Coronavirus news live: WHO says India situation ‘beyond heartbreaking’

Medical equipment sent by the UK to India to help the country cope with its huge surge in Covid-19 cases is merely a “political gesture” and will have little impact, a leading Indian doctor has claimed.

The UK’s Foreign Office said it was sending 600 pieces of life-saving kit to India – including ventilators and oxygen concentrators – with the first plane-loads arriving on Tuesday.

Dr Zarir Udwadia, who sits on a committee advising the Indian government on Mumbai’s Covid response, said the donation was “a drop in the ocean”.

French President Emmauel Macron is expected to make an announcement in the coming days on plans to relax coronavirus restrictions, employment minister Elisabeth Borne told BFM TV on Tuesday.

France began its third national lockdown towards the end of March following a surge in coronavirus cases and Covid related deaths.

On Monday French schools reopened following a three week closure, Mr Macron has previously suggested that open-air bars and outdoor seating in restaurants could open from mid-May.

However indoor venues are not expected to reopen until at least June. This would only happen in regions where Covid figures have shown a significant drop.

Ms Borne also suggested that those working from home should prepare for a return to the office which she suggested should be “simultaneous” with the reopening of outdoor hospitality.

Mr Macron is hoping the effects of the country’s third lockdown, along with a faster vaccination campaign, will improve France’s coronavirus case numbers and allow the reopening of certain businesses.

Ministers have been urged to implement a clear recovery plan to bring down the country’s patient waiting lists that have ballooned to record-breaking levels as a result of disruption from the pandemic.

Labour has warned that thousands of people waiting for hospital treatment are at risk of permanent disability and losing their livelihoods and has demanded government action.

Some 387,885 patients in England are waiting more than a year for hospital treatment, according to NHS data. This has increased month-on-month since March of last year when the UK was first placed into lockdown.

The NHS Covid vaccine booking system in England has extended to health people aged 42 and over. This is the second time the system has been extended in a week, with it first being extended down to those aged 44 and over on Monday.

Those who are 42 and over or who will turn 42 before 1 July 2021 are able to arrange their vaccine appointment through the national booking website.

Meanwhile, on Monday a new government campaign, called “every vaccination gives us hope”, was launched. It includes a TV advert and will be on social media, the radio and billboards, in the hope that it will encourage those under the age of 50 to take the vaccine.

The Indian-born chief executives of US tech companies Google and Microsoft have rushed to aid India amidst the growing tide of Covid-19 cases in the country, and as its citizens struggle to access oxygen and crucial medical supplies for infected family members. 

Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella pledged on Monday to help tackle the critical shortage of medical oxygen in India and provide resources as the number of daily new infections in the country continues to set world records.

“Microsoft will continue to use its voice, resources, and technology to aid relief efforts, and support the purchase of critical oxygen concentration devices,” Mr Nadella tweeted.

Vishwam Sankaran has more here:

A group of MPs have called for a review of all coronavirus fines issued under lockdown laws, branding them as “muddled, discriminatory and unfair.”

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said that the current system “criminalises the poor over the better-off.”

They added that they had “significant concerns” over the validity of the fines, as well as the size of the penalties and the criminalisation of those unable to afford to pay.

The group underlined their belief that no Covid fine should result in someone receiving a criminal record, explaining: “Those who can’t afford to pay face a criminal record along with all the resulting consequences for their future development.”

Committee chairman Harriet Harman said: “Swift action to make restrictions effective is essential in the face of this terrible virus.

“But the Government needs to ensure that rules are clear, enforcement is fair and that mistakes in the system can be rectified.

“None of that is the case in respect of Covid-19 fixed penalty notices.”

Ms Harman explained how the committee felt that coronavirus regulations “are neither straightforward nor easily understood either by those who have to obey them or the police who have to enforce them.”

Indeed, since March 2020, coronavirus rules have changed at least 65 times. More than 85,000 fixed penalty notices have been issued in that time.

The findings highlighted a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) review of prosecutions brought under coronavirus regulations. This indicated that in February 2021 27 per cent were incorrectly charged.

Just a few months ago, India was being hailed as the “pharmacy of the world” and was selling and donating millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines to other countries. 

However, with a deadly second wave wreaking havoc in the country, it now finds itself short of vaccines to inoculate its adult population, raising questions over Narendra Modi’s government’s planning and preparedness.

News of India’s vaccine shortage – as it goes to inoculate all of its adult population from 1 May – comes as the country is facing its worst humanitarian crisis in years with people dying outside hospital gates after failing to get a bed, oxygen shortages claiming lives every day and funeral pyres lit en masse in crematoria around the country.

India recorded over 320,000 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday as the world’s second most populous country began to receive international aid.

The included a shipment of medical aid supplies from the UK which included 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators.

Foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted images of the shipment writing: “International cooperation at work!”

Other counties which include the US, Germany, Israel, France and Pakistan have also said they will provide India with medical aid.

They say this will include oxygen, diagnostic tests, treatments, ventilators and protective gear to help the crisis.

The surge has been spurred by a new variant of coronavirus and has taken India’s total number of infections past 17.6 million.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the situation  “beyond heartbreaking.”

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