May 6

• Known New cases:  414K (weekly +9%)
• Tests: 22.25 lakh (PR: 18.62%)
  • Northeastern states are seeing a significant surge of cases (200-400% in 14 days)
  • Goa currently has the highest rate of Covid-19 infections in the country, with up to one in every two people testing positive in recent weeks.
• Official Deaths: 4920 (weekly +20%)
  • 17822 vs 1785: Gujarat on overage is reporting 10 times fewer than actual deaths. Continuing its investigation Gujarati newspaper Sandesh reveals 17,822 bodies were cremated or buried as per Covid protocol in 7 major cities of Gujarat in last 1 month but Gujarat govt.’s data says only 1,745 people died of Covid in these 7 cities in last 1 month.
  • An attempt to record deaths due to oxygen shortage in institutions.
  • WaPo report on India’s missing coronavirus deaths
  • Politician Ajit Singh, literary critic/playwright/poet Prof. Shamim Hanfi among those died of Covid.
• Vaccinations: 16.49 cr (+24.5 lakh)
  • Indian states offer lessons in how to squeeze out more vaccine shots out of each vial: While several Indian states have reported wastage up to almost 10% of their doses, states like A&N Islands, Goa, Mizoram, Kerala, Odisha, and HP have recorded negative wastage.
  • Near stampede in Mumbai’s biggest vaccination facility
  • A small-scale study of 113 healthcare workers who were vaccinated (107 of them had received both doses and the remaining one dose) at a private hospital in Delhi found that 18 of them tested positive for Covid but all except one had mild symptoms.
• Government
  • Sorry for the off-topic (or is it?) news, but Narendra Modi met and chaired a committee yesterday to approve the strategic sale of IDBI Bank.
• Courts
  • The Supreme Court stayed the contempt notice of Delhi HC against the Center, even though the Centre has completely ignored court orders.
  • Delhi: 12 Oxygen Concentrators were seized in a recent police raid; instead of releasing all of them for the public, a Delhi court ordered that 2 of them should be given to the DCP; and 10 should go to judges & judicial officers.
• States
  • Kerala declares lockdown starting May 8th through 16th.
  • Rajasthan announced lockdown starting May 10th for 15 days.
  • Delhi Government started centralized oxygen refilling, but bookings are supposed to be entirely online and a Covid-positive certificate is required. (May 6, 7:00 pm IST: It’s not up yet).
  • Hemant Soren, CM, Jharkhand: “आज आदरणीय प्रधानमंत्री जी ने फोन किया। उन्होंने सिर्फ अपने मन की बात की। बेहतर होता यदि वो काम की बात करते और काम की बात सुनते।”
• Opinions
  • Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in NYT: “India needs a new, centrally coordinated lockdown now.”
  • The Wire Editorial: Wanted: A Commission of Inquiry into the Government’s Disastrous Handling of COVID Crisis
  • Vir Sanghvi in the HT: The dream of a modern India is dying – “Not only has the system failed but we have regressed to becoming a hate-filled, medieval society where we take pride in superstition and celebrate prejudice.” ✔
  • Ankita Rao in the Guardian: India is hiding its Covid crisis – and the whole world will suffer for it
  • Badri Raina in the Wire says there are two identifying traits of an Indian 1. ‘I know, I know,’ and, 2, ‘it is not my fault’. This know-all-never-wrong attitude among Indians was observed even 1000 years ago by Al-Beruni. Modi’s response to the pandemic is another and latest proof.
  • Barkha Dutt in WaPo: I lost my father to covid-19 — along with my faith in India’s government to protect our people. …The day I cremated him, I too tested positive. 
  • Apoorvanand, Hindi professor at DU asks: Are the country’s educational institutes responding to the cries engulfing them?
    • “Universities have never ever looked so disconnected from the real world. Teaching never so vacuous. Pretending normalcy when the world in which they are located is collapsing. The large emptiness of the campuses has never been so stark. Why is it that universities and colleges have not opened up their spaces and offered them to be used as Covid-19 support centres?”
• Thirteen patients died at Chengalpattu Government Hospital in Tamil Nadu after the oxygen supply was apparently disrupted.
• Guest teachers in Karnataka are forced into daily wage work as Covid-19 ends teaching careers.
• Now Jaipur’s hospitals are running out of oxygen.

WATCH

Yogita Limaye with Fred Scott and Sanjay Ganguly of BBC, travel to rural Uttar Pradesh for another sobering report from ground. Warning – this is very distressing.

Originally tweeted by Nicola Careem (@NicolaCareem) on May 6, 2021.