(TibetanReview.net, Jul08’20) – The United States has on Jul 7 formally notified the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres of its intention to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), effective Jul 6, 2021, as the China-unleashed Covid-19 pandemic continues to tighten its grip on countries across the world with no cure being available yet. President Donald Trump has been critical of the WHO over its China-centric positions in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic which led to its mishandling of the spread of the deadly new virus. The US is the WHO’s single largest source of fund.
Meanwhile researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have warned in a recent study that the number of Covid-19 cases recorded per day in India may surge to 287,000 by early 2021 if a vaccine or treatment isn’t developed soon, reported indianexpress.com Jul 8.
Further, without a vaccine or treatment, over 249 million cases and 1.8 million deaths may be reported globally by spring next year (Mar-May), the study by researchers Hazhir Rahmandad, TY Lim and John Sterman of MIT’s Sloan School of Management was cited as saying.
The study was stated to point out the importance of early and aggressive testing in containing the spread of the virus and controlling the fatality rate. However, it was stated to continue that the value of testing erodes as the pandemic grows more severe and it becomes increasingly difficult to test, conduct contact tracing, and isolate individuals who have come into contact with the infected person.
Meanwhile, according to the WHO, there are 19 vaccine trials in the clinical evaluation phase and hundreds being developed and tested worldwide.
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In India, the positivity rate had crossed the 6 per cent mark for the first time on Jun 20, and had risen swiftly thereafter, standing at around 7.09 per cent, said another indianexpress.com report Jul 8. The rise in positivity rate means that the growth in the number of confirmed cases is outpacing the growth in the tests being conducted. And this was happening mainly because the criteria for testing were still restrictive in most states due to limited testing capacities, the report noted.
In that background, data from India’s Ministry of Health show that the country had 22,752 new cases and 482 new deaths over the past 24 hours as of Jul 8 at 8AM, taking their totals to 742,617 cases and 20,642 deaths.
A total of 456,831, or 61.53 per cent, had recovered, so that the number of active cases was 264,944.
The 10 worst-hit states with more than 20,000 cases were led by Maharashtra with a total of 217,121 cases after 5,134 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu with 118,594 (↑3,616) cases, Delhi with 102,831 (↑2,008) cases, Gujarat with 37,550 (↑778) cases, Uttar Pradesh 29,968 (↑1,332), Telangana 27,612 (↑1,879), Karnataka 26,815 (↑1,498), West Bengal 23,837 (↑850), Rajasthan 21,404 (↑716), and Andhra Pradesh 21,197 (↑1,178).
Eight other states with more than 5000 cases were: Haryana 17,999 (↑495) cases; Madhya Pradesh 15,627 (↑343); Bihar 12,570 (↑445); Assam 12,522 (↑362); Odisha 10,097 (↑571); Jammu & Kashmir 8,931 (↑256), Punjab 6,749 (↑258), and Kerala 5,894 (↑272)
Besides, there were eight other states/ Union Territories with more than 1,000 cases, namely Chattisgarh 3,451 (↑110), Uttarakhand 3,230 (↑69), Jharkhand 2,996 (↑149), Goa 1,903 (↑90), Tripura 1,704 (↑24), Manipur 1,430 (↑40), Himachal Pradesh 1,083 (↑6), and Ladakh 1,041 (↑36).
And then there were eight other states/ Union Territories with less than 1,000 cases, namely Puducherry 930 (↑128), Nagaland 625 (↑0), Chandigarh 494 (↑5), Arunachal Pradesh 276 (↑6), Mizoram 197 (↑0), Andaman and Nicobar Islands 147 (↑6), Sikkim 125 (↑0), and Meghalaya 80 (↑0) cases.
Lakshadweep and Dadra Nagar Haveli remain the only States /Union Territories without any Covid-19 case.
Maharashtra also had the most number of deaths at 9,250 (↑224), followed by Delhi 3,165 (↑50), Gujarat 1,977 (↑17), Tamil Nadu 1,636 (↑65), Uttar Pradesh 827 (↑18), West Bengal 804 (↑25), Madhya Pradesh 622 (↑5), Rajasthan 472 (↑11), Karnataka 416 (↑15), Telangana 313 (↑7), Haryana 279 (↑3), Andhra Pradesh 252 (↑13), Punjab 175 (↑6), Jammu & Kashmir 143 (↑5), Bihar 104 (↑7), Uttarakhand 43 (↑1), Odisha 42 (↑4), Kerala 27 (↑0), Jharkhand 22 (↑2), Chattisgarh 14 (↑0), Assam 14 (↑0), Puducherry 14 (↑2), Himachal Pradesh 11 (↑0), Chandigarh 7 (↑1), Goa 8 (↑1), Arunachal Pradesh 2 (↑0), Ladakh 1 (↑0), Meghalaya 1 (↑0), and Tripura 1 (↑0).
Five States/ Union Territory with Covid-19 cases have reported no deaths so far.
(Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)
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Regarding the number of Tibetan cases, the tally Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on Jul 8 showed that there were a total of 59 (↑1) cases among Tibetans in India and Nepal, of whom 24 were active while 33 had recovered and two had died. The increase by 1 was apparently from Delhi.
The CTA reported no change in the total of 213 cases among Tibetans living in other countries abroad, of which 40 were active, 165 had recovered and eight had died.
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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had surged past the 11.8 million mark to reach 11,839,095 while a total of 544,415 had died as of Jul 8 at 2:04:15 PM, according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
There were a record 205,417 new cases and 6,020 new deaths during the past 24 hours across 188 countries and regions.
The countries with the most number of reported Covid-19 cases thus far were the US (2,996,098), Brazil (1,668,589), India (742,417), Russia (699,749), Peru (309,278), Chile (301,019), UK (287,880), Mexico (268,008) … China (84,917).
The countries with the most number of Covid-19 deaths were the US (131,480), Brazil (66,741), the UK (44,476), Italy (34,899), Mexico (32,014), France (29,936), Spain (28,392), India (20,642) … China (4,641).
(Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)
