NEW DELHI (AP) – India reported a record daily increase in new coronavirus cases for the second time in four days on Wednesday, while New Delhi, Mumbai and dozens of other cities announced a curfew to try and fight rising infections. to delay.
The increase of 115,736 coronavirus cases reported in the past 24 hours exceeds the 103,844 infections reported on Sunday. The number of fatalities has risen by 630 in the last 24 hours, the highest since November, bringing the total death toll in the country to 166,177 since the start of the pandemic.
The federal government has so far refused to impose a nationwide lockdown to stem the latest surge, but has asked states to decide whether to impose local restrictions.
“The pandemic is not over and there is no room for complacency,” Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Twitter. He urged people to get vaccinated.
India now has a seven-day moving average of more than 78,000 cases per day and has reported 12.8 million virus cases since the start of the pandemic, the highest after the United States and Brazil.
While 85 million Indians have received at least one injection of the coronavirus, only 11 million of them have received both.
Due to an increase in infections, India has now slowed the export of large quantities of vaccines. It has shipped 64.5 million doses to date.
Experts say the increase, which is worse than last year’s peak in mid-September, is partly due to growing disregard for social aloofness and the wearing of masks in public spaces.
While health officials continue to warn of rallies in public places, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party leaders continue to hold massive rallies in several states where local elections are underway.
On Tuesday’s campaign trail in the state of West Bengal, Modi was seen waving to maskless supporters from his car.
His government has also authorized a huge month-long Hindu festival, which draws tens of thousands of devotees daily to the banks of the Ganges River in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
For other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– North Korea has continued to claim in its latest report to the World Health Organization that it has a perfect track record of keeping out the coronavirus. At the start of the pandemic, North Korea described its efforts to keep the virus at bay as a “matter of national existence.” It closed its borders, banned tourists and chased away diplomats. The country continues to severely restrict cross-border traffic and has quarantined tens of thousands of people who showed symptoms. But it still says it hasn’t found a case of COVID-19, a claim widely questioned. In an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Edwin Salvador, WHO’s representative in North Korea, said the North has reported testing 23,121 people for the coronavirus from the start of the pandemic to April 1, and that all results were negative. Salvador said North said 732 people were tested between March 26 and April 1. According to WHO officials, the North is no longer giving the UN agency the number of people it is quarantining with suspected symptoms.
– South Korea has reported 668 new cases of the coronavirus, the highest daily jump in nearly three months as concerns grow over a new wave and slow vaccine rollout. The numbers released by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Wednesday brought the national caseload to 106,898, including 1,756 deaths. Most of the new cases were in the Seoul region and other major cities. Officials previously insisted that a wait-and-see approach was feasible with the rollout of vaccines in South Korea, as the country’s outbreak was not as dire as the one in America and Europe. Now they say they are considering all possible measures to avoid a shortage, and it remains to be seen whether they would consider restricting exports of AstraZeneca shots produced by local firm SK Bioscience.
– Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is facing criticism for a backlog in vaccine roll-out, noting that his country has struggled to get the promised vaccine doses out of Europe. He said more than 3 million of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses contracted in Australia have not yet arrived – but that should not be taken as a criticism of the European Union. ‘That’s just a fact. That is not a dispute. It’s not a conflict. It’s not an argument. It’s not a collision. It’s just a simple fact. And I am simply explaining to the Australian public that delivery issues are limiting and, especially in recent months, have limited the overall rollout of the vaccine, ”Morrison told reporters in Canberra. He said he will write again to the European Union and AstraZeneca requesting the complete order of vaccine doses to be sent. Morrison said some of the doses will be sent to help neighboring Papua New Guinea deal with the virus outbreak. In March, Europe stopped about 250,000 vaccines going to Australia over concerns about the European supply shortage.
– Nepal resumed on Wednesday handing out vaccines against COVID-19 on Wednesday with vaccines donated by China. The Himalayan nation had started its vaccination campaign in January with AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute in India, but had to suspend them after India cut supplies. China donated 800,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine flown in last month. India had first donated 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and Nepal bought 2 million more from the company. However, only 1 million was delivered and the delivery of the other half has been delayed by the company.