Catastrophic Covid surge grips India
USA to share vaccine materials as aid rushes from around the world
As the Covid-19 outbreak further explodes in India, President Biden told India’s prime minister that the United States will send supplies, including raw materials for vaccine manufacturing, and experts to help with the enormous humanitarian crisis.
India’s official tally of 353,000 new Covid cases is thought to dramatically undercount the actual number, because testing is sparse.
The surge has raised concerns about Covid spreading on airplanes and among U.S. diplomatic staff .
While India avoided a surge of Covid cases last year, officials apparently squandered their opportunity to prepare over the past months - opting to export more vaccine doses than kept for use in India.
California now has the lowest Covid rate in the USA, with fewer than 33 new cases per 100,000 people per day in the last seven days.
American tourists will be welcome in Europe over the summer if they have been fully vaccinated.
Now that the USA has more vaccine doses than demand for them, the Biden administration said it will share up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with other countries. Although the AZ vaccine is in wide use around the world, it does not have FDA authorization for use in the United States. “We do not need to use AstraZeneca in our fight against covid,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. The US government committed over $1 billion for the manufacturing of this vaccine.
The Black Coalition Against Covid-19 and the American Hospital Association are hosting a webinar on how to address Covid-19 in minority communities. The Facebook Live on Wednesday includes speakers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Medical Association, National Black Nurses Association and representatives from several organizations serving minority communities.