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NEW DELHI: A weekend curfew began in India’s capital New Delhi and several other regions on Saturday as the country is bracing for a third wave of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases amid a rapid surge in new infections fueled by the omicron variant.
Indian health authorities recorded nearly 142,000 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, a tenfold increase from last week, bringing the country’s tally to over 3.5 million. The death toll increased to over 483,400 with 285 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours.
Delhi alone registered over 20,000 new cases on Saturday, the highest number since the beginning of May, when a deadly second wave of the virus wreaked havoc in the country. At least 178,000 people died of COVID-19 between March and May 2020, when an outbreak of the delta variant paralyzed India’s medical infrastructure.
The even faster spreading omicron variant, first detected in South Africa in November, has now overtaken in India the previously dominant delta strain.
Besides Delhi, weekend curfews have also been imposed in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, and in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, where the number of new cases has jumped from about 800 to over 6,800 since last week.
“The weekend curfew is important because people have become very careless. People think that since they are vaccinated, they will not get infected,” Dr. Rama V. Baru of the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told Arab News on Saturday. She said people are “forgetting the bitter memory of the second wave.”
“The public health system is fatigued,” Baru added. “A two-day curfew, one may presume, will reduce transmission. The government doesn’t want a situation in which the health system gets overwhelmed.”
Dr. Adarsh Pratap Singh from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi said that 66 out 100 patients who have undergone COVID-19 screening have tested positive for the virus.
“The number of patients is increasing, and if many of them require hospitalization, we are not equipped because it would be difficult to manage the huge population,” he told Arab News.
“We are still unaware of how the new omicron variant is going to behave. We should be prepared for the worst situation, and we have to build our infrastructure accordingly.”
He also said more health workers need to join hospitals to address the COVID-19 surge.
India has one of the worst doctor-to-patient ratios in the world — just 1 to 1,456. About 45,000 junior doctors are expected to join the medical workforce soon, after the Supreme Court on Friday cleared their admission process to practice at government health facilities.
The admissions were stalled for months by legal disputes, prompting practicing doctors to go on a month-long strike from early December until last week amid fears that a looming third wave could overwhelm understaffed medical facilities.
ROME: Pope Francis suggested Monday that getting vaccinated against the coronavirus was a “moral obligation” and denounced how people had been swayed by “baseless information” to refuse one of the most effective measures to save lives.
Francis used some of his strongest words yet calling for people to get vaccinated in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, an annual event in which he takes stock of the world and sets out the Vatican’s foreign policy goals for the year.
Francis, 85, has generally shied away from speaking about vaccination as a “moral obligation,” though his COVID-19 advisory body has referred to it as a “moral responsibility.” Rather, Francis has termed vaccination as “an act of love” and that refusing to get inoculated was “suicidal.”
On Monday he went a step further, saying that individuals had a responsibility to care for themselves “and this translates into respect for the health of those around us. Health care is a moral obligation,” he asserted.
He lamented that, increasingly, ideological divides were discouraging people from getting vaccinated.
“Frequently people let themselves be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts,” he said, calling for the adoption of a “reality therapy” to correct this distortion of human reason.
“Vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease,” he added.
Some Catholics, including some conservative US bishops and cardinals, have claimed vaccines based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses were immoral, and have refused to get the jabs.
The Vatican’s doctrine office, however, has said it is “morally acceptable” for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses. Francis and Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI have been fully vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech shots.
Francis repeated his call for universal access to the shots, particularly in the parts of the world with low vaccination rates, and called for revisions to patent rules so that poorer countries can develop their own vaccines.
“It is appropriate that institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization adapt their legal instruments lest monopoliztic rules constitute further obstacles to production and to an organized and consistent access to health care on a global level,” he said.
KAMPALA: Uganda’s schools reopened to students on Monday, ending the world’s longest school disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The reopening caused traffic congestion in some areas of the capital, Kampala, and students can be seen carrying their mattresses in the streets, a back-to-boarding school phenomenon not witnessed here for nearly two years.
Uganda’s schools have been fully or partially shut for more than 83 weeks, the world’s longest disruption, according to figures from the UN cultural agency. The shutdown affected more than 10 million learners.
The East African country of 44 million people first shut down its schools in March 2020, shortly after the first coronavirus case was confirmed on the African continent. Some classes were reopened to students in February 2021, but a total lockdown was imposed again in June as the country faced its first major surge.
For many parents, the reopening was long overdue.
“Inevitably, we have to open up schools,” said Felix Okot, the father of a 6-year-old kindergartner. “The future of our kids, the future of our nation, is at stake.”
The country’s schools cannot “wait forever” for the pandemic’s end, he warned.
The protracted school lockdown proved controversial in a country where measures aimed at stemming the spread of the virus were ignored by many. Vaccine skepticism, even among health workers, remains a problem, with growing reports of fake COVID-19 vaccination cards sold in downtown Kampala.
Many students returning to school are believed to have had no help during the lockdown. Most public schools, which serve the vast majority of children in Uganda, were unable to offer virtual schooling. The Associated Press reported in November on students in a remote Ugandan town where weeds grew in classrooms and some students worked in a swamp as gold miners.
Some critics pointed out that the government of President Yoweri Museveni — an authoritarian who has held power for 36 years and whose wife is the education minister — did little to support home-based learning. Museveni justified the lockdown by insisting that infected students were a danger to their parents and others.
“There are many things which can’t be predicted right now. The turnout of students is unpredictable, the turnout of teachers is unpredictable,” said Fagil Mandy, a former government inspector of schools now working as an independent consultant. “I am more worried that many children will not return to school for various reasons, including school fees.”
Mandy also noted concern that a virus outbreak “will spread very fast” in crowded schools, urging close monitoring by school administrators.
Welcoming the reopening of Uganda’s schools, Save the Children warned that “lost learning may lead to high dropout rates in the coming weeks without urgent action,” including what it described as catch-up clubs.
The aid group warned in a statement Monday of a wave of dropouts “as returning students who have fallen behind in their learning fear they have no chance of catching up.”
It remains to be seen how long Uganda’s schools will remain open, with an alarming rise in virus cases in recent days. In the past week health authorities have been reporting a daily positivity rate in excess of 10 percent, up from virtually zero in December. Museveni has warned of a possible new lockdown if intensive care units reach 50 percent occupancy.
Hoping for a smooth return to school, authorities waived any COVID test requirements for students. An abridged curriculum also has been approved under an arrangement to automatically promote all students to the next class.
Uganda has received foreign support toward the reopening of schools.
The UN children’s agency and the governments of the UK and Ireland announced financial support focusing on virus surveillance and the mental health of students and teachers in 40,000 schools. They said their support was key for Uganda’s school system to remain open.
Police in Los Angeles, California, pulled the pilot from a crash-landed Cessna seconds before the aircraft was hit by a train on Sunday, sending debris flying in all directions.
Dramatic video obtained by Reuters shows several officers freeing the man from the downed plane, which had crashed shortly after takeoff in the Pacoima neighborhood, according to local media. The officers and pilot are just a few feet away from the tracks when the passing train destroys the plane.
“The plane had a failed takeoff and landed on the train tracks at a popular intersection,” said Luis Jimenez, the 21-year-old music composer who filmed the video. “Just seconds before impact police officers saved the pilot, and a piece of debris almost hit me.”
The pilot was treated for cuts and bruises and is in a stable condition, according to local media. No one on the train was injured, local media reported.
Video footage posted on Twitter by the Los Angeles Police Department showed bodycam footage of officers pulling the bleeding pilot from the plane.
The department applauded its officers, saying in the tweet they had “displayed heroism and quick action by saving the life of a pilot who made an emergency landing on the railroad tracks.”
YANGON: A Myanmar junta court on Monday convicted Aung San Suu Kyi of three criminal charges, sentencing her to four years in prison in the latest in a slew of cases against the ousted civilian leader.
The Nobel laureate has been detained since February 1 when her government was forced out in an early morning coup, ending Myanmar’s short-lived experiment with democracy.
The generals’ power grab triggered widespread dissent, which security forces sought to quell with mass detentions and bloody crackdowns in which more than 1,400 civilians have been killed, according to a local monitoring group.
A source with knowledge of the case told AFP the 76-year-old was found guilty of two charges related to illegally importing and owning walkie-talkies and one of breaking coronavirus rules.
The walkie-talkie charges stem from when soldiers raided her house on the day of the coup, allegedly discovering the contraband equipment.
Monday’s sentence adds to the penalties the court handed down in December when she was jailed for four years for incitement and breaching Covid-19 rules while campaigning.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing cut the sentence to two years and said she could serve her term under house arrest in the capital Naypyidaw.
December’s ruling drew international condemnation, and the Myanmar public reverted to old protesting tactics of banging pots and pans in a show of anger.
Ahead of the verdict, Manny Maung, a Human Rights Watch researcher, said further convictions would deepen nationwide discontent.
“The announcement of her last conviction resulted in one of the highest days of social media interactions from inside Myanmar, and deeply angered the public,” she told AFP.
“The military is calculating this (the cases) as a fear tactic but it only serves to direct more anger from the public.”
Journalists have been barred from attending hearings, and Suu Kyi’s lawyers have been muzzled from speaking to the media.
Under a previous junta regime, Suu Kyi spent long spells under house arrest in her family mansion in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
Today, she is confined to an undisclosed location in the capital, with her link to the outside world limited to brief pre-trial meetings with her lawyers.
Besides Monday’s cases, she is also facing multiple counts of corruption — each of which is punishable by 15 years in jail — and of violating the official secrets act.
In November, she and 15 other officials, including Myanmar’s president Win Myint, were also charged with alleged electoral fraud during the 2020 elections.
Her National League for Democracy party had swept the polls in a landslide, trouncing a military-aligned party by a wider margin than the previous 2015 election.
Since the coup, many of her political allies have been arrested, with one chief minister sentenced to 75 years in jail, while others are in hiding.
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