Migration alert: the government asked Argentines not to go to India because of the health situation

The National Directorate of Migration, depending on the Ministry of the Interior, this afternoon launched an alert to Argentines with regular flights to India to postpone their trips due to the health crisis that the country is going through, where the appearance of a new strain of COVID-19 has been recorded.

From her Twitter account, the national director of migration, Florence carignano, reinforced the message and emphasized that, in India, the new variant of the coronavirus killed 2,803 and caused more than 350,000 infections in a single day.

Restricting flights to and from countries deemed at risk is part of the national government’s strategy in the face of the sharp increase in cases but above all to prevent the community circulation of new coronavirus mutations. In communication with Infobae, of Migrations, they explained to have launched an alert because the “Indian strain” (variant B.1.617) is much more contagious than those which had been presented.

“As there are no direct flights to India (As was the case with Brazil, direct measures could be taken to reduce theft) in this case, they are made via one or more connections. We therefore do not know if, by going to a European country, a person does not go there. On the other hand, there are also many Argentines who choose to travel with a European passport which does not require a visa. As all of these conditions prevent us from knowing who is traveling to India, We have decided to make the alert public to warn and appeal to civic responsibility“, They indicated to this middle.

The Migration alert is in line with actions taken by other countries around the world, such as Germany, France, Italy, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, which according to reports are advancing restrictions on flights from India. For example, Kuwait announced on Saturday the suspension of its commercial flights. For its part, the United States is advising against travel to the Asian country and Canada has suspended flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days. In Europe, the detection of the Indian variant in Belgium, Switzerland and, this Sunday, Greece, which has already exceeded 10,000 deaths.

However, according to the site Our world in data, In the past 7 days, Argentina has recorded an average of 524 infections every 24 hours per million population. Meanwhile, India registered 215.

Regarding the death toll, Argentina had 7.3 per million per day, compared to 1.57 for the Asian country.

In any case, the situation in India is critical. To date, 16.9 million people have contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and 192,000 of them have died. With saturated hospitals (in beds occupied by two or three people) and a lack of oxygen to save lives, the country was in fourth place in number of deaths, according to the agency AFP.

That’s not all: in the past three days, the country has recorded one million new cases of coronavirus, setting an all-time high worldwide. This is reflected in figures shared by the Coronavirus News Twitter account: “Today there have been 349,691 cases; on Saturday April 24, 348,979; and, on Friday 23, 345.283 ″.

“The first case of “ Indian strain ” of COVID-19 has been detected in Switzerland, it is a passenger who arrived through a transit airport», Communicated the Federal Office of Public Health through social networks. In addition, the possibility of including India in a list of countries dangerous in terms of epidemiological situation has been considered, according to the news agency. Sputnik.

According to the AFP agency, the Asian giant, with more than 1,300 million inhabitants, is unable to overcome the pandemic. “The devastation of the coronavirus continues and there is no truce”, admitted this Sunday the head of government of the capital New Delhi, Arvind KejriwalyTherefore, he decided to extend the detention in the area for another week.

In this context, the slowness of the vaccination campaign in India is still paradoxical. It is the world’s largest vaccine producer but so far 130 million doses have been administered and only 8% of the population has been vaccinated at least once. According to Azizah F. Siddiqui, researcher at the Institute for Global Health at the University of Geneva, consulted by Infobae, India urgently approved the vaccine Sputnik V (Russia), and the country circulates Covishield (AstraZeneca) and the natives Covaxin.

“The vaccination campaign in IndiaAlthough it was impressive at first, with 300,000 doses per day at its peak, was reduced to 200,000 per day due to lack of inputs. What is not satisfactory is that India has distributed vaccines Covishield to neighboring and strategic countries, suspected of being a form of soft power, in a context of competition with China. This measure is unnecessary, because we are not sufficiently immune. Not in response to these criticisms but to the exorbitant number of cases, On May 1, 2021, all Indians over the age of 18 will be able to be vaccinated free of charge in government institutions“Siddiqui remarked.

In this context, one of the twelve members of the US Congressional Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee, Raja Krishnamoorthi called on President Joe Biden to distribute the surplus of millions of AstraZeneca vaccines to countries where the coronavirus hits the hardest, including India. “When there are people who are in desperate need of them, we cannot put them in a warehouse“, he claimed.

I KEEP READING: