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‘Please help!’ India’s Covid-19 tragedy spills onto social media

The collapse of the country’s decrepit public health system is evident in the gut-wrenching photos on social media of multiple Covid patients sharing a single hospital bed, a line of ambulances outside a hospital in Mumbai, and people dying as they wait for oxygen. Government helplines are broken. Thousands of social media forwards plead for the antiviral drug Remdesivir, and many more seek donor plasma.

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Israel logs Indian Covid-19 variant, sees some vaccine efficacy against it

An initial seven cases of the Indian variant were detected in Israel last week among people arriving from abroad and who have since undergone preliminary testing, the Health Ministry said.

“The impression is that the Pfizer vaccine has efficacy against it, albeit a reduced efficacy,” the ministry’s director-general, Hezi Levy, told Kan public radio, saying the number of cases of the variant in Israel now stood at eight.

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China’s births may fall below 10 million annually in next five years – expert quoted

Although China abolished its decades-long one-child policy in 2016, couples have been discouraged from having larger families by the rising costs of healthcare, education, and housing. Economic uncertainties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have further weighed on decisions to have children. Separate data from the Ministry of Public Security shows the number of births last year plunged 15% to 10.035 million births from 11.79 million in 2019.

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Twitter becomes platform of hope amid the despair of India’s COVID crisis

In response, people are bypassing the conventional lines of communication and turning to Twitter to crowdsource help for oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, and other requirements. People in need and those with information or resources share telephone numbers of volunteers, vendors who have oxygen cylinders or drugs, and details of which medical facility can take patients using hashtags like #COVIDSOS.

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Covid-19 disrupted food security for millions; likely to reverse progress on ending hunger by 2030: Harsh Vardhan

The population, food security, nutrition and sustainable development theme is of critical importance at all times. But even more so now as the world is trying to rebuild itself while emerging from the challenges posed by Covid-19, Vardhan said. He said that the pandemic has severely disrupted food security and nutrition for millions of people around the world and will likely reverse the progress made towards ending hunger by 2030.

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