‘Covid storm shakes India’
The Biden administration, under growing pressure to offer more assistance to India as it struggles to contain a devastating coronavirus outbreak, promised yesterday to provide new aid, including the materials for making vaccines.
The pledge came after Indian authorities announced another global record in new daily cases yesterday – 349,691 – and the most Covid-19 deaths the country has suffered in a 24-hour period.
The National Security Council said the United States would provide vaccine materials, drugs, test kits, ventilators and personal protective equipment, and was ‘‘pursuing options to provide oxygen generation and related supplies on an urgent basis.’’
‘‘Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need,’’ President Joe Biden tweeted yesterday.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the department was ‘‘currently assessing the equipment we can both procure and draw from our own inventory in the coming days and weeks’’ to help India’s health-care workers. He added that the department will assist with delivering supplies, including ‘‘oxygenrelated equipment,’’ to India.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, delivering his monthly radio address yesterday, urged people to get vaccinated because the devastating new wave of infections threatened to overwhelm the nation’s health services.
Meanwhile, details emerged of the government’s efforts to block criticism of its response to the outbreak.
India weathered a surge in September that approached nearly 100,000 new infections a day, then numbers dropped significantly, creating the impression that the country was defeating the virus.
The number of new cases has exploded to new highs since last month, topping 300,000 each of the past four days. Yesterday’s count of 349,691 new cases in the previous 24 hours was the most for any country in a 24-hour period. The 2767 deaths reported yesterday was a new high for India.
Experts caution that the figures are underreported in the nation of more than 1.3 billion people.
Analysts blame the surge on the arrival of new coronavirus variants in a country that had settled into a degree of complacency, lifted restrictions and returned to old habits.
‘‘Covid is testing our patience and capacity to bear pain,’’ Modi said yesterday. ‘‘After successful tackling the first wave, the nation’s morale was high. However, this storm has shaken the nation.’’
Calls for the United States to provide more help have mounted in recent weeks.
The head of India’s largest vaccine manufacturer asked the United States this month to lift a ban on exporting raw materials for vaccines.
Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, said yesterday that ‘‘we really need to do more.’’
‘‘I don’t think we can walk away from that,’’ Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told George Stephanopolous on ABC’S This Week before the National Security Council announcement.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke yesterday with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, according to National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne.
The US Development Finance Corp is funding a ‘‘substantial expansion’’ in manufacturing capability to enable the Indian vaccine manufacturer Biological E to produce at least 1 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2022, she said, and the government is deploying a team of public health experts to work with Indian authorities.
Biden and his top advisers have been cautious when publicly discussing the prospects of helping other countries bolster their vaccine supplies. They have sought to show a sensitivity to urgent needs abroad, while emphasising that the president’s principal goal is to ensure that Americans have the vaccines they need.
After a speech last week on the state of US vaccination efforts, the president said he hoped to be helpful across the world but stopped short of specific promises.
‘‘It’s in process,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t have enough to be confident to give it – send it abroad now. But I expect we’re going to be able to do that.’’