A report launched by Global Preparedness Monitoring Board says from the time the pandemic began the world continues to ‘struggle’ to mitigate its impact
An employee of the Federal State Center for Special Risk Rescue Operations of Russia Emergency Situations disinfects a platform of Savyolovsky railway station in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday. Pic/AP/PTI
Coronavirus “has exposed a broken world that is inequitable, unaccountable, and divided”, resulting in its failure to put an end to the pandemic that has so far killed 4.95 million globally, according to a report by a World Health Organisation (WHO) panel on Tuesday.
ADVERTISEMENT
The report was launched by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), an independent body set up by the WHO and the World Bank in 2018 to prepare for pandemics, in Berlin. It stated that from the time the pandemic began, almost two years ago, the world continues to “struggle” to mitigate its impact.
While in the first year, countries “collectively failed” to take serious preparations and act rapidly, in the second they exhibited “profound inequality” as the world leaders failed to interconnect, making “the world more interdependent than ever”. The world continues to be “fragmented by growing nationalism, geopolitical tensions, and deep inequalities”, said the report.
“As of October 2021, as many as 17 million people will have died due to Covid-19. More than 1.5 million children around the world have lost a parent or a grandparent... Behind each death, there is a human story, a loss of potential, and an enormous gap left in a community... While this disaster should have brought us together, instead we are divided, fragmented, and living in worlds apart,” said Elhadj As Sy, Co-Chair at GPMB, in the report. Although the speed of vaccine development is a matter of pride, but “we must feel deep shame over multiple tragedies — vaccine hoarding, the devastating oxygen shortages in low-income countries, the generation of children deprived of education, the shattering of fragile economies and health systems”, he added.
‘No Covid cases found in N Korea’
North Korea has conducted Coronavirus tests on around 42,000 people but no person was found to be infected by the virus, a World Health Organization (WHO) report revealed on Tuesday. A total of 678 North Koreans underwent testing for the virus from October 8-14, but all were found negative, according to the WHO’s Covid-19 weekly situation report.
Maldives sees over 1L tourists in Oct
Over 100,000 tourists have visited the Maldives in the month of October, the state-owned PSM News citing data from the Ministry of Tourism said on Tuesday. Ministry data showed that 102,434 tourists visited the Maldives from October 1 to 24, a 599 per cent increase from the same period in 2020 but a 2 per cent decrease compared to 2019, reports Xinhua news agency.
11 Chinese provinces under lockdown again
China is re-imposing fresh lockdowns amid rising Covid-19 infections, the country recorded more than 100 cases across 11 provinces over the last week. “Since October 17, there have been multiple scattered local outbreaks in China, and they’re expanding rapidly,” Mi Feng, a spokesman at the National Health Commission (NHC), said at a news conference Sunday. “There is an increasing risk that the outbreak will spread even further,” reported CNN.
Vaccine hoarding
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General
‘The triumph of the vaccines, developed and brought to market in record speed, is being undone by the tragedy of an unequal distribution. Three quarters of all vaccines have gone to high-and upper-middle-income countries. Vaccine nationalism and hoarding are putting us all at risk’
Senior UNITED STATES administration official
‘Under this new international air travel system, foreign nationals will need to be fully vaccinated, in order to fly to the United States. The new system also includes enhanced testing requirements, strengthened contact tracing, as well as masking’
35,707
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours
24,42,64,890
Total no. of cases worldwide
49,59,865
Total no. of deaths worldwide
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
