Covid-19 Wrap-Up: Centre denies deaths due to oxygen shortage; new variant to drive next wave

PM Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked MPs to counter the opposition effectively – both in Parliament as well as outside – on their criticism of the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Addressing the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting, the Prime Minister lashed out at the Opposition for “milking” the issue of Covid-19 response for furthering their political agenda and sought to assure the party MPs on the availability of vaccines in the country.

In one such counter, the Centre told the Rajya Sabha that no deaths due to lack of oxygen were specifically reported by states and UTs during the second Covid-19 wave, triggering outrage from Opposition parties. Responding to a question on whether a large number of Covid-19 patients died on roads and hospitals due to acute shortage of oxygen in the second wave, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pawar said that health is a state subject and states and UTs regularly report the number of cases and deaths to the Centre.

The Centre also said that there has been no shortage of Covid vaccines and the government has been providing free vaccines to states and union territories for inoculating prioritised beneficiaries.

The Delta variant of Covid-19 has wreaked havoc in India and has spread to over 80 countries. Top government health advisors have warned that the next wave of Covid-19, if it is to happen, will be driven by a new variant. “The cases may go up if a new, more infectious variant comes. In other words, the next wave will be driven by a virus variant to which a significant proportion of the population is susceptible,” N K Arora was co-chair of the India Sars-Cov-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said.

However, at the moment, the threats of older variants of Covid-19 continue to loom. A doctor in eastern Assam's Dibrugarh district has been infected by both 'Alpha' and 'Delta' variants of SARS-CoV-2 with experts calling it the first such case in the country. The doctor was fully vaccinated and she had tested positive a month after taking the second dose. She has mild symptoms and did not require hospitalisation.

Even though the pandemic is not showing signs of disappearing anytime soon, there’s has an outbreak of another highly infectious virus called norovirus in the United Kingdom. The Public Health England (PHE) has recently issued a warning after the cases of norovirus are increasing rapidly.

The World Health Organization, which is currently reviewing Bharat Biotech's application for an Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, has said it is assessing the data of the jab. In an update on its website, the WHO, which began rolling data on July 6, said the date for a decision on the jab is yet "to be confirmed".

The head of the organising committee for the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday did not rule out a last-minute cancellation of the global sporting showpiece, amid rising coronavirus cases that have presented organisers with mounting challenges. Toshiro Muto said he would keep an eye on infection numbers and hold discussions with organisers if necessary.

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