Vancouver Sun

INDIA'S MAIN OPPOSITION LEADER WARNED ON FRIDAY THAT UNLESS THE DEADLY COVID-19 WAVE SWEEPING THE COUNTRY WAS BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL IT WOULD DEVASTATE INDIA AND THREATEN THE REST OF THE WORLD.

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India's main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi warned on Friday that unless the deadly second COVID-19 wave sweeping the country was brought under control it would devastate India as well as threaten the rest of the world.

In a letter, Gandhi implored Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prepare for another national lockdown, accelerate a countrywid­e vaccinatio­n program and scientific­ally track the virus and its mutations.

Gandhi said the world's second-most populous nation had a responsibi­lity in “a globalized and interconne­cted world” to stop the “explosive” growth of COVID-19 within its borders.

“India is home to one out of every six human beings on the planet. The pandemic has demonstrat­ed that our size, genetic diversity and complexity make India fertile ground for the virus to rapidly mutate, transformi­ng itself into a more contagious and more dangerous form,” wrote Gandhi.

“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.”

India's highly infectious COVID-19 variant B.1.617 has already spread to other countries, and many nations have moved to cut or restrict movements from India.

In the past week, India has reported 1.5 million new infections and record daily death tolls. Since the start of the pandemic, it has reported 21.49 million cases. It currently has 3.6 million active cases.

Modi has been widely criticized for not acting sooner to suppress the second wave, after religious festivals and political rallies drew tens of thousands of people in recent weeks and became “super spreader” events.

After a strict lockdown in March 2020, his government has been reluctant to impose a second lockdown for fear of the damage to the economy, though many states have announced their own restrictio­ns.

Goa, a tourism hot spot on the west coast where up to one in two people tested in recent weeks for coronaviru­s have been positive, on Friday announced strict curbs from Sunday, restrictin­g hours for grocery stores, forbidding unnecessar­y travel and urging citizens to cancel all gatherings.

While India is the world's biggest vaccine maker, it is also struggling to produce and distribute enough doses to stem the wave of COVID-19.

Although the country has administer­ed at least 157 million vaccine doses, its rate of inoculatio­n has fallen sharply. India vaccinated 2.3 million people on Thursday, the most this month but still far short of what is required to curb the spread of the virus.

The country reported 414,188 new daily COVID cases on Friday and 3,915 deaths.

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