Tag Archives: death toll

India says new COVID variant is a concern

By Uday Sampath Kumar and Bhargav Acharya

BENGALURU (Reuters) -India on Tuesday declared a new coronavirus variant to be of concern, and said nearly two dozen cases had been detected in three states.

The variant, identified locally as “Delta plus,” was found in 16 cases in the state of Maharashtra, Federal Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan told a news conference.

The ministry said Delta plus showed increased transmissibility and advised states to increase testing.

On Monday, India vaccinated a record 8.6 million people as it began offering free shots to all adults, but experts doubted it could maintain that pace.

“This is clearly not sustainable,” Chandrakant Lahariya, an expert in public policy and health systems, told Reuters.

“With such one-day drives, many states have consumed most of their current vaccine stocks, which will affect the vaccination in days to follow.”

With the currently projected vaccine supply for the next few months, the maximum daily achievable rate is 4 to 5 million doses, Lahariya added.

The effort has so far covered about 5.5% of the 950 million people eligible, even though India is the world’s largest vaccine producer.

A devastating second wave during April and May overwhelmed health services, killing hundreds of thousands. Images of funeral pyres blazing in car parks raised questions over the chaotic vaccine rollout.

Since May, vaccinations have averaged fewer than 3 million doses a day, far less than the 10 million health officials say are crucial to protect the millions vulnerable to new surges.

VACCINE DRIVE FALTERING

Particularly in the countryside, where two-thirds of a population of 1.4 billion lives and the healthcare system is often overstretched, the drive has faltered, experts say.

Maintaining the pace will prove challenging when it comes to injecting younger people in such areas, Delhi-based epidemiologist Rajib Dasgupta said.

The capital is also facing difficulties. Authorities in New Delhi said more than 8 million residents had yet to receive a first dose and inoculating all adults there would take more than a year at the current pace.

India has been administering AstraZeneca’s vaccine, made locally by the Serum Institute of India, and a homegrown shot named Covaxin made by Bharat Biotech.

Last week, Serum Institute had said it planned to increase monthly production to around 100 million doses from July. Bharat now estimates it will make 23 million doses a month.

On Tuesday, television channel CNBC-TV18 reported that phase-3 data for Covaxin showed an efficacy of 77.8%.

India may also soon have a mass rollout of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, and the government expects to import vaccines this year from major makers such as Pfizer.

Although new infections in India have dropped to their lowest in more than three months, experts say vaccinations should be stepped up because of the transmissibility of new variants.

Over the past 24 hours India reported 42,640 new infections, the lowest since March 23, and 1,167 deaths.

Infections now stand at 29.98 million, with a death toll of 389,302, health ministry data showed.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath Kumar and Bhargav Acharya, Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru, Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Pune; Writing by Neha Arora; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Angus MacSwan and Giles Elgood)

Braving COVID risks, Indian volunteers tend to the sick and the dead

By Kannaki Deka and Chandini Monnappa

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Every day after he wraps up the online classes he teaches at a Bengaluru college, Akshay Mandlik puts on his mask, gloves and overalls and heads out to help bury the COVID dead.

The 37-year-old professor of social work is one of many citizen volunteers across India who have stepped up to help families affected by the country’s devastating second wave, often risking their own personal safety.

Mandlik helps grieving relatives find burial spaces, carry the dead and even dig graves when no gravedigger is available.

“I took some time to think about getting involved as I am not vaccinated, but the need of the hour was greater than my own fear,” Mandlik said.

India, the world’s biggest vaccine producer, has fully vaccinated just over 40.9 million people, or only 3.3% of its 1.35 billion population as of Wednesday.

Volunteers say they have been moved to act by desperate pleas for help on social media and in their local communities.

Brothers Murthaza Junaid and Muteeb Zoheb, both well-known motorcycle racers and entrepreneurs, are now volunteering as ambulance drivers in Bengaluru, responding to hundreds of calls every week.

Zoheb, 33, said he and his brother decided to volunteer a month ago after hearing accounts of families being overcharged by professional ambulance services.

With the epicenter of India’s second wave constantly shifting, Bengaluru’s COVID-19 death toll passed 10,000 on Tuesday and its daily number of new infections has overtaken those of Mumbai and New Delhi. More than a third of Bengaluru’s fatalities have occurred so far in May.

Informal groups of volunteers have sprung up, with the likes of IT professionals, investment bankers, estate agents and students working together to locate critical care beds, stocks of Remdesivir, oxygen concentrators or ambulances.

Azmat Mohammed, 44, said he had taken a sabbatical from his job in IT to help full-time, while law student Akshaya 22, said she was balancing classes with her COVID volunteering.

“I believe that if we do good, you get back good,” said Akshaya, who prefers to use only her first name.

“I attend classes and go to the cemetery for burials. I also spend time collaborating with other people to help with ambulances. It is a lot of multi-tasking.”

With the second wave spreading beyond the large cities, similar groups have formed in smaller towns and cities as well.

In Surat in the western state of Gujarat, volunteers at the Khan Trust and Ekta Foundation are working to cremate COVID-infected bodies in the region.

During a wave of deadly Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002, Surat experienced some of the worst violence, but the pandemic has diluted some of the residual hostility between communities, volunteers say.

Sahil Sheikh, in his 20s, said he and his friends have conducted the final rites for nearly 800 people in the past year, of all religions.

(Reporting by Kannaki Deka, Chandini Monnappa, Sachin Ravikumar and Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru, Rupam Jain in Goa; writing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee; editing by Estelle Shirbon)

Argentina’s gravediggers plead for vaccines as death toll climbs

By Miguel Lo Bianco and Agustin Geist

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Ernesto Fabián Aguirre, a gravedigger in the Memorial cemetery in the suburbs of Argentine capital Buenos Aires, feels like he is going into battle every day as the country’s coronavirus death toll mounts amid a new wave of infections.

Argentina’s gravediggers are threatening to strike over demands that cemetery workers burying the dead are vaccinated against COVID-19, a test for the South American country’s government which has faced hold-ups to its vaccine roll-out.

“We face a daily war in this place,” Aguirre told Reuters. “The fear is real, that’s why we want the vaccine to arrive for everyone so that, at least, we can live a couple more years,” he said with a wry laugh.

Argentina is seeing a sharp second wave of the pandemic, with the average daily death toll hitting a record at over 450 lives lost a day. The country has recorded over 70,000 deaths since the pandemic hit. Daily new cases now average just below 25,000, prompting calls for tighter restrictions.

Meanwhile the country’s inoculation campaign has only fully inoculated 4.5% of the population and 18% has received at least one dose, according to a Reuters analysis. At an average of 132,000 doses given per day, it will take another 69 days to inoculate another 10% of the population.

Argentina’s union representing cemetery, crematorium and funeral workers has threatened a national strike if it does not reach a deal with the government on vaccines. The strike could start this week after a government-enforced conciliation period ends.

The burial protocol for COVID-19 victims involves disinfecting and handling the coffin, where workers have to wear protective gear including body suits, face masks, goggles and gloves.

“It is a very hard work every day and I would like if it could be possible for us to be vaccinated because each day we have to take good care of ourselves and the COVID-19 issue is raging,” said Juan Polig, the cemetery’s manager.

Polig explained that beyond the physical risk of infection, workers had to deal with the emotional pain of consoling relatives and having to restrict how many family members can visit the grave due to COVID protocol measures.

“It’s hugely sad and complicated,” he said.

(Reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco and Agustín Geist; Writing by Eliana Raszewski; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Lisa Shumaker)

‘A hell out here’: COVID-19 ravages rural India

By Danish Siddiqui and Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s coronavirus death toll crossed 250,000 on Wednesday in the deadliest 24 hours since the pandemic began, as the disease rampaged through the countryside, leaving families to weep over the dead in rural hospitals or camp in wards to tend the sick.

Boosted by highly infectious variants, the second wave erupted in February to inundate hospitals and medical staff, as well as crematoriums and mortuaries. Experts still cannot say for sure when the figures will peak.

Indian state leaders clamored for vaccines to stop the second wave and the devastation that it has wrought, urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop exporting vaccines, ramp up production and help them procure urgent supplies from overseas.

“People will die in the same way in the third and fourth waves as they have this time” without more vaccines, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told reporters.

Deaths grew by a record 4,205 while infections rose 348,421 in the 24 hours to Wednesday, taking the tally past 23 million, health ministry data showed. Experts believe the actual numbers could be five to 10 times higher.

Funeral pyres have blazed in city parking lots, and bodies have washed up on the banks of the holy river Ganges, immersed by relatives whose villages were stripped bare of the wood needed for cremations.

Lacking beds, drugs and oxygen, many hospitals in the world’s second-most populous nation have been forced to turn away droves of sufferers.

“We seem to be plateauing around 400,000 cases a day,” the Indian Express newspaper quoted virologist Shahid Jameel as saying. “It is still too early to say whether we have reached the peak.”

‘HERE AND NOW’

India is using the AstraZeneca vaccine made at the Serum Institute in the western city of Pune and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech but has fully vaccinated barely 2.5% of the population.

Indians need vaccines “here and now”, the chief minister of West Bengal state, Mamata Banerjee, said in a letter to Modi.

The country accounts for half of COVID-19 cases and 30% of deaths worldwide, the World Health Organization said in its latest weekly report.

The full impact of the B.1.617 variant found in India, which the WHO has designated as being of global concern, is not yet clear, it added.

The variant has been detected in six countries in the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization said, adding that it was worried that it was highly transmissible.

Britain, which has also detected the variant, is looking at all possible solutions to tackle a surge of related cases, including in the northern English town of Bolton, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament.

RURAL SPREAD

Daily infections are shooting up in the Indian countryside in comparison to big towns, where they have slowed after last month’s surge, experts say.

More than half the cases this week in the western state of Maharashtra were in rural areas, up from a third a month ago. That share is nearly two-thirds in the most populous, and mainly rural, state of Uttar Pradesh, government data showed.

Television showed images of people weeping over the bodies of loved ones in ramshackle rural hospitals while others camped in wards tending to the sick.

A pregnant woman was taking care of her husband who had breathing difficulties in a hospital in Bhagalpur in the eastern state of Bihar, which is seeing a case surge its health system could barely have handled at the best of times.

“There is no doctor here, she sleeps the whole night here, taking care of her husband,” the woman’s brother told India Today television.

In a corridor outside, two sons were wailing over the body of their father, saying repeatedly that he could have been saved if only he had been given a bed in an intensive care unit.

At the general hospital in Bijnor, a town in northern Uttar Pradesh, a woman lay in a cot next to a garbage can and medical waste.

“How can someone get treated if the situation is like this?” asked her son, Sudesh Tyagi. “It is a hell out here.”

(Reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Aishwarya Nair in Mumbai, Tanvi Mehta in New Delhi, Subrata Nagchoudhary in Kolkata and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Clarence Fernandez, Mark Heinrich and Giles Elgood)

Rio de Janeiro shootout leaves record 25 people dead, police say

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -At least 25 people, including at least one police officer, were killed in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday in a shootout during a police raid targeting drug traffickers in the city’s Jacarezinho neighborhood, according to civil police.

It was the highest-ever death toll from a police raid in the state, which has for decades suffered from drug-related violence.

“This is the highest number of deaths in a police operation in Rio, surpassing 19 in Complexo do Alemão in 2007,” said Chief of Police Ronaldo Oliveira.

“Only in that one we didn’t lose anyone. Now, a police officer has died, which is a great loss for us,” he said.

Two passengers on a metro train were also wounded in the crossfire in the northern Rio neighborhood, according to the fire brigade, which said they were not seriously hurt.

Jacarezinho is a poor neighborhood with few public services, known as a favela.

Aerial TV footage showed suspects fleeing police by jumping between rooftops in search of an escape route, while policemen were forced to disembark from armored vehicles to pass several barricades erected in the streets.

According to police, helicopters located the gang’s headquarters in Jacarezinho and at least 10 suspects were arrested. Police sources said gang leaders were likely among the dead.

(Reporting by Ridrigo Viga Gaier and Anthony Boadle; Writing by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Daniel Wallis)

Death toll from Colombia protests rises; U.N., EU call for calm

By Oliver Griffin and Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) – The United Nations and European Union on Tuesday urged calm and warned of the use of excessive force amid further protests against the administration of Colombian President Ivan Duque, while local authorities in epicenter Cali reported a further five deaths and 33 injuries.

The protests – originally called in opposition to a now-canceled tax reform – have become a broad cry for action against poverty and what demonstrators and some advocacy groups say is police violence.

The western city of Cali has become the focus of protests since they began almost a week ago and is the site of 11 of the 19 deaths confirmed by the Andean country’s human rights ombudsman on Monday.

The national police has said it will investigate more than two dozen allegations of brutality, while the defense minister has alleged illegal armed groups are infiltrating the protests to cause violence.

“Preliminarily what we know is there were five people killed (and …) 33 injured,” Carlos Rojas, security secretary of Cali told journalists on Tuesday, referring to the night before.

Some 87 people have been reported missing nationally since the protests started, according to the human rights ombudsman.

Intermittent road blockades are delaying shipments out of key Pacific port Buenaventura, according to local authorities.

The United Nation’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged calm and warned of police shootings.

“We are deeply alarmed at developments in the city of Cali in Colombia overnight, where police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against tax reforms,” spokesperson Marta Hurtado said in a Tuesday statement.

The European Union also called for security forces to avoid a heavy-handed response.

Protests have so far led to the withdrawal of the original reform and the resignation of Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla.

Duque has said his government will draw up another proposal – the result of consultations with lawmakers, civil society and businesses.

New Finance Minister Jose Manuel Restrepo will need to convince Colombians, many of whom have seen their incomes battered by coronavirus lockdowns, that reform is vital, former Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on Tuesday.

Restrepo “has a huge challenge ahead” Cardenas said.

Anger over long-standing inequalities in the nation of 50 million was a theme of 2019 protests, while police brutality was a focus at 2020 demonstrations.

Major unions, which are planning national marches again on Wednesday, say the government has not lived up to promises of dialogue with civil society.

Marchers on Wednesday will call for a basic income guarantee, the withdrawal of a government health reform proposal and the dissolution of the ESMAD riot police.

Duque has offered military assistance to protect infrastructure and guarantee access to essential services, though mayors of cities including Bogota and Medellin said it was unnecessary.

(Reporting by Oliver Griffin and Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb, Alistair Bell)

U.S. pledges sustained help for India in tackling COVID crisis

By Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senior U.S. officials on Tuesday pledged sustained support for India in helping it deal with the world’s worst current surge of COVID-19 infections, warning the country is still at the “front end” of the crisis and overcoming it will take some time.

The White House’s National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell, told a virtual event on the U.S. assistance that President Joe Biden had told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a phone call on Monday: “You let me know what you need and we will do it.”

Campbell said at the event, organized by the U.S.-India Business Council and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, that Washington was committed to helping the world’s second most populous country get to grips with the crisis.

“We all have to realize that this is not a challenge that is going to resolve (in) the next several days,” he said.

Tackling the crisis, he said, was important not just for the people of India but for the United States, given India’s essential role as global provider of vaccines.

India is now the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic as a second wave of infections has driven the death toll up to almost 200,000.

On Tuesday, vital medical supplies began to reach the country of 1.35 billion people but hospitals starved of life-saving oxygen and beds still were turning away coronavirus patients.

The United States and other countries pledged urgent medical aid to try to contain the emergency in India.

The U.S. State Department’s coordinator for global COVID-19 response, Gayle Smith, added: “We all need to understand that we are still at the front end of this. This hasn’t peaked yet.

“So this is going to require determination…We’re going to work really hard for some time, but we’re confident we can do it,” she said. “We anticipate that at the height of this kind of complex emergency, it’s going to be very fluid for a while as things fall into place. We are collectively going to have to be very agile and very nimble.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, global COVID-19 adviser for USAID, said the agency was concerned about the situation in countries in the same region as India and wanted to support both India’s capacity to get the situation under control and the wider region.

He said the United States was providing some badly needed raw materials to the Serum Institute of India to allow it to scale up the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine there.

Aside from the United States, countries including Britain and Germany have pledged support, while the World Health Organization said it was working to deliver 4,000 oxygen concentrators, calling India’s plight “beyond heartbreaking”.

Two Indian government sources told Reuters earlier on Tuesday that New Delhi expects to secure the biggest chunk of the 60 million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses the United States will share globally.

On Monday, senior U.S. officials said an agreement between the United States and three of its closest Indo-Pacific partners to produce up to a billion coronavirus vaccine doses in India by the end of 2022 to supply other Asian countries were “still on track,” despite the current crisis in the country.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

India, big vaccine exporter, now vaccine exporter as COVID-19 cases soar

By Alasdair Pal and Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India on Tuesday said it will fast-track emergency approvals for COVID-19 vaccines authorized by Western countries and Japan, paving the way for possible imports of Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna shots.

The move, which will exempt companies from carrying out local safety trials for their vaccines, follows the world’s biggest surge in cases in the country this month.

Since April 2, India has reported the highest daily tallies of infections. It reported 161,736 cases on Tuesday, taking the total to 13.7 million, while deaths rose by 879 to 171,058.

On Tuesday, India’s richest state Maharashtra, which accounts for about a quarter of the country’s cases, said it would impose stringent restrictions from Wednesday to try to contain the spread.

India has the biggest global vaccine manufacturing capacity and had exported tens of millions of doses before its own demand skyrocketed and led to a shortage in some states.

Dozens of poor countries have relied on Indian exports to run their inoculation drives.

The health ministry said vaccines authorized by the World Health Organization or authorities in the United States, Europe, Britain and Japan could be granted emergency use approval in India.

“If any of these regulators have approved a vaccine, the vaccine is now ready to be brought into the country for use, manufacture and fill-and-finish,” Vinod Kumar Paul, a senior government health official, told a news conference.

“We hope and we invite the vaccine makers such as Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and others … to be ready to come to India as early as possible.”

Pfizer said it would work towards bringing its vaccine to India after withdrawing its application in February.

U.S. federal health agencies on Tuesday recommended pausing use of the J&J shot after six women under age 50 developed rare blood clots after receiving it.

India has administered more than 108 million vaccine doses, sold more than 54.6 million vaccine doses abroad and gifted more than 10 million to partner countries.

It is currently using the AstraZeneca shot and a homegrown vaccine for its own immunization drive, and this week approved Russia’s Sputnik V shot for emergency use.

RALLIES, RELIGIOUS GATHERINGS

The jump in India’s infections, for which Health Minister Harsh Vardhan acknowledged widespread failure to heed curbs on movement and social interaction, has prompted calls for the government to cancel huge public events.

Still, hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus are set to bathe in the Ganges river on Wednesday, the third key day of the weeks-long Kumbh Mela – or pitcher festival.

Nearly a million bathed in the Ganges on Monday in the belief that its waters would wash away their sins. More than 100 tested positive for COVID-19 in random testing of around 18,000 attendees, media said.

Similar concerns of a spike in cases were sparked by mass election rallies by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party and opposition groups during polls in four states and one federally run region.

At one rally in the eastern state of West Bengal, a key political prize, Home Minister Amit Shah posted Twitter pictures of meetings with crowds of supporters while unmasked.

DEADLY SPREAD

The second wave of infections, which began in India’s major cities, is increasingly spreading into the hinterland, where healthcare facilities are often rudimentary.

In Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh state known for its large tribal population, the main government hospital’s morgue was struggling to keep up, said joint director Dr Vineet Jain.

“All oxygenated and ICU beds are full in our set-up,” he told Reuters.

“Around 50 dead bodies are laying, we have a shortage of space. Some private hospitals do not have space to keep the dead bodies so they also send the bodies to us.”

India is currently reporting around double the daily cases of the United States and Brazil, the two other worst affected countries, though its daily death toll is lower.

India’s total infections rank after only the United States, having overtaken Brazil on Monday.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Alasdair Pal in New Delhi and Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar; Editing by Nick Macfie, Ana Nicolaci da Costa and John Stonestreet)

Global COVID-19 death toll surpasses 3 million amid new infections resurgence

By Roshan Abraham and Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – Coronavirus-related deaths worldwide crossed 3 million on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, as the latest global resurgence of COVID-19 infections is challenging vaccination efforts across the globe.

Worldwide COVID-19 deaths are rising once again, especially in Brazil and India. Health officials blame more infectious variants that were first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa, along with public fatigue with lockdowns and other restrictions.

According to a Reuters tally, it took more than a year for the global coronavirus death toll to reach 2 million. The next 1 million deaths were added in about three months.

Brazil is leading the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported and accounts for one in every four deaths worldwide each day, according to a Reuters analysis.

The World Health Organization acknowledged the nation’s dire condition due to coronavirus, saying the country is in a very critical condition with an overwhelmed healthcare system.

“Indeed there is a very serious situation going on in Brazil right now, where we have a number of states in critical condition,” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove told a briefing last Thursday, adding that many hospital intensive care units are more than 90% full.

India reported a record rise in COVID-19 infections on Monday, becoming the second nation after the United States to post more than 100,000 new cases in a day.

India’s worst-affected state, Maharashtra on Monday began shutting shopping malls, cinemas, bars, restaurants, and places of worship, as hospitals are being overrun by patients.

The European region, which includes 51 countries, has the highest total number of deaths at nearly 1.1 million.

Five European countries including the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Italy and Germany constitute about 60% of Europe’s total coronavirus-related deaths.

The United States has the highest number of deaths of any country at the world at 555,000 and accounts for about 19% of all deaths due to COVID-19 in the world. Cases have risen for the last three weeks but health officials believe the nation’s rapid vaccination campaign may prevent a rise in deaths. A third of the population has received at least one dose of a vaccine.

At least 370.3 million people or nearly 4.75% of the global population have received a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine by Sunday, according to latest figures from research and data provider firm Our World in Data.

However, the World Health Organization is urging countries to donate more doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines to help meet vaccination targets for the most vulnerable in poorer countries.

 

Spain’s rising COVID-19 rate gathers pace

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s coronavirus infection rate rose by more than 10 since Friday, with 15,500 cases added to the tally, Health Ministry data showed on Monday, as a gradual uptick in contagion from mid-March lows gathered pace.

The rate, which is measured over the preceding 14 days, rose to 149 cases per 100,000 people from 138 cases on Friday, the data showed.

It had been inching higher since dropping below 130 cases per 100,000 people in mid-March and remains well below the peak of nearly 900 cases recorded in late January.

Monday’s infection numbers brought the total since the start of the pandemic to 3.27 million cases. The death toll climbed by 189 since Friday to 75,199.

“At a national level we are in a phase of expansion” of new cases, Health Emergency Chief Fernando Simon told a news conference, adding that the trend was likely to continue in the coming days.

Though bars and restaurants remain open in much of the country, Spain has banned travel between different regions and limited social events to four people during Holy Week to prevent Easter celebrations triggering a fresh resurgence in contagion.

“If we manage to follow the Easter restrictions, we may not be talking about a fourth wave,” Simon said.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen; editing by Jonathan Oatis)