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 India extends record rise in cases
India extended a record daily run of new COVID-19 infections on
Friday, spurred by hundreds of positive tests at a major religious
gathering, as politicians pushed ahead with election rallies against
advice they could worsen the outbreak.
India is battling a massive second wave of the pandemic, with new
restrictions imposed in Mumbai, New Delhi and other cities. There
are also growing calls for officials to speed up the country's
vaccination programme as hospitals are swamped.
The 217,353 new cases reported by the health ministry on Friday
marked the eighth record daily increase in the last nine days and
took total cases to nearly 14.3 million.
Thailand uses hotel beds for COVID-19 patients
Thailand reported on Friday its fifth record daily tally of
coronavirus cases this week, as authorities set up thousands of
field hospitals to cope with an influx of patients and lined up
hotels to provide extra beds for those without symptoms.
All positive cases have to be admitted into care under Thai rules
and with 10,461 patients currently being treated, the medical sector
could be put under additional strain.
The government has set up over 20,000 beds at field hospitals across
the country at community centres and gyms.
Brazil's hospitals running out of sedatives
Brazil's hospitals were running out of drugs needed to sedate
COVID-19 patients on Thursday, with the government urgently seeking
to import supplies amid reports of the seriously ill being tied down
and intubated without effective sedatives.
Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Brazil was in talks with Spain
and other countries to secure the emergency drugs. Hospitals, he
added, were also struggling to get enough oxygen.
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The scenes playing out across Brazil are placing growing
international pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro.
Merkel says lockdowns, curfews vital
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged lawmakers on Friday to approve
new powers that would allow her to force lockdowns and curfews on
areas with high infection rates, saying a majority of Germans were
in favour of stricter measures.
"The third wave of the pandemic has our country firmly in its grip,"
said Merkel, whose speech in parliament was interrupted by heckling
from lawmakers of the far-right Alternative for Germany party
opposed to lockdowns.
"Intensive care workers are sending one distress call after the
other. Who are we to ignore their pleas?" Merkel said.
Fauci believes J&J vaccine will 'get back on track soon'
Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease doctor, hopes U.S.
regulators will make a quick decision to lift a pause on the Johnson
& Johnson vaccine and get that vaccine "back on track," he said in
an interview with Reuters on Thursday.
His comments come a day after a panel of advisers to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention delayed a vote on whether
to resume the J&J shots for at least a week, until it had more data
on the risk.
The United States earlier this week decided to pause distribution of
the J&J vaccine to investigate six cases of a rare brain blood clot
linked with low platelet counts in the blood.
(Compiled Linda Noakes, editing by Larry King)
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