World News

India’s top scientist leaves COVID panel over government Coronavirus pandemic News

An excellent Indian virologist has turned down a forum of scientific advisors created by the government to detect variants of the crown virus, after questioning how the authorities have treated the pandemic.

Shahid Jameel, chairman of the forum’s scientific advisory team known as INSACOG, declined to give a reason for his resignation.

“I am not forced to give a reason,” he told Reuters in a text message on Sunday, adding that he had left on Friday.

A senior government scientist who is part of the forum said, on condition of anonymity, that he did not believe Jameel’s departure would prevent INSACOG from tracking virus variants.

Reuters reported earlier this month that INSACOG, India’s SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium, warned government officials in early March that the country had a new and more contagious variant of coronavirus.

The B.1.617 variant is one of the reasons why India is currently fighting the most serious rise in the world in COVID-19 cases.

Asked why the government did not respond more forcefully to the findings, for example by limiting large gatherings, Jameel told Reuters he was concerned that authorities were not paying enough attention to the evidence when they implemented the policy.

Jameel also wrote in the New York Times on May 13 that scientists have strong resistance to evidence-based politics.

Renu Swarup, secretary of the Department of Biotechnology overseeing INSACOG, did not immediately respond to the request for comment.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan also did not immediately respond to a text message to get comments.

Another INSACOG member said he did not know of any direct disagreement between Jameel and the government.

Meanwhile, 281,386 new coronavirus infections were reported in India on Monday in the last 24 hours, compared to 4,106 deaths. The total number of cases in the South Asian nation is 24.97 million, with 274,390 deaths, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

Some Indian states extended COVID-19 blockades to help maintain the pandemic that has killed more than 270,000 people in the country as the federal government pledged to strengthen the supply of vaccines.

Sunday’s 311,170 new infections had the lowest single-day rise in more than three weeks, but federal health officials warned against reluctance in the face of a “plateau” of rising infections.

The northern states of Delhi and Haryana extended the closures, scheduled to end on Monday, for a week.

Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the positive case rate had dropped to 10 per cent compared to the overall analysis to 30 per cent earlier this month.

The southern state of Kerala, which had previously announced a blockade extension, imposed stricter restrictions in some districts on Saturday. He warned that people who did not wear masks or violated quarantine protocols should be arrested and used drones to help identify them.

The blockade has helped limit a number of cases in the country affected by an initial wave of infections in February and April, such as Maharashtra and Delhi, in rural areas and some states are experiencing new rises.

The government issued specific guidelines on Sunday to control COVID-19 cases that were spreading through the vast countryside of India.

The Ministry of Health asked the people to study cases of flu-like illnesses and to study these patients with COVID-19.

The bodies of COVID-19 victims are dumped in several rivers, the government of the most populous state in Uttar Pradesh said in a letter seen by Reuters in its first official recognition of the disturbing practice.

Although India is the largest nation producing vaccines in the world, only 141.6 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, which is approximately 10% of the population of 1.35 billion, according to data from the health ministry.

The country has fully integrated more than 40.4 million people, or 2.9% of the population.




Source link

Related Articles

Back to top button