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Deepak Chopra left ‘heartbroken’ by India’s devastating Covid disaster

Deepak Chopra left 'heartbroken' by India's devastating Covid crisis

Global wellness expert Deepak Chopra told CNBC that he was “devastated” and “broken” over the Covid-19 crisis that is currently gripping India and said the country could have dealt with the situation much better.

Chopra, who was born and raised in New Delhi before continuing his medical education in the United States, hopes lessons will be learned from this.

“I think India could have done better. I think, as usual, political ideologies and conflicts, as well as interest groups, have exacerbated the crisis,” he said.

“India could have done this much better and I hope you learned, we all learned a lesson from it because you know there is no way to stop Indians from going into the world and what is going on in India That’s going to happen elsewhere if you’re not careful, ”he added.

“A very big mistake”

Chopra told CNBC that he feels responsible “ultimately falling to influencers and politicians and leaders for making the rules. And it was a very big mistake, in my opinion, to keep the Kumbh Mela and all these religious gatherings for political ones only.” Purposes. “

India has seen a deadly second wave of the Covid-19 virus in the past few weeks. According to the Johns Hopkins University, the country has reported over 27.5 million Covid cases and nearly 326,000 deaths.

Deepak Chopra, co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing and founder of the Chopra Foundation.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Chopra is not alone and many have criticized lawmakers and vaccine suppliers in the country. Prime Minister Modi defended the government’s vaccination strategy, telling ministers in April that “those who are in the habit of politics (playing) allow it … I have received various allegations. We cannot stop those who do this to do.” We really want to serve humanity, which we will continue to do, “he said, the Times of India reported.

He also noted that an earlier peak of infections had been controlled this past September at a time when vaccines were not available and cases and mass tests were being tracked and followed.

Pandemic “worsened our mental well-being”

Chopra, a global leader in integrative medicine and meditation, spoke about the release of a new free 21-day meditation experience with multi-award-winning singer-songwriter, activist, and entrepreneur Alicia Keys.

The meditation “Activation of the Divine Feminine: The Path to Wholeness” published on ChopraMeditation.com during Mental Health Awareness Month aims to “restore wholeness and bring peace and healing”.

Chopra and Keys believe that in today’s world of male and female energy there is an imbalance, regardless of gender, that needs to be addressed.

“Healing is ultimately the return of the memory of wholeness, and when we are not balanced with both masculine and feminine energies within ourselves, that imbalance is reflected in what we see in the world,” said Chopra.

The wellness icon, who is also the founder of the Chopra Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the study of wellbeing and humanity, told CNBC that he believes mental stress is “the number one pandemic in the world” stay.

“There is something wrong with our humanity right now as we are not concerned with mental well-being and sanity,” he said.

“Everything from climate change to pandemics, mass migrations, environmental destruction, weapons kills to wars and terrorism is a result of psychological distress, stress, anger, hostility and fear. So we have to deal with it. This is an emergency.” he went on.

He said the global pandemic only “worsened” the situation.

“The global pandemic has worsened our spiritual well-being, deteriorated our economic well-being, and spawned some ugliness such as racism and bigotry and hatred and prejudice and conflict,” he said.

“All over the world it’s not just Republicans and Democrats, but Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Indians and Pakistanis. I mean, if you don’t believe this crazy, you are explaining your own madness,” he added added.

When asked what individuals can do to make a difference and what he thinks is the solution to all these global problems, Chopra said, “If you want to change the world, start with yourself.”

“”Perform an act of kindness today … When we perform all acts of love in action and reach critical mass, the world will be a different place, “he told CNBC.

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this article.

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Health

Nepal Covid Disaster Worsens as Employees Pay the Worth

Nepal Covid Crisis Worsens as Workers Pay the Price

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Ram Singh Karki escaped the first wave of India’s pandemic by boarding a crowded bus and crossing the border home to Nepal. Months later, as the rate of new infections fell, he returned to his job at a printing press in New Delhi, which had sustained his family for two decades and helped pay the school fees of his three children.

Then India was swept by a second wave, and Mr. Karki wasn’t as lucky.

He was infected last month. Hospitals in New Delhi were overwhelmed. When his oxygen level dropped, his manager arranged for an ambulance to take him back to the border. He crossed into Nepal, carrying with him just the clothes on his back — and the virus.

Nepal is now considering declaring a health emergency as the virus rampages virtually unchecked across the impoverished nation of 30 million people. Carried by returning migrant workers and others, a vicious second wave has stretched the country’s medical system beyond its meager limits.

Nepal has recorded half a million Covid cases and 6,000 deaths, numbers that experts believe deeply undercount the toll. Testing remains limited. One figure could indicate the true severity: For weeks now, about 40 percent of the tests conducted have been positive.

A government in disarray has compounded the trouble. K.P. Sharma Oli, Nepal’s embattled prime minister, has been pushing for an election in November after the country’s Parliament was dissolved last week, an event that could worsen the spread.

Earlier this week, Hridyesh Tripathi, Nepal’s minister for health and population, said the government was considering declaring a health emergency as infections rise.

But such a declaration could be caught up in politics. The move would allow officials to limit people’s movements — a level of control that opposition groups worry could be used to quell dissent.

In the meantime, officials in Kathmandu, the capital, have urged people to store food for at least a week and stay home.

The impact is rippling beyond those infected. Remittances from migrant workers have slowed. Tourism and the economy have been damaged.

“Millions of people continue to feel the increasing pressure not just with the direct health impact of Covid-19, but also with food, jobs, medical bills, kids out of school, payback loans, mental pressure, and much more,” said Ayshanie Medagangoda Labe, the resident representative of the United Nations Development Program in Nepal.

Nepal’s close relationship with India helped make it vulnerable. India has long been its most important trade and transit partner. The two nations share a deep cultural bond across a porous 1,100-mile border. Nepal’s devastation mirrors that of its big neighbor — from patients spilling out into hospital corridors and onto lawns, to long lines at oxygen refilling facilities, to a government unprepared for crisis.

Officials say laborers like Mr. Karki who were forced to come home by the second wave brought the virus with them. Villages along the border are some of the worst hit. Nepal’s health ministry said about 97 percent of the cases sent for genome sequencing show the B.1.617.2 variant found in India, which the World Health Organization has classified as a “variant of global concern.”

Nepal’s leaders were unprepared. During India’s first wave last year, when about one million Nepali migrant workers returned home, Nepal instituted testing and quarantine measures at border crossings.

But during this spring’s second wave, those measures were too little too late. By the time Nepal shut two thirds of its border crossings in early May, hundreds of thousands of laborers had made it back, trickling into their villages without proper testing or quarantine. Thousands continue to return daily.

The government’s attention had shifted elsewhere. In February, when the virus seemed to be in retreat, Mr. Oli held rallies of thousands of supporters in Kathmandu and other cities. Opposition parties held their own rallies. Last year, Mr. Oli said the health of the Nepali people would deter the disease.

The government’s defenders say the pandemic is a global problem and that officials are doing the best they can with few resources or vaccines.

Mr. Oli has called for international aid, though it won’t be enough to meet Nepal’s needs. China has donated 800,000 vaccine doses, 20,000 oxygen cylinders and 100 ventilators. The United States and Spain have sent planeloads of medical equipment, including oxygen concentrators, antigen tests, face masks and surgical gloves. The United States provided $15 million this month to scale up Nepal’s Covid testing. Nepali migrant workers in Gulf nations have arranged for oxygen cylinders to be sent home.

But Nepal can’t fight the pandemic without help from India. Already, an Indian vaccine manufacturer has told Nepal it can’t deliver a promised one million doses.

Nepal is also dependent India for half of its medical equipment needs, according to the Chemical and Medical Suppliers Association of Nepal, but the latter country is keeping just about everything for its own urgent domestic needs. Equipment from China, already costly, has become more difficult to obtain because of Chinese pandemic restrictions.

“For a month now, India has stopped the supply of medical equipment and medicine also, not just vaccines,” said Suresh Ghimirey, the association’s president.

In some provinces that experienced the return of many migrant laborers in India, hospitals have run out of beds. In Surkhet district, the main provincial hospital said that it couldn’t admit more patients. Small outlying villages are quietly mourning their dead. Testing has been slow.

“Except a few villagers, many are unable to come out and do daily agricultural work,” said Jhupa Ram Lamsal, ward chief of the village of Gauri, where nine people died of Covid over 10 days earlier this month. “The worrying thing is that even symptomatic people aren’t ready for Covid tests.”

Mr. Lamsal said he had recently reached Gauri, which is remote and lacks health facilities, along with a team of doctors to conduct antigen tests. Locals turned down health professionals’ plea for Covid tests, he said, arguing they would be dispirited if they found out they were positive.

“The situation is out of control,” Mr. Lamsal said. “We are hopeless, helpless.”

Mr. Kakri, the printing press worker, hailed from a village in the Bhimdatta Municipality, in Nepal’s western corner. The area of 110,000 people has officially recorded 3,600 infections, according to the health chief there, Narendra Joshi. But lack of measures at the border mean that the data may not fully measure the severity.

“More than 38,000 people have returned from one of the two border points in the district since the second wave started in India,” said Mr. Joshi, “It’s hard to manage them.”

Mr. Karki was a high school dropout who went to India to work as a laborer when he was still a teenager, his wife, Harena Devi Karki, said. On his visits home twice a year, he was the life of gatherings — cracking jokes, making fun. The $350 a month he sent home covered his family’s household costs as well as the private school fees of their two teenage daughters and a 12-year old son.

Even when the lockdown last year meant Mr. Karki was stuck at home for months with no earnings, he insisted the children continue with private school. He would repay the debts once the printing press opened again. He dreamed of seeing his eldest daughter — “she’s the most talented” — grow up to be a doctor.

“I couldn’t complete my studies,” Ms. Karki remembers her husband saying. “Let me eat less, but we should send them to a better school for their education.”

When Mr. Karki received her husband at the border around 2:30 a.m. on April 29, she said, he was frail and lacked the energy to even stand up. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.

“‘Everything is OK. Go home,’” her husband told her, Ms. Karki said. “But he never came home.”

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World News

Gaza Warfare Deepens a Lengthy-Working Humanitarian Disaster

Gaza War Deepens a Long-Running Humanitarian Crisis

GAZA CITY – The nine-day battle between Hamas fighters and the Israeli military has damaged 17 hospitals and clinics in Gaza, destroyed the only coronavirus test laboratory, sent stinking sewage onto the streets and water pipes for at least 800,000 people destroyed the humanitarian crisis that affects almost every civilian touched in the crowded enclave of about two million people.

Sewage systems in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed. A desalination plant, which was used to supply 250,000 people in the area with fresh water, is offline. Dozens of schools were damaged or closed, forcing around 600,000 students to miss classes. Around 72,000 Gazans had to flee their homes. At least 213 Palestinians were killed, including dozens of children.

The scale of destruction and death in Gaza has underscored the humanitarian challenge in the enclave, which had suffered from an indefinite blockade by Israel and Egypt even before the recent conflict.

As the crisis deepened, there were increasing international calls for a ceasefire on Tuesday.

President Biden, who had publicly supported Israel’s right to defend itself, privately warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could no longer deter growing pressure from the international community and American politicians, according to two people familiar with the call . The private message indicated a time limit on Mr. Biden’s ability to provide diplomatic cover for Israel’s actions.

All but one member of the European Union, Hungary, called for an immediate ceasefire in an emergency meeting on Tuesday. They supported a statement condemning Hamas missile attacks and supporting Israel’s right to self-defense, but also warned that this must be done “proportionally and in compliance with international humanitarian law,” according to the bloc’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell Fontelles.

Israel and Hamas were embroiled in ceasefire negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations. However, no progress was reported on Tuesday as Israeli planes continued to hit Gaza with rockets and Hamas and its Islamist affiliates fired rockets at Israel.

At least 12 Israeli residents were killed in the conflict. No later than two Thai citizens were hit by a rocket attack on a food packaging facility on Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli police said.

Within Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Palestinians held one of the largest collective protests in memory. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went on general strike in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Israel to protest the Gaza War, Israeli occupation, discrimination and violence against Palestinian citizens of Israel and the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.

The demonstrations began peacefully but led to clashes in some places in the West Bank. Outside Ramallah, a group of Palestinians who had gathered separately from the demonstrators set fire to a main thoroughfare and later exchanged shots with Israeli soldiers. Three Palestinians were killed.

Rocket fire from Palestinian militants has also damaged Israeli infrastructure, damaged a gas pipeline and disrupted operations at a gas rig and at two major Israeli airports.

But the damage was incomparable to that in Gaza.

Until Monday evening, the Al Rimal Health Clinic in the center of Gaza City housed the only coronavirus test laboratory in Gaza. There, doctors and nurses administered hundreds of vaccinations, prescriptions and checkups to more than 3,000 patients every day.

But on Monday evening, an Israeli air strike hit the street outside, sending splinters to the clinic, shattering windows, tearing up doors, furniture and computers, baking rooms to rubble and destroying the virus laboratory.

Vaccinations have been canceled and doctor’s appointments postponed. The pharmacy was closed and the delivery of medicines was interrupted.

More than 1,000 Gazans were wounded in the Israeli offensive, making the damage to hospitals and clinics particularly dangerous.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Updated

May 19, 2021, 4:02 p.m. ET

“During wartime, people need more treatment than usual,” said Mohammed Abu Samaan, a senior administrator of the clinic, on Tuesday. “Now we can no longer give people medicine.”

The humanitarian situation in Gaza was dire even before the war. Unemployment was around 50 percent. The Israeli and Egyptian governments control what flows in and out of the strip, as well as most of its electricity and fuel. Israel also controls the birth register, airspace, maritime access and cellular data in the Gaza Strip and restricts Palestinian access to farmland adjacent to the edge of the strip.

An Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, did not deny that Israel’s air strikes damaged civil infrastructure, but said Israeli military leaders did their best to avoid it.

“Of course, health facilities, mosques, schools, water facilities and the like in our system are marked as sensitive infrastructure that must not be attacked and influenced by our fire,” he said. “Obviously we are taking precautions.”

The high civilian death toll and damage to civilian infrastructure have raised questions about Israel’s compliance with international war laws, which prohibit targeting purely civilian sites and limit acceptable collateral damage to what is appropriate for military advantage.

However, William Schabas, professor of international law and former chairman of a United Nations commission that investigated allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza in 2014, said: “Proportionality is a subjective term.”

Hamas fighters operate from an extensive network of tunnels under Gaza. As Israeli warplanes drop bombs to destroy this network, it is the people trapped between them who suffer the most catastrophic losses.

Hamas, which has fired more than 3,000 rockets at Israeli cities, is clearly committing war crimes, according to legal experts, even though its weapons are far less effective and their toll is far smaller.

In southern Israel schools within range of Hamas rocket fire have been closed and many families have left the border areas. Wailing sirens warning of missile attacks shape daily life in Israel, especially in the south, and repeatedly send Israelis to shelters.

But the Hamas attacks also appear to be contributing to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

When a convoy of 24 trucks with urgently needed international aid from Israel tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, they came under mortar fire, according to Israeli and UN representatives of Palestinian militants. Only five of the trucks got through the intersection before the rest were turned back.

The trucks contained medical equipment, animal feed and fuel tanks for use by international organizations in Gaza, Israeli officials said.

Since 2007, Hamas has had three major conflicts with Israel and several minor skirmishes. After every outbreak of violence, Gaza’s infrastructure was in ruins.

According to a report by the United Nations, the wars and the blockade left Gaza with the “highest unemployment rate in the world” last year and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line.

As of Monday, Israeli bombs had destroyed 132 residential buildings and rendered 316 residential units uninhabitable, according to the Gaza Housing Ministry.

An air strike essentially destroyed Hala al Shawa clinic in northern Gaza, which also provides basic health care and vaccinations, while another damaged four ambulances nearby, the Ministry of Health said.

The explosion of a third airstrike broke windows in operating rooms, forcing the clinic to move surgical patients to other hospitals, said Abdelsalam Sabah, the ministry’s hospital director. A separate air strike caused structural damage to the nearby Indonesian hospital, he added. A piece of splinter flew into the emergency room at Gaza Eye Hospital and almost wounded a nurse, he said.

The strike at Al Rimal Clinic in Gaza City also damaged the administrative offices of the Hamas-led health ministry, said Dr. Majdi Dhair, Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Ministry.

A ministry official was hospitalized and in serious condition after being hit in the head by a splinter, said Dr. Dhair on Tuesday in a telephone interview.

“This attack was barbaric,” he said. “There’s no way to justify it.”

The coverage was contributed by Patrick Kingsley and Myra Noveck of Jerusalem; Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; and Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Tzur Hadassah.

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Health

India Covid disaster exhibits public well being neglect, issues, underinvestment

India Covid crisis shows public health neglect, problems, underinvestment

A family waits in an ambulance with a patient who tests positive for COVID-19 to be admitted to hospital in Kolkata, India on May 10, 2021.

Debarchan Chatterjee | NurPhoto | Getty Images

World attention is now turning to India, the epicenter of the global pandemic, as the country battles a deadly second wave of Covid-19.

The unfolding human tragedy has exposed the deeply ingrained problems of the Indian health system after decades of neglect and underinvestment.

The crisis has brought India’s public health system to its knees. Scenes of hospitals running out of beds and people desperate for life-saving oxygen or critical medical care for their loved ones have made international headlines.

Low health care allocations

Since its independence in 1947, health has not been seen as an economically productive expense in the country for a long time – as opposed to investing in industry, agriculture and service sectors, K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, told CNBC.

“For several decades, India’s health systems have not received the respect and resources they deserve. Public health funding has stagnated at around 1% of GDP and out-of-pocket health spending has been over 60% even in recent years” he said in an email. “The central government, as well as most of the state governments, had low budget allocations for health.”

India’s health spending is comparatively much lower than in many other countries.

The US spent almost 17% of its gross domestic product on public health care in 2018, while France and Germany spent more than 11% of GDP this year, according to the World Bank.

In a comparison of India with the other BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – India spent the least on health care in 2018. Brazil spent 9.5% of its GDP on health care that year, South Africa spent 8.1%, Russia 5.3% and China spent 5.35%.

India is now the second worst infected country in the world, just behind the United States.

The South Asian nation has reported more than 300,000 new infections per day in the past few weeks. According to the Ministry of Health, cumulative Covid infections reached almost 24.7 million on Sunday with more than 270,284 deaths.

However, health experts warn that the numbers are likely to be grossly underreported and the true extent of Covid infections and the number of people may never be officially known.

In a recent report by Fitch Solutions, the research firm said that despite several health reforms, India remains ill-positioned to tackle the rapid spread of the pandemic.

“With 8.5 hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants and 8 doctors per 10,000, the country’s health sector is not prepared for such a crisis. Furthermore, the significant inefficiency, dysfunction and acute shortages of health systems in the public sector do not exist to meet the growing needs of the population “added the report.

The numbers are grim for a country like India with 1.4 billion people, which makes up 18% of the world’s population.

Lack of political will

India’s second wave started around February and accelerated through March and April. The virus spread quickly due to complacency with wearing masks at religious festivals and political rallies that drew large crowds in different parts of the country.

While the pandemic has highlighted the structural weaknesses of India’s public health system, those issues have always been there, Chandrakant Lahariya said. a Expert in medical public policy and health systems based in New Delhi.

I believe that after the long and excruciating pandemic, the political will is now stronger.

Chandrakant Lahariya

Expert in medical public order and health systems

He said this was mainly due to a lack of political will from successive political parties and the government, which had the power not to make public health a priority.

“Public health has never been a political priority or an election agenda,” he said. “Through the hands-off approach, the government has been sending a kind of message that health is an individual responsibility. People are unaware that elected governments and political leaders should be accountable and accountable to ensuring health services.”

This is where the problem arises, noted Lahariya.

“It has allowed the private health sector to grow by leaps and bounds while the public sector remains underfunded and underperforming,” he said in an email. “Now we are in this situation.”

Few Indians have health insurance

India’s private hospitals are largely commercialized and for-profit, and focus on treating disease. What makes matters worse is that the majority of Indians do not have health insurance and pay for health care out of their own pocket.

According to the Fitch report, more than 80% of the Indian population still has no significant health insurance coverage and around 68% have limited or no access to essential medicines.

While a pandemic can overwhelm almost any health system, including the best-equipped, the current situation in India was not inevitable, noted Vageesh Jain, a trained public health doctor in the UK

“The fundamental problem remains that the commercially operated private hospital system does not aim to provide long-term care to people to prevent and control disease,” said Jain, who is currently working with Public Health England on health protection in response to Covid-19.

Given the complex and multi-agency solutions, it is difficult to address such issues in any context, he added.

“But it is especially difficult in India, where there may be other quick public policy wins that are more deserving of immediate attention,” he argued.

A wake-up call for India?

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been widely criticized for failing to act earlier to suppress the virus resurgence.

In a rare reprimand, the British medical journal The Lancet recently beat up the Modi government for squandering early successes in controlling Covid and “presiding over a self-inflicted national disaster”.

“I believe that the political will is now stronger after the long and excruciating pandemic,” said Reddy of the Public Health Foundation of India. He added that the latest central budget and the Finance Commission’s recommendations are positive indicators.

The devastating situation caused by the ongoing wave is likely to be forgotten. But it must not be forgotten.

When the budget was announced in February, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed that spending on health and wellbeing in India should more than double to $ 30.1 billion (rupees 2.2 trillion).

This includes strengthening national institutions and creating new institutions to identify and cure new diseases. There is also a new federal system in place to develop the country’s capacity for primary, secondary and tertiary care.

However, whether the crippling crisis will be a wake-up call for India to take its public health seriously remains to be seen, experts say.

“With this ongoing pandemic, the memories of the public and policymakers will last stronger and longer. Even after the pandemic has ended, it is a constant reminder that if We don’t invest, the economy will continue to slide on the banana peels of public health failure in public health and in strong health systems, “Reddy said.

Lahariya added that India has seen many public health disasters and emergencies. But most have resulted in very little, if any, changes in health systems.

“The time has come for India to have solid accountability of citizens to elected leaders. Questions should be asked of the people who elect them. Then only we can expect change,” he said.

“The devastating situation caused by the ongoing wave is likely to be forgotten. But it should not be forgotten.”

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Business

India Covid disaster: Mucormycosis fungal an infection

India Covid crisis: Mucormycosis fungal infection

Medical staff in PSA caring for a person at the Covid-19 Temporary Care Center attached to LNJP Hospital at Shehnai Banquet Hall on April 23, 2021 in New Delhi, India.

Raj K Raj | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

As India grapples with a deadly second wave of coronavirus, authorities have warned of a rare fungal infection that can be maimed or even fatal if not cared for.

Multiple media reports say doctors in the country are reporting cases of mucormycosis, informally known as “black fungus,” in the recovery or recovery of Covid-19 patients in states like Maharashtra and Gujarat, as well as Delhi.

What is it?

Mucormycosis is a “serious but rare fungal infection caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It most commonly affects the sinuses or lungs after inhaling fungal spores from the air, but it can also appear after an injury to the skin or, in some cases, affect the brain, according to the CDC.

The infection is more common in people who have underlying health problems or are taking medications that affect their body’s ability to fight germs. Researchers studying previous murcormyscosis infections in India found that diabetes was the most common underlying disease, occurring in 54% to 76% of cases.

While the infection is treatable, the CDC estimates a death rate of around 50%, but this varies depending on the underlying conditions, the type of fungus, and the area of ​​the body affected.

However, the Indian State Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said that patients who have been in intensive care units for long periods of time or are immunocompromised due to steroids may also be at risk.

Many severe Covid-19 patients in India are treated with corticosteroids such as dexamethasone, an anti-inflammatory drug that also decreases the immune system’s ability to fight infections and other diseases to relieve symptoms and make them more susceptible.

A government official reportedly said last week that there is “no major outbreak” of the fungal infection in India.

What are the symptoms?

The ICMR issued a notice over the weekend urging doctors and patients to look out for early symptoms.

These include nasal congestion and discharge, unilateral facial pain, numbness or swelling, toothache and loosened teeth, blurred or double vision, redness around the eyes, fever, difficulty breathing and chest pain.

Treatment options include antifungal therapy, Reducing or stopping steroids and other drugs that suppress the immune system, while more severe cases, according to the ICMR, may require surgery to remove all necrotic tissues from the body.

If left untreated for too long, permanent damage such as vision loss and death can result.

Mucormycosis was already present in India before the Covid-19 pandemic began last year. Official data are scarce due to the lack of population-based studies, but some researchers estimate that the prevalence of mucormycosis in the country is about 70 times higher than in the rest of the world.

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World News

U.S. and China might cooperate to finish disaster in Myanmar

U.S. and China could cooperate to end crisis in Myanmar

Protesters demonstrate against the military coup in Yangon and demanded the release of the imprisoned Myanmar State Council, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Theint Mon Soe | SOPA pictures | LightRocket via Getty Images

US-China relations may have got off to a bad start under President Joe Biden, but the two countries could find common ground to work together to end the violence in Myanmar.

Scot Marciel, former US ambassador to Myanmar, said both the US and China would not want to see an escalating crisis in the Southeast Asian country.

A military coup on February 1 sparked mass protests across Myanmar and security forces tried to use violent tactics to suppress the demonstrations. According to the advocacy group of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 780 people have been killed in the act so far, while over 3,800 people are still detained.

“My feeling would be that this coup, and certainly the turmoil and violence in Myanmar, I don’t see how it is in China’s best interests … My feeling is that China wants stability for a number of reasons, so I think that they’re ‘I’m not thrilled about it, but they’re cautious,’ Marciel said Friday during a webinar organized by the Australian think tank Lowy Institute.

“So there could be some common interests between the United States and China to end the violence and instability,” said Marciel, who was US ambassador to Myanmar from 2016-2020.

The US and other Western powers strongly condemned the coup and imposed sanctions to put the military under pressure. Meanwhile, China’s response has been more subdued as Beijing stressed the importance of stability.

China is a major investor in Myanmar and borders the Southeast Asian country. Some analysts have said China’s relatively cautious response may harm its own interests.

The crisis is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon

One way the US and China could come together on the Myanmar issue is to support the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Rizal Sukma, senior researcher at the Think Tank Center for Strategic and International Studies in Indonesia, said during the webinar .

The regional grouping held an emergency summit last month to address the escalating violence in Myanmar. The ten Member States then issued a statement calling, among other things, for an immediate end to the violence and the appointment of a special envoy to mediate the crisis in Myanmar.

“ASEAN just hopes that whatever plan we have on the ground in Myanmar, the US and China can also help contribute to that plan, such as humanitarian aid,” said Sukma, a former Indonesian diplomat.

Sukma said he was “quite frustrated” that ASEAN had not appointed the special envoy for Myanmar two weeks after the statement. He said the regional grouping should “go ahead” with its plan so that it could enter into dialogue with the various parties in Myanmar.

Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Monday that it was up to the Myanmar military to decide how and when ASEAN could play a role.

Balakrishnan reiterated that the military must stop the violence and release political prisoners – including Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders. He said that only then can “honest direct negotiations” between the army and civilian leaders continue.

“Without this national conversation and this reconciliation, you will see no progress in Myanmar. Indeed, there are signs of a possible civil war,” said the minister.

Marciel said he hoped the group’s initiatives can make “a little bit of headway” in Myanmar. But it is difficult to see an early resolution to the crisis at the moment and that will likely mean more suffering among the people, he added.

“It’s really impossible to predict. I would say that the most likely scenario for the next few months – as far as I can – is unfortunately probably more of the same,” he said. “I don’t see that the (military) give in, I certainly don’t see that the people accept this coup.”

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Business

India’s wealthy should not the one ones fleeing Covid disaster

India's rich are not the only ones fleeing Covid crisis

Tycoons and Bollywood stars may be some of the best-known residents fleeing India’s coast by private jets as the coronavirus crisis escalates – but they’re by no means the only ones, according to JetSetGo, a private jet charter company.

The situation in India has gotten so bad that even upper-middle-class families are pooling their resources to flee, its co-founder and CEO Kanika Tekriwal told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia.

The South Asian country, which has grappled with a devastating surge in the virus, recorded 412,262 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to more than 28 million.

“To say that only wealthy Indians leave India on private jets would be wrong,” said Tekriwal of the Maldives on Thursday.

“What we’ve really seen in the past 10 days is anyone who can put together the resources and funds to raise money for a private jet or to raise money just to get out of the country and get off.”

It’s just people raising money to leave the country. I think they are the ones who fear Covid the most.

Kanika Tekriwal

Co-founder and CEO of JetSetGo

Tekriwal said JetSetGo has seen bookings grow by 900% in the past few weeks – with roughly 70% to 80% coming from the upper-middle class rather than their regular, very wealthy customers. Most of them are fleeing to the Maldives, which are currently offering quarantine in a remote resort for passengers from India, or to Dubai, where entry is possible for business reasons.

“They are just people raising money to get out of the country. I think they fear Covid the most because they are not particularly rich or the most accessible to medical care,” she said.

During a weekly market in Kandivali you can see crowds shopping.

SOPA pictures | LightRocket | Getty Images

JetSetGo hasn’t increased its rates to respond to rising demand, Tekriwal said, adding, “That would be opportunistic and wrong.”

But at $ 18,000 to $ 20,000 for an eight-seat jet to the Maldives or $ 31,000 for a six-seat jet to Dubai, the trip isn’t cheap – even for India’s upper-middle class, who make more than $ 15,000 a year.

However, Tekriwal said the situation was so out of control that in some cases the price of a private jet flight could be below hospital fees.

Most of my clients have told me that: “We can spend six months’ salary or our savings on fleeing the country.”

Kanika Tekriwal

Co-founder and CEO of JetSetGo

The hospital stay costs about $ 2,500 a night, she said. “It’s what hospital rooms are aimed at. Even if you have two family members in the hospital for 14 days, you’ll see double the price of a flight to Dubai.”

“This is what most of my clients have told me: ‘We are okay with spending six months’ salary or savings on fleeing the country instead of being in half a hospital bed not knowing how much we’re going to make or when we’re going to pay get a hospital bed at all.“”

Tekriwal added that passengers who test positive for Covid-19 will not be accepted on their regular flights. However, the company offers a separate national and international air ambulance service.

However, a private jet does not guarantee an escape from the virus.

Despite enforcing new security measures since last March – including mandatory testing, regular disinfection of aircraft, and no interaction between passengers and crew – Tekriwal said 30% of its employees have continued to test positive for the virus.

“What hurts me the most is that these teams come in, come out and work with people to get them safely from point A to point B. And when they test positive, they bring the virus home to their families. To theirs young children and their parents, which is pretty worrying, “she said.

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World News

India’s worsening Covid disaster may spiral into an issue for the world

India’s worsening Covid crisis could spiral into a problem for the world

A woman wearing a mask against Covid-19 as a precaution stands in a crowded area near India Gate in New Delhi on March 19, 2021 as coronavirus cases continue to rise across India.

Money sharma | AFP | Getty Images

India’s Covid-19 cases soared to daily record highs in April, and experts warn that the country’s deepening health crisis could undo efforts to end the global pandemic.

The South Asian country, which is home to around 1.4 billion people, or 18% of the world’s population, was responsible for 46% of new Covid cases worldwide last week, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. One in four deaths in the past week came from India, the UN health department said.

India has reported more than 300,000 new cases daily for the past two weeks, overtaking Brazil in April to become the second worst infected country in the world. According to the Ministry of Health, the cumulative coronavirus infections in India reached around 20.67 million on Wednesday with more than 226,000 deaths. However, several studies of India’s data found that cases were likely severely underreported.

There are already Signs that India’s outbreak is spreading to other countries. Neighbors Nepal and Sri Lanka have also reported spikes in infections, while other regional economies such as Hong Kong and Singapore have imported Covid cases from India.

So the coronavirus crisis in India could turn into a bigger global problem.

Possible new Covid variants

Prolonged large outbreaks in any country could increase the possibility of new variants of Covid-19, health experts warned. Some of the variants could elude immune responses triggered by vaccines and previous infections.

“Here’s the bottom line: we know there are variations in major outbreaks. And so far our vaccines are holding up, we’re seeing a few breakthrough infections, but not a lot,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health, told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith”.

“But India is a big country, and of course if there are big outbreaks there we will all be concerned about other variants that are bad for Indians and of course spread around the world,” he added.

India first discovered variant B.1.617 in October last year – also known as the “double mutant”. The variant has now been reported in at least 17 countries, including the US, UK and Singapore.

The WHO has classified the B.1.617 as an interesting variant, suggesting that the mutated strain may be more contagious, deadly, and more resistant to current vaccines and treatments. The organization said more study is needed to understand the meaning of the variant.

Global vaccine supply at risk

India is a major vaccine maker, but the domestic health crisis has prompted authorities to stop exporting Covid-19 vaccines as the country prioritizes its domestic needs.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) – the country’s main producer – has the right to manufacture the Covid vaccine jointly developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. Part of the production is planned for Covax, the global initiative to supply poor countries with Covid vaccines.

Developing countries are lagging behind advanced countries in securing vaccine supplies in what the WHO has called a “shocking imbalance” in distribution.

Delaying vaccine exports through India could therefore leave lower-income countries vulnerable to new coronavirus outbreaks.

Threat to the global economy

India is the sixth largest economy in the world and is a major contributor to global growth.

Some economists have downgraded their growth forecasts for India. However, they remained optimistic about the outlook for the economy for the year as the restrictions to curb the spread of the virus were more targeted compared to the strict nationwide lockdown last year.

The International Monetary Fund expected the Indian economy to grow 12.5% ​​in the fiscal year ended March 2022 last month, after shrinking 8% in the previous fiscal year.

However, the renewed outbreak in India has resulted in several countries tightening travel restrictions – and that’s bad news for airlines, airports and other companies that depend on the travel industry, said Uma Kambhampati, an economics professor at the University of Reading in the USA United Kingdom

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warned that India’s health crisis could weigh on the U.S. economy, Reuters reported. According to the report, many U.S. companies are hiring millions of Indian workers to perform their back office operations.

“With all these problems and the spreading humanitarian crisis, it has become imperative for the world to act quickly to help India, whether or not such aid is requested,” said Kambhampati in a report published on The Conversation has been published. Profit website with comments from academics and researchers.

Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect that the World Health Organization said India caused 46% of the new Covid cases worldwide over the past week. Due to an editing bug, an earlier version of the story misrepresented the timeframe.

Categories
Business

Airbus returns to revenue however warns disaster isn’t over.

Airbus returns to profit but warns crisis is not over.

Airbus announced on Thursday that the company had returned to a profit in the first quarter after a loss of 1.1 billion euros last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The first quarter shows that the crisis is not over for our industry and that the market remains uncertain,” said Guillaume Faury, managing director of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, in a statement.

Airbus posted a net profit of 362 million euros ($ 440 million) between January and March, compared with a loss of 481 million euros in the previous year. strengthened the bottom line. Sales fell by 2 percent to 10.5 billion euros.

Airbus delivered 125 commercial aircraft to airlines in the three-month period, compared to 122 in the previous year. In total, Airbus delivered 566 aircraft to airlines in 2020, 40 percent fewer than expected before the pandemic.

Airbus previously warned that the industry may not recover from the disruption caused by the pandemic until 2025, as new virus varieties delay resumption of global air travel.

Given the uncertain outlook, Airbus will not increase aircraft deliveries this year. The company expects to deliver 566 aircraft to airline orders, the same number as last year.

The forecast for the underlying operating profit of two billion euros for the year has been maintained.

Categories
Business

Biden, Calling for Large Authorities, Bets on a Nation Examined by Disaster

Biden, Calling for Big Government, Bets on a Nation Tested by Crisis

“People are fed up with it,” said Florida Senator Rick Scott, who heads the Senate Republican campaign arm leading to the 2022 election.

These attacks do not seem to have the same impact as they did during Mr Obama’s tenure, when the White House proposed a much smaller stimulus package than many economists believed was warranted given the huge erosion of household wealth following the financial crisis. Mr Obama has raised taxes on high wage earners, partly to fund the Affordable Care Act, but not to the extent that Mr Biden is proposing.

Mr. Biden could thank Mr. Trump for part of this postponement. The pandemic relief bills he signed last year with the support of both parties in Congress may have helped reset public views on Washington’s spending limits. “Trillions” was sort of a red line under Mr. Obama, but nothing more.

Mr Trump also urged Congress to approve direct controls, an effort Mr Biden continued, and launched the Operation Warp Speed ​​vaccination program, which helped accelerate the deployment of the most important driver of economic activity that year: vaccinated Americans. As the economy reopens and people return to work, economic optimism rises, although Republicans across the country continue to be more pessimistic and more likely to oppose Mr Biden’s plans.

In Washington, the president doesn’t need Republican support to push his agenda through. He only needs his party to stick together in the House of Representatives and Senate, where the Democrats enjoy a low-margin majority and move as much spending and taxation as possible through what is known as the budget balancing process. The maneuver bypasses the Senate filibusters and enables laws such as this year’s auxiliary law by Mr Biden to be passed only with a majority of votes.

This process will give great influence to moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, but so far this group has not declined in the order of Mr. Biden’s ambitions. Mr. Manchin has announced that he will support $ 4 trillion in infrastructure spending.

It is unclear whether Mr Biden will be able to keep Mr Manchin and others on with his people-centered expenses like the education and childcare efforts unveiled on Wednesday. His administration tries to argue for productivity reasons, viewing the plan as an investment in an inclusive economy that would help millions of Americans gain the skills and work flexibility they need to build a middle-class lifestyle.