India and Thailand reported record daily coronavirus cases on Thursday as a new wave of infections, combined with a shortage of hospital beds and vaccines, threatens to slow Asia’s recovery from the pandemic.
India broke through 200,000 daily infections for the first time on Thursday and Mumbai’s financial center was shut down as many hospitals reported shortages of beds and oxygen supplies.
“The situation is awful. We are a 900-bed hospital, but there are about 60 patients waiting and we have no room for them,” said Avinash Gawande, an official at the Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagpur, a commercial company. hub in Maharashtra.
The increase was the seventh daily record increase in the past eight days, bringing the total caseload to 14.1 million, just a second after the United States.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims thronged to a religious festival in the north of the country on Wednesday, sparking fears of another wave of COVID-19 cases.
Increasing infections are also putting pressure on healthcare in Manila and Bangkok.
The Philippines saw many hospitals in the main region, home to about 13 million people, fill up as the number of cases increases. In the past 30 days alone, confirmed cases of coronavirus 266,489, accounting for 30% of the total number of infections in the country.
Some families of COVID-19 patients have used social media to share their ordeal in finding hospitals. Some traveled outside the capital to find health care facilities or spent long hours in line.
Thailand reported 1,543 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, the strongest increase since the start of the pandemic and the fourth record increase this week. read more
The peak has increased the occupancy rate of hospital beds, as all positive cases must be taken into care according to Thai rules. A total of 8,973 patients are treated.
While the country is considering lockdown measures, neighboring Cambodia imposed a lockdown in the capital and a satellite district on Thursday. An outbreak that started in late February saw cases nearly tenfold to 4,874 within two months. read more
Bangladesh also started a one-week lockdown on Wednesday with strict restrictions, as about 7,000 cases per day have been infected over the past two weeks, up from under 300 in February.
LACK OF VACCINE
As the gap between developed and developing countries’ access to COVID-19 vaccines widens, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) urged vaccine manufacturers on Wednesday to increase technology transfer to bring in manufacturing capacity.
Thailand, for example, vaccinated 0.4% of its population and followed neighbors like Singapore at 14.6%, a Reuters estimate found.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who became Director General of the WTO in March, also called on members to reduce export restrictions on vaccines and work to simplify logistics and customs procedures.
In Australia, which abandoned its inoculation target earlier this week following shipping delays and newly imposed restrictions on the use of AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) shot, a leading doctors’ association opposed a government plan to create massive inoculation hubs, citing logistical challenges . read more
“You have to find workers somewhere, and we are not aware of a large number of registered nurses and doctors available to manage these centers,” Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Omar Khorshid told local radio.
Japan, whose vaccination rate was affected by tight supplies, could cancel this year’s Olympics in Tokyo if the coronavirus crisis becomes too dire, a senior official from the ruling party said Thursday, less than 100 days before the games scheduled to start. read more
“If it seems impossible to do any more, then we have to stop decisively,” Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, told broadcaster TBS.
Japan is facing increasing coronavirus infections, with numbers rising in Tokyo after the government ends the state of emergency, and Osaka suffering a record number of cases.
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