Tag: globally

Categories
Health

Malaysia day by day circumstances per million folks amongst highest globally

Malaysia daily cases per million people among highest globally

A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against Covid-19 walks down an empty street in Chinatown.

Wong Fok Loy | SOPA pictures | LightRocket via Getty Images

The Covid-19 outbreak in Malaysia has become one of the worst in the world.

On a seven-day moving average, Malaysia recorded 483.72 confirmed Covid infections per million people on Wednesday – the eighth highest in the world and the top in Asia, according to the latest data compiled by the online repository Our World in Data.

Meanwhile, the country’s daily reported Covid-related deaths on Tuesday averaged about 4.90 per million people on a seven-day moving average. That’s the 19th highest in the world and the third highest in Asia, the data showed.

Our World in Data is a collaboration between researchers from the University of Oxford and the UK non-profit Global Change Data Lab.

Malaysia has managed to keep the number of infections low for much of 2020. However, the country has struggled to tame a surge in cases despite several restrictions and a state of emergency.

Political analysts blame the government’s mistreatment of the outbreak as it worsened.

“Malaysia’s response is hampered by chaotic governance and ongoing political power struggles,” wrote Joshua Kurlantzick, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Think Tank Council on Foreign Relations, in a report.

Malaysia’s political crisis

The Southeast Asian country found itself in political turmoil when former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad unexpectedly resigned in February last year. It paved the way for Muhyiddin to form a government by cobbling together a fragile coalition.

Political opponents have long challenged Muhyiddin’s claim to majority support in the country’s 222-seat parliament. Calls for the Prime Minister’s resignation – including among his allies – became louder after the Malaysian king issued a rare reprimand on Thursday about the government’s handling of the state of emergency.

The king had Muhyiddin’s application for a state of emergency from January to January 1.

Many analysts viewed the move as an attempt by the embattled prime minister to maintain his political position, particularly when parliament was suspended due to the state of emergency and elections could not be held.

When parliament convened again this week, the government surprised the nation by announcing that it had decided to end the state of emergency effective July 21. The king said the government’s unilateral revocation was inconsistent with constitutional procedure.

Since coming to power, Muhyiddin has tried to avoid parliamentary votes that his political opponents could use as a proxy for a vote of no confidence in his leadership. The Malaysian parliament has never voted on a motion of censure.

Covid vaccinations are increasing

Despite the political tussle, the Malaysian authorities have accelerated the pace of vaccinations in recent weeks. According to Our World in Data, more than 18% of the country’s 32 million people are fully vaccinated.

Economists at the British bank Barclays estimate that Malaysia – along with Singapore and South Korea – will be among the Asian countries this year to achieve “critical levels” of vaccinations.

The Malaysian government announced that it would vaccinate most of the adult population by the end of the year.

Still, economists said the worsening outbreak and ongoing social distancing measures have hurt Malaysia’s growth prospects.

Barclays cut its growth forecast for 2021 from 5.5% to 5% last month. That is well below the Malaysian central bank’s forecast range of 6% to 7.5%.

Categories
Health

WHO says delta is turning into the dominant Covid variant globally

WHO says delta is becoming the dominant Covid variant globally

A joint government and NHS public information display will indicate that a Covid-19 variant concern has been identified locally and will provide guidance to residents on June 11, 2021 in Hounslow, UK.

Mark Kerrison | In pictures | Getty Images

Delta, the highly contagious variant of Covid-19 that was first identified in India, is becoming the dominant strain of the disease worldwide, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist said on Friday.

This is due to its “significantly increased transferability,” said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO senior scientist, during a press conference at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. Studies suggest Delta is about 60% more transmissible than Alpha, the variant first identified in the UK that was more contagious than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China in late 2019.

The situation worldwide “is so dynamic because of the variants circulating,” she added.

The variant has spread to more than 80 countries and continues to mutate as it spreads around the world, the WHO said on Wednesday. It now accounts for 10% of all new cases in the United States, up from 6% last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky urged Americans on Friday to get vaccinated against Covid, saying she expected Delta to become the dominant variant of coronavirus in the United States.

“As worrying as this Delta strain is about its hypertransmittance, our vaccines are working,” Walensky told ABC’s Good Morning America. If you get vaccinated, “you will be protected against this Delta variant,” she added.

In the UK, the Delta variety recently became the dominant variety there, surpassing Alpha, which was first discovered in the country last fall. The Delta variant now accounts for more than 60% of new cases in the UK

The WHO declared Delta a “questionable variant” last month. A variant can be described as “worrying” if, according to the health organization, it has been shown to be more contagious, more fatal, or more resistant to current vaccines and treatments.

WHO officials said Wednesday there are reports that the Delta variant also causes more severe symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm these conclusions. Still, there is evidence that the Delta strain may cause different symptoms than other variants.

Swaminathan said Friday that scientists still need more data on the variant, including how it affects the effectiveness of Covid vaccines.

The German company CureVac earlier this week named variants as one of the reasons why its Covid vaccine was only 47% effective in a clinical study with 40,000 people.

An analysis published by Public Health England on Monday found that two doses of the Pfizer BioNTech or AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalizations from the Delta variant.

“How many become infected and how many of them are hospitalized and seriously ill?” said Swaminathan on Friday. “That is something that we are watching very closely.”

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt and Rich Mendez contributed to this report.

Categories
Health

WHO warns of uptick in Covid instances globally after weeks of decline

WHO warns of uptick in Covid cases globally after weeks of decline

Medical workers move a patient to the intensive care unit of Sotiria Hospital as part of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on March 1, 2021 in Athens, Greece.

Giorgos Moutafis | Reuters

World Health Organization officials said Wednesday that scientists are trying to understand why Covid-19 cases are suddenly popping up in much of the world after weeks of infection.

2.6 million new cases were reported worldwide last week, up 7% from the previous week, the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update, which reflects data received on Sunday morning. That follows six consecutive weeks of declining new cases around the world.

The reversal could be caused by the emergence of several new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus, easing public policies and what is known as pandemic fatigue, where people are tired of taking precautionary measures, the WHO said in its weekly report. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of emerging diseases and zoonosis, said Wednesday during a question and answer session at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva that the global health agency is trying to better understand what is reversing the trend in each region and each Land caused.

“I can tell you that we are concerned about the introduction of vaccines and vaccinations in a number of countries. We still need people to do their actions on an individual level,” she said, urging people to exercise physical distancing practice and continue wearing masks when they are around others.

“Given this week-long increase in trends, it’s a pretty stern warning to all of us that we need to stay on course,” said Van Kerkhove. “We must continue to adhere to these measures.”

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, suggested the increase could be because “we may relax a little before we get the full effect of vaccination”. He added that he understood the temptation to socialize and return to more normal behavior, but “the problem is every time we did that before the virus took advantage of it.”

Ryan reiterated that the cause of the surge in the cases remains unclear, but added that the tried and tested public health measures highlighted during the pandemic are still in effect.

“When the cases are decreasing it’s never all we do and when they are increasing it’s never all our fault,” he said.

Ryan noted that deaths have not yet risen with the cases, but that could change in the coming weeks. Hopefully, vaccinating those most severely affected by the disease could prevent an increase in deaths.

While the introduction of vaccines in some countries gives cause for optimism, Ryan noted that many nations around the world have not yet received doses. He said 80% of the doses were given in just 10 countries.

WHO’s remarks are consistent with those recently made by federal officials in the United States. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been warning for days that the decline in new cases every day in the United States has stalled and increased.

In the past seven days, the United States reported an average of more than 65,400 new cases a day, according to Johns Hopkins University. That’s well below the high of about 250,000 new cases per day the country reported in early January, but it’s still well above the infection rate the US saw the summer when the virus swept the sun belt.

“At this level of cases where variants spread, we will completely lose the hard-earned ground we won,” Walensky said on Monday. “With these statistics, I’m really concerned that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from Covid-19.”

“Please listen to me clearly: at this level of cases with spreading variant, we are going to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” she said.