Fire swept through a newly built hospital ward for coronavirus patients in western India Saturday, killing at least 10 coronavirus patients.
Officials said about two dozen patients were in the intensive care unit of the hospital in western city of Ahmednagar when the fire broke out.
It was the latest in a string of deadly fires at COVID-19 hospital wards in India since the country’s underfunded public health care system was overwhelmed by a coronavirus surge between April and May.
Maharashtra state’s chief minister Uddhav Thackeray ordered an investigation into Saturday’s fire and the safety conditions at the hospital.
Sixteen COVID-19 patients and two nurses were killed in May in a fire at a hospital in India’s Gujarat state. In April, about 35 patients were killed in separate fires at two health facilities in Mumbai.
Russia record infections
In Russia Saturday, the government’s coronavirus task force reported 41,335 new infections over a 24-hour period, the country’s highest one-day total since the beginning of the pandemic. It also reported 1,188 coronavirus-related deaths.
A weeklong closure of workplaces in Russia is approaching an end, but some regions are planning to extend the shutdown into next week.
Officials say Russia’s low vaccination rate is largely to blame for a surge in cases that began in mid-September. Less than 40% of the country’s 146 million people are fully vaccinated.
A record high number of coronavirus-related deaths were reported in Ukraine Saturday. The health ministry reported 793 deaths over the past 24 hours, topping the country’s previous high of 734 on October 26.
Unvaccinated people in Greece, about 40% of the country’s population, are facing more stringent government restrictions as the country grapples with a surge in coronavirus infections.
The restrictions, imposed on Saturday, require the unvaccinated to show proof of a negative test to enter indoor public facilities such as banks, government buildings and most shops.
They must also show proof to dine at outdoor restaurants and cafes.
Infections are especially high in northern Greece, where a shortage of intensive care unit beds has forced public hospitals to send patients to private facilities.
German booster shots
Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, on Friday called for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for anyone who was fully vaccinated at least six months ago, as the nation faces a fourth wave of coronavirus infections.
Speaking to reporters following a two-day summit in Bavaria with health ministers from the 16 German states, Spahn said Germany’s COVID-19 situation is entering a very difficult period, as the country’s Robert Koch Institute reported a record 37,120 new daily cases Friday.
Spahn said the “fourth wave” not only here, but it has “been here for a long time,” and is gaining strength “and has clearly accelerated.”
The minister said some German state leaders have warned the country may need a new lockdown if urgent action is not taken.
The surge in Germany is part of a rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Europe that have made the region the new epicenter of the pandemic, Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Europe regional director, said Thursday.
At a regular COVID-19 briefing at the agency headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other experts discussed the surge in Europe, where cases have risen 55% in the past four weeks, despite an ample supply of vaccines.
“Let me be very clear: This should not be happening. We have all the tools to prevent COVID-19 transmission and save lives, and we continue to call on all countries to use those tools,” Tedros said.
The WHO chief also decried the fact that the world’s low-income nations have still received only 0.4% of the world’s vaccines. He said those nations rely almost exclusively on vaccines distributed through the WHO-managed global vaccine cooperative, COVAX.
Tedros said no more vaccines should go to nations that have vaccinated more than 40% of their populations and no more boosters should be administered, except to patients who are immunocompromised, until COVAX gets the vaccines it needs to inoculate low-income nations to the 40% level.
Separately, in the United States, the Biden administration says it has severed ties with a U.S. company that was awarded a $628 million deal by the Trump administration to produce COVID-19 vaccines.
Earlier this year, Emergent BioSolutions was found to have contaminated 15 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine with ingredients designated for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration later threw out at least 60 million more Johnson and Johnson shots produced at the Baltimore plant.
As of Saturday afternoon, the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center reported nearly 249.4 million global COVID-19 cases and more than 5 million deaths. The center reported more than 7.2 billion vaccine doses had been administered worldwide.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence-France Presse.
