Coronavirus around the globe: India sees new spike, Japan threatens to cancel Olympics

World

Published: 2021-04-15 19:01

Last Updated: 2024-03-26 22:12


Source: France24
Source: France24

India set a new record in the number of COVID-19 infections Thursday, which foretells that it may become the next epicenter of the pandemic that continues to threaten the holding of the Olympic Games postponed since 2020.

By registering 200,000 new cases of coronavirus within 24 hours, India surpassed Brazil to come second in the number of infections, after doubling the number of daily infections since the beginning of April in the country of 1.3 billion people.

Indian doctors express their concern, especially about the number of infected people under the age of 45 and suffering from more severe symptoms compared to last year.

"We are also finding children under the ages of 12 and 15 showing symptoms. Last year, almost no child had symptoms," Khosrav Bajan, a doctor at the National Hospital in Bombay, told AFP.

The spread of the pandemic comes as the country is finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of vaccination due to the lack of doses, with only 114 million doses given so far.

In Japan, where vaccination is taking place at a slow pace (only 1.1 million people out of 126 million have received one dose), a prominent official in the Liberal Democratic Party has raised the prospect of canceling the Tokyo Olympics, which are supposed to start after 99 days.

Toshiro Nikai said the Olympics should be canceled "without hesitation" if the virus situation is serious. He continued, "If the infection spreads due to the Olympics, I do not know at that time what will be the benefit of it."

Although other officials immediately downplayed the importance of these statements, opinion polls showed that a majority of Japanese would prefer to postpone or cancel the games for fear of a fourth wave of the pandemic.

- France approaches 100,000 deaths -

The number of deaths in France since the outbreak of the pandemic is close to 100,000, while the third wave continues, raising doubts about the lifting of the lockdown, which is set to begin mid-May.

With more than 5,900 people infected with Coronavirus receiving treatment in intensive care departments, the highest level since Spring 2020, government spokesman Gabriel Atal warned that "we have not passed the third wave."

While 200,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine were delivered, the American manufacturer recommended temporarily halting use of the vaccine due to blood clot concerns, complicating matters in Paris and across Europe.

Johnson & Johnson was scheduled to deliver 55 million doses to the European Union in the second quarter of the year, but the company announced that it would now "delay delivery" of its single-dose vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency is currently studying cases of blood clots resulting from this vaccine and is expected to issue an opinion next week on it.

Meanwhile, Belgium decided to suspend the use of this vaccine, similar to South Africa. France will keep it for people over the age of 55.

Most of the European Union countries had already imposed restrictions on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to the risk of blood clots, and Denmark announced Wednesday that it is permanently abandoning the AstraZeneca vaccine. The two vaccines use the same technology, which is an adenovirus.

In contrast to Johnson & Johnson's setback, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine witnessed an acceleration in deliveries, as about 50 million doses scheduled for the last quarter of the year will be delivered starting from April, bringing the total to 250 million in the second quarter, according to the European Commission Wednesday.

Also, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the start of formal negotiations with Pfizer/ BioNTech to request 1.8 billion additional doses of "second generation" vaccines aimed at fighting current and future mutations of the Coronavirus.

The Regional Director of the World Health Organization, Hans Kluge, said that he had recorded a decline in the percentage of deaths among people over 80 in Europe, to about 30 percent, and attributed this to the vaccination campaign. This percentage was 62 percent in mid-January.