Tag Archives: nationwide lockdown

Bodies float down Ganges as nearly 4,000 more die of COVID in India

By Saurabh Sharma

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) -Scores of bodies are washing up on the banks of the Ganges as Indians fail to keep pace with the deaths and cremations of around 4,000 people a day from the novel coronavirus.

India currently accounts for one in three of the reported deaths from coronavirus around the world, according to a Reuters tally, and its health system is overwhelmed, despite donations of oxygen cylinders and other medical equipment from around the world.

Rural parts of India not only have more rudimentary healthcare, but are now also running short of wood for traditional Hindu cremations.

Authorities said on Tuesday they were investigating the discovery of scores of bodies found floating down the Ganges in two separate states.

“As of now it is very difficult for us to say where these dead bodies have come from,” said M P Singh, the top government official in Ghazipur district, in Uttar Pradesh.

Akhand Pratap, a local resident, said that “people are immersing bodies in the holy Ganges river instead of cremation because of shortage of cremation wood.”

Even in the capital, New Delhi, many COVID victims are abandoned by their relatives after cremation, leaving volunteers to wash the ashes, pray over them, and then take them to scatter into the river in the holy city of Haridwar, 180 km (110 miles) away.

“Our organization collects these remains from all the crematoriums and performs the last rituals in Haridwar so that they can achieve salvation,” said Ashish Kashyap, a volunteer from the charity Shri Deodhan Sewa Samiti.

QUARTER OF A MILLION DEAD

The seven-day average of daily infections hit a record 390,995 on Tuesday, with 3,876 deaths, according to the health ministry.

Official COVID-19 deaths, which experts say are almost certainly under-reported, stand at just under a quarter of a million.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that it regarded the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.

Late that day, 11 people died in the government SVR Ruia hospital in the southern city of Tirupati because a tanker carrying oxygen arrived late.

“There were issues with oxygen pressure due to low availability. It all happened within a span of five minutes,” said M Harinarayan, the district’s senior civil servant.

Vaccines are also running short, especially in Maharashtra state around the financial center of Mumbai, and in the capital, Delhi, two of India’s hardest-hit regions.

“We are ready to buy doses, but they are not available right now,” Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope told reporters.

India’s second wave of the pandemic has increased calls for a nationwide lockdown and prompted more and more states to impose tougher restrictions that have hurt businesses and the wider economy.

Production of the Apple iPhone 12 at a Foxconn factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu has slumped by more than half because workers have been infected with COVID-19, two sources told Reuters.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Anuron Kumar Mitra, Kannaki Deka, Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Sudarshan Varadhan in Chennai, Rajendra Jadhav in Satara, Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow and Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Alasdair Pal; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Kevin Liffey)

Italy to impose nationwide coronavirus lockdown over Easter weekend – draft decree

By Angelo Amante

ROME (Reuters) – Italy will be placed under a nationwide lockdown over the Easter weekend for the second year running, a draft decree law seen by Reuters said on Friday, underlining the struggle to stem a fresh surge in coronavirus cases.

Non-essential shops will be shuttered nationwide from April 3-5. On those days, Italians will only be allowed to leave their homes for work, health or emergency reasons.

However, a number of regions including wealthy Lombardy, which is centered on Italy’s financial capital Milan, look certain to be placed under full lockdown from Monday because of the recent jump in infections and hospitalizations.

“I hope that this will be the last sacrifice asked of our citizens,” said Lombardy President Attilio Fontana.

Italy, the first Western country hit hard by the pandemic, saw infections rise by 10% this week compared with the week before, and officials have warned that the situation is deteriorating as new, highly contagious variants gain ground.

The country was placed under its first nationwide lockdown a year ago, which lasted 10 weeks. A second lockdown was imposed at Christmas. In recent months, the government has introduced restrictions at a regional level, depending on case numbers.

It was not immediately clear how the decree would affect churchgoers in the Catholic country. However, it was expected to be similar to provisions last Christmas when people were allowed to go to churches in their neighborhoods.

A Vatican source said Pope Francis’ Easter Eve Mass likely would be held a few hours earlier so that faithful could get home in time for Italy’s 10 p.m. curfew and that the pontiff’s Holy Week activities before Easter would be held in the Vatican with a limited number of participants.

Unlike last year, the new decree, which was expected to be approved by Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s cabinet later on Friday, allows for limited visits to friends and relatives over the Easter holiday – for example to see elderly parents.

But the decree also imposes tougher curbs for the country’s low-risk “yellow” regions as of Monday, severely limiting movement between towns and closing restaurants and bars.

“The spread of the virus is accelerating due to the impact of variants. We agree with the government’s choices,” Stefano Bonaccini, president of Italy’s conference of regions, said in a statement after meeting ministers.

Alongside some nationwide measures, Italy calibrates restrictions in its 20 regions according to a four-tier, color-coded system (white, yellow, orange and red) based on infection levels and revised every week.

Italy has reported more than 100,000 deaths from the disease since discovering its first cases 13 months ago, the seventh highest toll worldwide.

(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Crispian Balmer/Mark Heinrich)

Germany introduces tougher restrictions in pandemic battle

By Andreas Rinke and Holger Hansen

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany is extending its nationwide lockdown until the end of the month and introducing tougher new restrictions in an effort to curb surging coronavirus infections, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.

“We need to restrict contact more strictly… We ask all citizens to restrict contact to the absolute minimum,” Merkel told reporters after a meeting with the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states.

The new rules restrict for the first time non-essential travel for residents of hard-hit areas all over Germany.

They limit movement to a 15-kilometre (nine-mile) radius in towns and districts where the number of new coronavirus cases is above 200 per 100,000 residents over seven days.

Members of any one household will be allowed to meet only one other person in public. That compares with a current rule under which public gatherings are limited to five people from two households.

Like many other European countries, Germany is struggling to contain a second wave of the virus. Britain began its third COVID-19 lockdown on Tuesday with citizens under orders to stay at home.

Concern is growing that hospitals in Germany will struggle to cope, and Merkel said a new mutation of the coronavirus first detected in Britain increased the need to be more cautious.

SHOPS, SCHOOLS TO STAY SHUT

Shops and restaurants will remain shut until the end of January. Schools are also to remain closed, with classes to be held online, until at least the end of the month.

“We believe these measures are justified, even if they are hard,” Merkel said.

The chancellor said she and the state leaders would review the new measures on Jan. 25.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 11,897 to 1.787 million in the last day, the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said on Tuesday. The death toll rose by 944 to 35,518.

Germany had imposed a partial lockdown in November but was forced to close schools, shops and restaurants in mid-December after the initial steps failed to have the desired impact.

Germany is rolling out a vaccine against COVID-19 but the media and some officials have criticized the government for a slow start and for ordering too few doses. By Tuesday, around 317,000 people had received a shot.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers, Joseph Nasr and Sabine Siebold; writing by Madeline Chambers and Maria Sheahan, Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Gareth Jones)