Coronavirus Cases and Deaths Rise in US, Brazil and Asian Countries | the Chronicle

More Asian countries are now placing restrictions or considering tightening them in the face of record numbers of coronavirus cases and daily deaths, as the situation worsens in South America as Brazil moves towards what should be his worst month in the pandemic and everyone’s alarm bells. its neighbors and Chile.

After more than 664,500 Covid-19 infections and 12,407 deaths detected in the past 24 hours globally and in order to mitigate the expansion, Sri Lanka has announced tough restrictions and Thailand has warned it may tighten measures in force after reaching a daily record of contagions.

Sri Lankan health officials have banned New Year’s festival activities scheduled to take place on April 14 and called for rallies to limit rituals to immediate family members and close relatives, not to exceed 100 people.

Meanwhile, in Thailand, alarms went off after the health ministry today confirmed 967 cases of Covid-19, the highest number in a day and which is far from a re-outbreak that erupted last March in Bangkok, after keeping the virus under control. most of the year.

The deputy director general of the country’s disease control department, Dr Sophon Iamsirithaworn, has warned that if the number of cases continues to rise in two weeks, it will be necessary to implement measures beyond the current restrictions. on nightlife and current distancing rules.

Another concern for Thailand is the delay in vaccination against the coronavirus of its 69 million inhabitants, which according to deputy government spokesman Traisuree Taisaranakul, 537,380 doses had been applied in 77 provinces until last Friday.

Amid the fourth wave of infections and with 23 of 31 provinces reconfigured since last week, Iran today reported 258 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest number since the start of December latest.

Iranian health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari also reported 21,063 more cases the day before, bringing the total to more than 2 million, in addition to 64,490 deaths, according to the DPA news agency.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the epidemiological curve of Covid-19 is rising rapidly and is approaching the peak of last June, with more than 5,000 infections on the last day, which establishes a weekly average of more than 4,500 infections.

In order to control the increase in infections and deaths, which reached a daily record of 114, authorities decided to extend the ban on intercity passenger transport on weekends until mid-month.

Amid an upward trend in coronavirus infections, India today banned exports of remdesivir, a drug used to treat patients infected with the virus, after detecting that the increase in cases was causing a “sudden increase in demand” for the drug. the Ministry of Health.

“It is possible that this demand will increase in the coming days”, underlined the ministry, quoted by the news agency AFP, after India counts 152,000 infections with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and reaches more 13.3 million cases and nearly 170,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

A similar scenario was anticipated in the United States by President Joe Biden’s senior medical consultant, virologist Anthony Fauci, who warned the country could face a “significant increase in peak infections” from Covid-19 in the next few days and despite the fierce vaccination campaign.

“In some states, such as Michigan, New York and New Jersey, infections have started to rise again instead of leveling off, which is worrying,” said the specialist.

The country hardest hit by the pandemic racked up 81,376 infections and 904 deaths as of the day before, according to the latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The same fate is going through the second country most affected by the pandemic, Brazil, where, according to statistics from the UCI project, the number of people under the age of 40 with coronavirus who had to be admitted to intensive care last March has exceeded that of older groups.

Specifically, the number of people aged 39 or younger hospitalized in an intensive care unit for Covid-19 increased significantly in March and passed the 11,000 mark, or 52.2% of the total, according to the UCI project.

At the start of the pandemic, this figure was only 14.6%, and between September and February, 45%, and experts attribute the reasons to the spread of the new Brazilian variant P1 or Manaus, to which the majority of patients over 80 years of age are vaccinated and the propensity of those under 40 is either because they leave their home to work, or because they think they are less vulnerable.