‘Not the time to party’
A health official checks temperature of an applicant - one among those in the queue, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh state service commission examination, at an examination centre in the city of Mathura on Sunday
of the huge country, including the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Recently, the daily number of new cases has fallen from a peak of almost 100,000 in midSeptember to around 60,00070,000.
But Preeti Kumar of the Delhi-based Public Health Foundation of India said it was too early to assume India has passed the peak.
“What the epidemic has taught us is caution. These declines (in numbers) are real but depend on many factors such as testing, type of testing, intervention efficacy etcetera,” Kumar told AFP.
“Despite the government’s efforts to take things back to normal, it doesn’t feel that way because there is an underlying
anxiety that I may be the next to become a part of the virus statistics,” said Anamika Prasad (23), a university student.
Jayprakash Shukla (66), a retired government official, said he was worried about cases going up ‘hugely and beyond control’.
“When I go out, I see many people without masks,” he said.
“Maybe they are fed up of wearing masks but if people don’t change their ways, it is going to be calamitous for our country.”
In Europe, the virus closed doors early on Saturday on the German capital's legendary nightlife, with bars and restaurants ordered shut at 11.00pm in
Berlin under a partial curfew announced until October 31.
“This is not the time to party,” said Berlin mayor Michael Muller in a message addressed to young people, who are driving new infections higher. “We can and we want to prevent another more severe confinement.”
Latin America and the Caribbean marked 10mn cases on Saturday and with more than 360,000 deaths, the region is the worst hit in terms of fatalities, according to official figures.
Brazil’s virus death toll passed 150,000 people on Saturday, according to health ministry figures, although the rate of new coronavirus infections continues to slow in the South American country.
Authorities in France re
ported a record 27,000 new infections in a single day on Saturday, although numbers in intensive care remained far short of peaks seen in the spring.
Spiralling cases in France have led to fears that the government may need to impose local lockdowns in major cities, which would mimic measures already announced in Spain where the government has prevented people leaving the Madrid region.
Residents can only leave the Spanish capital for work, school or medical reasons as part of restrictions that have been denounced by the city’s rightwing authorities. “We've always placed public health above all other considerations,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.