Month: May 2021

Taiwan, largely spared from the global coronavirus pandemic since it began last year, is grappling with a small but still uncontained outbreak that appeared last month. Since April 20, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center has confirmed infections of 10 pilots working for the Taiwan-based international carrier China Airlines and eight relatives of pilots. At the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, which is next to the island’s chief international airport, four employees, three of their family members and a hotel contractor have been diagnosed since April 29. On Tuesday, the command center reported two new COVID-19 cases, both airline employees. Authorities expect it will take another week or two to determine how wide the outbreak has spread. Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference Sunday the cluster does not qualify yet as a “community outbreak” but cautioned people to follow guidance on avoiding infections. “Until May 17 we will be in a period of high-level alert, so please everyone cooperate,” Chen told a Tuesday news conference. Command center officials have disclosed the movements of people who were recently infected so anyone who might have crossed paths can be tested for the virus. Potential infection spots include buses, convenience stores and restaurants in northern Taiwan including the capital Taipei, Centers for Disease Control deputy director Luo Yi-jun said. The command center says hundreds of contacts and potential contacts of the 24 patients confirmed through Monday had already been tested for infection. “Two days before these people showed symptoms, they were infectious, so this outbreak poses a very big challenge to the whole community,” said Chiu Cheng-hsun, vice superintendent at Linkou Chang Gung Hospital’s pediatric respiratory department. “Right now, there’s an extremely high risk, an extremely high chance, of a community [caseload].” Any more COVID-19 cases pegged to the airline, or the hotel should show up within the month, Chiu said. A wider outbreak would be Taiwan’s first runaway caseload since COVID-19 began gripping the world in early 2020. FILE – People wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus shop ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, in Taipei, Taiwan, Feb. 9, 2021.Most people in Taiwan, population 24 million, are keeping their hands clean, wearing masks and disinfecting their surroundings, health professionals in Taiwan say. But they show few signs of changing their lifestyles otherwise. “I think the general Taiwanese public at this moment probably doesn’t believe Taiwan overall is so dangerous or so dire, and they’re not on such high alert, because Taiwan was a good student over the past last year, like it performed well,” said Wu Chia-yi, associate professor in the National Taiwan University College of Medicine’s nursing faculty. But she said some people feel “depressed” or “anxious,” especially if in a hospital and exposed to patients’ blood. People around Taiwan should step up disease prevention habits, such as mask wearing and hand washing, that might have slacked before the recent outbreak, Chiu said. The command center said last week it is exploring whether pilots of foreign-registered airlines set off the Novotel cluster. “Novotel teams are fully cooperating and following protocols and measurements as advised by the local authorities,” the command center said in statement. “Meanwhile, our focus is to closely monitor the progress of our staff members and guests who are currently under quarantine. The safety and wellbeing of our staff and guests are our absolute priority.” Taiwan’s success in warding off COVID-19 has allowed people to keep working and going out as usual. The government controlled the virus spread in early 2020 through inspections of inbound aircraft, strict quarantine rules and rigorous contact tracing. Taiwan has logged a cumulative 1,153 cases with 12 deaths. The most recent localized outbreak occurred in December when an infected Eva Airways pilot sparked cluster of four people. Those cases prompted a wave of event cancellations and new restrictions on inbound pilots. Almost all other cases since the start of the pandemic are Taiwan residents returning from overseas. On Tuesday, the command center said it would step up disease controls by restricting bedside visits to hospital patients. Hospitals are tightening their own precautions, particularly in emergency rooms. 
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As India reels from a second wave of COVID-19 infections that is devastating major cities, stockpiles are falling short of surging demand in the country, health experts warn. The country’s mass immunization bid to expand its vaccination drive to all adults is posing to be a herculean task, they say. India opened vaccinations to those who are 18 years of age and older this month. Although it is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the approximately 70 million shots for COVID-19 being produced per month cannot address the massive needs of the world’s second most populous country, health experts say. K. Srinath Reddy is the president of the Public Health Foundation of India, a health research and policy development organization based in New Delhi. He said the challenge to meet demands includes groups considered “new entrants,” people between the ages of 18 to 44 years old.  “We are talking about 595 million people. So, we are talking of 1.2 billion doses,” he told VOA. “It’s a huge task and our vaccine stocks currently do not measure up anywhere near that.” Several states have said they cannot expand the drive because they are already struggling to inoculate older people with higher levels of risk. FILE – Relatives carry the body of a person who died of COVID-19 as multiple pyres of other COVID-19 victims burn at a crematorium in New Delhi, India.Quest for appointments
In cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, where the shots are being given to younger people, tens of thousands have been scrambling online to book limited slots on a government app for immunization since they became eligible on May 1. Only some have been successful. “We got a slot but then the booking was cancelled,” Piyush Kumar, a New Delhi resident who got vaccinated on the weekend said. “But we persevered and kept on trying to refresh the page and suddenly some slots [opened] at a hospital about 45 kilometers away. We rushed there.” India faces major challenges — Mumbai has an estimated five million people in the 18-44 age group but is only giving 2,500 shots per day due to limited stocks. Vaccinations for older people were suspended for days last week. Critics are blaming authorities for a sluggish rollout of what was ambitiously billed as the world’s largest vaccination program when it began in January with a target of reaching 300 million people by August.  Since then, about 2% of the population has been fully inoculated while about 10% has received one dose. As a result, much of the country was unprotected when it was hit by a ferocious second wave that hit seven million people in April alone — the country’s count is about 20 million cases.  A woman argues with a doctor as she is turned back following shortage of COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Mumbai, India, Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)Stockpile failure
Experts say India failed to stockpile enough vaccines or invest early enough in boosting production facilities as it prematurely declared victory against the pandemic during a lull in infections earlier in the year. The government also sent 65 million doses to other countries as part of a “vaccine diplomacy” push. “I think it was factored in their minds that we will not have to deal with a second wave and therefore we could have a measured, steady graduated vaccination program which can flow in steps,” Reddy told VOA. “That is why we even felt we had the luxury of sending vaccines abroad to about 80 countries.”  The vaccine powerhouse was relying on domestically produced vaccines being made by two Indian companies — the Serum Institute of India that is making the Oxford/AstraZeneca shots and a domestically developed vaccine by Bharat Biotech. The government suspended exports and extended loans last month to build up infrastructure in the two companies as demand began exceeding supply. It has also stepped-up efforts to get vaccines from overseas. The first consignment of Sputnik V vaccines arrived from Russia this week and the vaccine will also be produced with local partners, but those doses could take months to reach the market. The government has said it will also grant emergency approval for vaccines approved in the United States, Britain, Europe or Japan.  Experts say the government needed a detailed plan on how it will secure the vaccines. “There was a shortage even when the drive did not open up to all adults,” points out public policy and health expert Chandrakant Lahariya. “Now the target beneficiaries have increased three-fold while the vaccine supply, which was already short, has remained the same. So, you can imagine how big the gap is. Even in months this may not be solved unless some additional approaches and strategies are followed.” Miscalculation
Adar Poonawalla, head of the Serum Institute of India, said this week that the shortages will continue through July when production is expected to increase. In an interview with the London-based Financial Times newspaper, he said he had not boosted capacity earlier because “there were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1 billion doses a year.”  Now fear overhangs cities like New Delhi where the ongoing battle for hospital beds, drugs, and medical oxygen by tens of thousands shows no signs of abating.  Even hospitals have been scrambling for oxygen stocks and patients have died in hospitals that briefly ran out of oxygen. Social media is filled with desperate pleas for help. “I deleted social media apps for about a week in the middle because I just could not take it,” Kumar said. “But I had to get back because a lot of people are seeking help on that platform, and I need to be available. The times are very anxious.”   
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The first phase of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has started in Papua New Guinea, as infection numbers continue to rise. Experts say Australia’s nearest neighbor is also fighting a sea of misinformation and concerns over the safety of vaccines. Experts say misinformation about COVID-19 is spreading even faster in Papua New Guinea than the disease. Conspiracy theories and other falsehoods have found fertile ground online. Adding to a sense of mistrust are deeply held beliefs in sorcery. Aid workers have reported that the family of a health worker in Papua New Guinea, who tested positive for the virus, was tortured by relatives fearful of unexplained illness.  Jonathan Pryke is the director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research organization. He says hoaxes spread on social media about the novel coronavirus add to the confusion.  “Facebook is where you get all of your information from, and Facebook is just seeding misinformation and misinformation is spreading faster than the virus in that country,” Pryke said.The World Health Organization reported 11,206 COVID-19 cases and 115 deaths Tuesday in Papua New Guinea. Pryke believes the true scale of pandemic in the Pacific island nation is far worse because of a lack of testing and patients with symptoms refuse or fear retaliation from within their communities, preventing them from seeking treatment. Prior to the pandemic, sorcery-related violence against victims has been rampant in the country according to news reports. “The official statistics do not look as serious as the true picture is and, you know, there is a lot of data points you can look at that display just how serious this is. We have had a sitting member of parliament die; we have had two judges die. It is bad. It is a health system that is so stretched to breaking point that it really cannot handle the shock. We are seeing this crisis play out in front of our very eyes,” Pryke said.The pandemic has been felt differently across the Pacific. Some countries have, so far, escaped unscathed. According to the World Health Organization, Tonga has not recorded any infections since the pandemic began. Samoa has had just a single confirmed case, and three cases have been recorded in Vanuatu. Fiji has recorded more than 100 coronavirus infections and two people have died, WHO reported. A mass inoculation program is underway in French Polynesia. So far, there have been almost 19,000 cases detected and 141 deaths in the past 15 months. However, it is reopening its international borders only to vaccinated travelers from the United States, who have already tested negative for COVID. The U.S. territory of Guam has reported its latest figures with 7,700 infections and 136 deaths due to the pandemic. Currently, Guam has a 14-day quarantine period in place for all passengers entering through air or sea.  
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France’s centrist government has released a video ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the so-called Climate and Resilience bill, with Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili explaining how it will lead to cleaner air, more insulated buildings and a greener France overall.Polls find many French citizens support the spirit of the massive legislation, which aims to meet the country’s goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. A recent report by the EU’s climate service found 2020 was Europe’s hottest year on record, and the region was warming faster than the rest of the world.The French bill’s dozens of measures include limiting the most polluting vehicles in urban areas, slapping ecotaxes on truck transport, banning heated restaurant terraces and capping rent on insulated housing.The National Assembly is expected to pass the legislation before it heads to the Senate.But the bill is deeply controversial, with industry saying it’s too constraining, and green groups saying it doesn’t go far enough.Graffiti near the Place de la Bastille in Paris calling for climate action. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Chloe Gerbier, legal officer for environmental NGO Notre Affaire a Tous (Our Shared Responsibility), said the legislation in no way meets the urgency of the climate crisis. She and others said it drastically waters down proposals made by a citizens’ climate convention set up by President Emmanuel Macron.Earlier wording in the bill, for example, that made serious environmental abuses a crime now tags them as lesser misdemeanors. Green groups also want a bigger category of short-haul domestic flights banned in favor of train transport.France’s airline industry, hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, doesn’t want any flight bans. Nicolas Paulissen, managing director of the Union of French Airports, says it doesn’t make sense to penalize French airlines, when much of the industry’s growth is happening in Africa and Asia.Paris climate protesters before France’s rolling coronavirus lockdowns. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)“We do rather believe in the greening of aviation through technological innovation, for instance, and that’s why we encourage the French government to finance the research for new technologies allowing the aviation to be greener than in the future,” Paulissen said.Pompili acknowledges a slew of criticism, but says the legislation is balancing sharply opposing interests to bring everyone on board.Earlier this year, a Paris court convicted the French state of failing to address the climate crisis and for not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouses emissions. The government is appealing the ruling. 
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An appeals court on Monday will consider the constitutionality of the first law in the nation banning transgender women and girls from playing on women’s sports teams.  The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the case that will likely have far-ranging consequences as more states follow conservative Idaho’s lead. Idaho passed its law last year, and more than 20 states have considered such proposals this year. Bans have been enacted in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia. Florida lawmakers passed a bill, and South Dakota’s governor issued an executive order. On Monday, conservative Republican lawmakers in Kansas failed to override Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a proposed ban on transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s school sports. Supporters say such laws are needed because transgender female athletes have physical advantages. Opponents say the law is discriminatory and in Idaho, an invasion of privacy because of the tests required should an athlete’s gender be challenged. Lawmakers in Idaho have argued that allowing transgender athletes on girls’ and women’s teams would negate nearly 50 years of progress women have made since the 1972 federal legislation credited with opening up sports to female athletes. The state’s law prohibits transgender students who identify as female from playing on female teams sponsored by public schools, colleges and universities. It does not apply to men’s teams. The American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Voice women’s rights group sued last year over the Idaho law, contending it violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because it is discriminatory. A federal judge temporarily blocked the law from taking effect, and Idaho appealed in September. 
 
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Billionaire Bill Gates and Melinda Gates said in a joint statement on Monday that they have made the decision to end their marriage. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the two said in a statement posted by Bill Gates’ Twitter account. “We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life,” their statement said. 
 
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The World Health Organization says a small outbreak of the Ebola virus has been contained in an eastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).According to Congo’s Ministry of Health, the outbreak inflected 12 people and killed six in North Kivu province.The WHO congratulated the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s health authorities and the heath workers “on the ground for their swift response which built on the country’s previous experience in tackling Ebola outbreaks,” said the U.N. agency in a statement Monday.According to its statement, the WHO had an estimated 60 experts on the ground to help local workers trace contacts, provide treatment, engage communities and vaccinate nearly 2,000 people at high risk, including more than 500 front-line workers.“Huge credit must be given to the local health workers and the national authorities for their prompt response, tenacity, experience and hard work that brought this outbreak under control,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa.The outbreak is the 12th known Ebola outbreak in the country in the last 45 years and the fourth in fewer than three years.The WHO is calling for continued vigilance to prevent another flare-up in the next months.“It is important to continue with sustained disease surveillance, monitoring of alerts and working with communities to detect and respond rapidly to any new cases and WHO will continue to assist health authorities with their efforts to contain quickly a sudden re-emergence of Ebola,” the agency said.Genetic sequencing done on the Ebola virus linked it to a previous outbreak that spread through North Kivu and a neighboring province in 2018.That outbreak killed more than 2,000 people in the second-largest Ebola epidemic in modern history.The biggest killed more than 11,000 in West Africa in 2014 and 2015. 
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Moderna announced Monday it will supply the COVAX vaccine sharing program with up to 500 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2022. The news comes simultaneously as Sweden announced it would send one million doses of the AstraZeneca shot as well.  
 
Under the deal, Moderna will work with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to supply 34 million doses later this year to COVAX, a program created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to provide vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.
 
The shots will be offered at the company’s “lowest tiered price” and Gavi will be able to buy an additional 466 million doses next year in 2022.  
 
“We recognize that many countries have limited resources to access COVID-19 vaccines,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel wrote in a press release. “We support COVAX’s mission to ensure broad, affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and we remain committed to doing everything that we can to ending this ongoing pandemic with our mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.”
 
The agreement comes after Moderna’s shot was approved for emergency use listing by the WHO on Friday, a prerequisite for COVAX eligibility.  
 
Meanwhile, Sweden’s donation of AstraZeneca shots marks the second by a European Union (EU) member, following France’s donation last month.  
 
The donation comes amid mounting concerns of growing inequity in vaccine distribution following wealthy countries stockpiling shots for its citizens. 
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Facebook’s oversight board will soon be announcing its decision about whether to uphold the company’s ban on former President Donald Trump’s account.The quasi-independent body said the announcement will be made May 5 in a Twitter post.The Oversight Board will announce its decision on the case concerning former US President Trump on its website at https://t.co/NNQ9YCrcrh on May 5, 2021 at approximately 9:00 a.m. EDT.
— Oversight Board (@OversightBoard) May 3, 2021Facebook banned Trump’s account in the wake of the Jan. 6 violent pro-Trump protests at the U.S. Capitol.The board says it has received over 9,000 public comments on the Trump case.The board was created last October after the company faced criticism it was not quickly and effectively dealing with what some feel is problematic content.Decisions by the board are binding and cannot be overturned. 
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AOL and Yahoo are being sold again, this time to a private equity firm.  
Verizon will sell Verizon Media, which consists of the pioneering tech platforms, to Apollo Global Management in a $5 billion deal.
Verizon said Monday that it will keep a 10% stake in the new company, which will be called Yahoo.
Yahoo at the end of the last century was the face of the internet, preceding the behemoth tech platforms to follow, such as Google and Facebook.  
And AOL was the portal, bringing almost everyone who logged on during the internet’s earliest days.  
Verizon had hoped to ride the acquisition of AOL to a quick entry into the mobile market, spending more than $4 billion on the company in 2015. The plan was to use the advertising platform pioneered by AOL to sell digital advertising. Two years later, it spent even more to acquire Yahoo and combined the two.  
However the speed at which Google and Facebook have grown dashed those hopes and it became clear very quickly that it was unlikely to reach Verizon’s highest aspirations for the two.  
The year after buying Yahoo, Verizon wrote down the value of the combined operation, called “Oath,” by more than the $4.5 billion it had spent on Yahoo.  
As part of the deal announced Monday, Verizon will receive $4.25 billion in cash, preferred interests of $750 million and the minority stake. The transaction includes the assets of Verizon Media, including its brands and businesses such as Yahoo and AOL.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year.  
Shares of Verizon Communications Inc., based in New York, rose slightly before the opening bell Monday.
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Amid a surge of COVID-19 cases in India and other parts of the world, the Biden administration remains noncommittal on a proposal to loosen patent restrictions so that countries can manufacture generic versions of the coronavirus vaccines. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Murder, rape and physical abuse are among the attacks that healthcare workers, the wounded and the sick have been subjected to in the five years since the United Nations Security Council adopted its first resolution on the protection of health care in conflict zones and demanded an end to impunity for such attacks.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement Monday that “health-care providers and patients have suffered through thousands of attacks on health care systems” since the resolution was adopted. Medical facilities and medical transport vehicles have been looted and destroyed and health care services, such as vaccine campaigns, have also come under attack, the ICRC added.  The ICRC counted 3,780 attacks per year in an average of 33 countries between 2016 and 2020, the aid organization said in a statement. Two-thirds of the attacks, ICRC said, occurred in Africa and the Middle East, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel and the occupied territories, and Syria. The count is likely higher than the ICRC tabulations, the organization said, because of the challenges of accumulating data in conflict zones. The COVID pandemic has not slowed the attacks. The statement said between February and July 2020, ICRC “recorded 611 violent incidents against health-care workers, patients and medical infrastructure associated with the COVID-19 response, about 50 percent higher than average.” “There is a lack of political will and a crisis of imagination when it comes to protecting health-care providers and patients,” said Maciej Polkowski, the head of ICRC’s Health Care in Danger Initiative, which works to ensure safe access to health care in armed conflict and other emergencies. “States wishing to see this agenda advance should lead by example.” Filippo Gatto, ICRC’s head nurse, who once had a militant shove an AK-47 in his face, said people need to understand that healthcare workers are “there to treat everyone and anyone, white, red, blue, government or not government.”  He added,” At a certain point it will also be your turn in need of medical care.”  
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On Monday, Apple faces one of its most serious legal threats in recent years: A trial that threatens to upend its iron control over its app store, which brings in billions of dollars each year while feeding more than 1.6 billion iPhones, iPads, and other devices.The federal court case is being brought by Epic Games, maker of the popular video game Fortnite. Epic wants to topple the so-called “walled garden” of the app store, which Apple started building 13 years ago as part of a strategy masterminded by co-founder Steve Jobs.Epic charges that Apple has transformed a once-tiny digital storefront into an illegal monopoly that squeezes mobile apps for a significant slice of their earnings. Apple takes a commission of 15% to 30% on purchases made within apps, including everything from digital items in games to subscriptions. Apple denies Epic’s charge.Apple’s highly successful formula has helped turn the iPhone maker into one of the world’s most profitable companies, one with a market value that now tops $2.2 trillion.Privately held Epic is puny by comparison, with an estimated market value of $30 billion. Its aspirations to get bigger hinge in part on its plan to offer an alternative app store on the iPhone. The North Carolina company also wants to break free of Apple’s commissions. Epic says it forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple before Fortnite was expelled from its app store last August, after Epic added a payment system that bypassed Apple.Epic then sued Apple, prompting a courtroom drama that could shed new light on Apple’s management of its app store. Both Apple CEO Tim Cook and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney will testify in a Oakland, California federal courtroom that will be set up to allow for social distancing and will require masks at all times.Neither side wanted a jury trial, leaving the decision to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who already seems to know her ruling will probably be appealed, given the stakes in the case.Much of the evidence will revolve around arcane but crucial arguments about market definitions.Epic contends the iPhone has become so ingrained in society that the device and its ecosystem have turned into a monopoly Apple can exploit to unfairly enrich itself and thwart competition.Apple claims it faces significant competition from various alternatives to video games on iPhones. For instance, it points out that about 2 billion other smartphones don’t run iPhone software or work with its app store — primarily those relying on Google’s Android system. Epic has filed a separate case against Google, accusing it of illegally gouging apps through its own app store for Android devices.Apple will also depict Epic as a desperate company hungry for sources of revenue beyond the aging Fortnite. It claims Epic merely wants to freeload off an iPhone ecosystem in which Apple has invested more than $100 billion over the past 15 years.Estimates of Apple’s app store revenue range from $15 billion to $18 billion annually. Apple disputes those estimates, although it hasn’t publicly disclosed its own figures. Instead, it has emphasized that it doesn’t collect a cent from 85% of the apps in its store.The commissions it pockets, Apple says, are a reasonable way for the company to recoup its investment while financing an app review process it calls essential to preserving the security of apps and their users. About 40% of the roughly 100,000 apps submitted for review each week are rejected for some sort of problem, according to Kyle Andeer, Apple’s chief compliance officer.Epic will try to prove that Apple uses the security issue to disguise its true motivation — maintaining a monopoly that wrings more profits from app makers who can’t afford not to be available on the iPhone.But the smaller company may face an uphill battle. Last fall, the judge expressed some skepticism in court before denying Epic’s request to reinstate Fortnite on Apple’s app store pending the outcome of the trial. At that time, Gonzalez Rogers asserted that Epic’s claims were “at the frontier edges of antitrust law.”The trial is expected to last most of May, with a decision to come in the ensuing weeks. 
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Pakistan decided Sunday to temporarily suspend incoming pedestrian movement at overland border crossings with Afghanistan and Iran to “restrain import of any new mutation” of the coronavirus. 
 
The restriction will take effect Tuesday night and remain in place until May 20, said the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), which oversees Pakistan’s response to the outbreak. 
 
Pakistani nationals in Afghanistan and Iran, as well as Afghans seeking extreme emergency medical treatment in Pakistan will, however, be allowed to enter the country. All outbound pedestrian movement will be permissible, the statement said.  
 
The tightened border controls come a day after officials in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh said they had detected the South African and Brazilian coronavirus variants in “some samples.” The highly contagious variants have raised fears of escalations in new infections. 
 
A British variant, however, officially remains the primary source of the current surge in infections across Pakistan. 
 
The country of about 220 million people detected the virus a year ago and has since reported more than 18,000 deaths among an estimated 830,000 infections. They included 113 deaths and 4,414 new cases authorities reported Sunday.  
 
The NCOC said the border restriction will not be applicable to bilateral and transit cargo/trade movement with Afghanistan and Iran, but that drivers will undergo “thermal scanning” at border terminals. 
 
Pakistan shares a nearly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan and about a 930-kilometer border with Iran.  Pakistan’s special representative to Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, defended the border restriction, calling it “the most important step” in curbing the wave of infections.  “The spread of COVID-19 is alarming. It is important that we take difficult decisions to protect our people from this scourge,” Sadiq tweeted. The spread of COVID-19 is alarming. It is important that we take difficult decisions to protect our people from this scourge. The most important step in this regard is reducing the movement of people for a few days so that this wave of virus subsides. pic.twitter.com/g8jo9Ftps8— Mohammad Sadiq (@AmbassadorSadiq) May 2, 2021Thousands of Afghan pedestrians travel daily in both directions. They are mostly members of the Afghan refugee community, students and patients seeking treatment in relatively better Pakistani health facilities. 
 
Pakistan has already banned land and air travel from India because of the devastating wave of coronavirus cases across the neighboring country, which on Sunday recorded its highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic, with nearly 3,700 people dying in 24 hours. 
 
The health crisis in India has sparked fears Pakistan may be next. The traditionally neglected and underfunded Pakistani health care system, critics say, may not be able to sustain the kind of pressure and surge of cases India is experiencing. 
 
The Pakistani government last week called in troops to assist civilian law enforcement agencies in strictly implementing coronavirus public safety measures to stem the record number of deaths from the infection in recent days.
Authorities have placed virus hotspot areas either under complete or partial lockdowns and are racing to increase the number of beds as well ventilators to hospitals across Pakistan to stave off shortages.  
 
Pakistan authorities launched a nationwide vaccination campaign in February but just over 2 million people have so far been inoculated, the lowest rate in South Asia. 
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