India reported a record number of COVID-19 deaths in a single day Saturday (May 8), and a more contagious variant is partly to blame, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist said.
In an interview Saturday with AFP, Soumya Swaminathan warned that “the epidemiological features that we see in India today do indicate that it’s an extremely rapidly spreading variant.”
Swaminathan said the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was clearly a contributing factor to the catastrophe in India, her homeland.
“There have been many accelerators that are fed into this,” the 62-year-old pediatrician and clinical scientist said, stressing that “a more rapidly spreading virus is one of them.”
She added, however, that large gatherings and a lapse in mask-wearing also played a role.
The B.1.617 variant was first discovered in India last October. The U.S. and Britain consider it a “variant of concern,” which indicates it is more dangerous than the original virus.
The number of cases and deaths are horrifying on their own, but Swaminathan said the additional danger was the increasing likelihood of variants that could outwit vaccines.
“Variants which accumulate a lot of mutations may ultimately become resistant to the current vaccines that we have,” she warned.
India’s health ministry Saturday reported more than 401,000 new COVID-19 infections and nearly 4,200 deaths in the previous 24-hour period, although public health experts believed the actual numbers were likely much higher.
Lockdowns spreading
More of India’s states imposed stringent lockdown measures in the absence of a national lockdown plan.
The southern state of Tamil Nadu said it would shift from a partial to a full lockdown after neighboring Karnataka state extended a full lockdown Friday.
India’s main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to implement a national lockdown, accelerate the vaccination campaign, and increase tracking of the virus and its mutations.
“Allowing the uncontrollable spread of the virus in our country will be devastating not only for our people but also for the rest of the world,” Gandhi said to Modi in a letter. (VOA) -jlo
