice be stopped.”
Sehgal was denying a report in the Asian Age newspaper, citing federal government sources, that nearly 2,000 bodies of possible virus victims had been pulled from the river in the past week or so.
Some riverside villages did not cremate their dead in line with Hindu tradition during certain periods of religious significance, he added.
The state’s virus infections officially peaked late last month but experts say many more cases are going undetected in the villages home to the bulk of the state’s 240 million people.
Cases have fallen steadily in some Indian states hit by an initial surge in infections, such as the richest state of Maharashtra and the capital New Delhi, after they imposed stringent lockdowns.
Delhi’s positive cases as a share of tests have fallen to 11 percent, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal told a news briefing, from more than 30 percent early this month.
But the eastern state of West Bengal, which held elections last month, had its biggest single-day spike. On Saturday, it ordered a state-wide lockdown for 15 days until the end of May.
Some other states, such as Karnataka in the south, have also reported recent rises, implying an fall in overall cases is still some time away.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to accelerate Britain’s vaccination program, reducing the gap between doses for the vulnerable, to try to contain a fast-spreading variant first detected in India.
Johnson’s comments came soon after India accepted a government panel’s recommendation to double to 12 to 16 weeks the gap between doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
India’s daily COVID-19 deaths near 4,000 as police sent to halt dumping of bodies
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India’s daily COVID-19 deaths near 4,000 as police sent to halt dumping of bodies
- The World Health Organization's chief said India was a huge concern
- Police are patrolling the banks of the Ganges in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh to stop any dumping of corpses in the river
Merz says Germany exploring shared nuclear umbrella with European allies
- Germany is currently banned from developing a nuclear weapon
- Britain and France are the only European powers which have a nuclear arsenal
BERLIN: European nations are starting to discuss ideas around a shared nuclear umbrella to complement existing security arrangements with the US, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, amid growing talk in Germany of developing its own nuclear defenses.
Merz, speaking at a time of increased transatlantic tensions as US President Donald Trump upends traditional alliances, said the talks were only at an initial stage and no decision was imminent.
“We know that we have to reach a number of strategic and military policy decisions, but at the moment, the time is not ripe,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Germany is currently banned from developing a nuclear weapon of its own under the so-called Four Plus Two agreement that opened the way for the country’s reunification in 1990 as well as under a landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty that Germany signed in 1969.
Merz said Germany’s treaty obligations did not prevent it from discussing joint solutions with partners, including Britain and France, the only European powers which have a nuclear arsenal.
“These talks are taking place. They are also not in conflict with nuclear-sharing with the United States of America,” he said.
European nations have long relied heavily on the United States, including its large nuclear arsenal, for their defense but have been increasing military spending, partly in response to sharp criticism from the Trump administration.
Trump has rattled Washington’s European allies with his talk of acquiring Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally, and his threat, later rescinded, to impose tariffs on countries that stood in his way.
He has also suggested in the past that the US would not help protect countries that failed to spend enough on their own defense.
Merz’s comments were echoed by the head of the parliamentary defense committee, Thomas Roewekamp, who said Germany had the technical capacity which could be used in developing a European nuclear weapon.
“We do not have missiles or warheads, but we do have a significant technological advantage that we could contribute to a joint European initiative,” Roewekamp, from Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union party, told Germany’s Welt TV.
