Coronavirus: As Covid deaths rise, Bengaluru cremation grounds run non-stop

 

With a sharp rise in Covid-19 deaths, cremation grounds have been running non-stop on Bengaluru’s outskirts.

At a long-unused cremation ground in Tavarekere, one can only see pyres burning. People working here have no time to waste since ambulances keep coming one after the other.

Meanwhile, inside Bengaluru, seven Covid crematoriums have been running almost round the clock for the past three weeks. One of them was shut down for maintenance on Saturday.

At the Tavarekere cremation ground, there are 41 iron platforms on which pyres can be lit in two shifts -- morning and evening. Each pyre takes around five hours to burn the body completely. So, close to 85 bodies are cremated in a day.

Only one family member wearing a PPE kit is allowed to perform the last rites.

Workers in PPE kits only shift the body from the ambulance onto the funeral pyre. Then, a group chops and places wood on the pyre, and another group cleans the pyre and gets it ready.

In the last 15 days, more than 800 bodies have been cremated here and the numbers are only increasing.

Just 6 km away is another cremation area recently opened by the government. This is a granite quarry in Geddanahalli where ambulances wait for their turn to take the body to the designated pyre along with the grieving family members.

The quarry has been flattened and sees 50 funerals a day. Workers come early in the morning, clean the pyres, remove the ash, place the wood and wait for the bodies to arrive. They have been doing this for the past 15 days.

In the city, at the TR Mills open cremation ground, close to 100 bodies a day have been cremated. With not enough space on the ground, the bodies have been cremated less than six feet apart.

The number of Covid deaths has been steadily increasing in the city, with Friday witnessing the highest number of deaths at 346. On Sunday, there were 281 deaths recorded in Bengaluru, out of the total 490 in Karnataka.

Coronavirus : Covid-19 Hopes for ‘Herd Immunity’ Fade as Virus Hurtles Toward Becoming Endemic

 

 Dr. Anthony Fauci says indoor mask guidance can ease as vaccinations rise. The E.U.’s immunization drive is speeding up after lagging for months.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The world may need to learn to live with the virus.

• Fauci says indoor mask guidance should ‘start being more liberal.’

• Vaccinations are rising in the European Union after a long, slow start.

• Turkey’s second major wave has begun to recede, though its lockdown is far from tight.

• A potentially fatal fungal infection is cropping up among India’s Covid patients.

• Spain ended its state of emergency, and streets erupted in celebrations.

• U.S. states are turning down hundreds of thousands of doses as demand plummets.

• Some U.S. families are not eager to send their children back to school.
  

  Early in the pandemic, there was hope that the world would one day achieve herd immunity, the point when the coronavirus lacks enough hosts to spread easily. But over a year later, the virus is crushing India with a fearsome second wave and surging in countries from Asia to Latin America.

  Experts now say it is changing too quickly, new more contagious variants are spreading too easily and vaccinations are happening too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.

  That means if the virus continues to run rampant through much of the world, it is well on its way to becoming endemic, an ever-present threat.

  Virus variants are tearing through places where people gather in large numbers with few or no pandemic protocols, like wearing masks and distancing, according to Dr. David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

  While the outbreak in India is capturing the most attention, Dr. Heymann said the pervasive reach of the virus means that the likelihood is growing that it will persist in most parts of the world.

  As more people contract the virus, developing some level of immunity, and the pace of vaccinations accelerates, future outbreaks won’t be on the scale of those devastating India and Brazil, Dr. Heymann said. Smaller outbreaks that are less deadly but a constant threat should be expected, Dr. Heymann said.

  “This is the natural progression of many infections we have in humans, whether it is tuberculosis or H.I.V.,” said Dr. Heymann, a former member of the Epidemiology Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a former senior official at the World Health Organization. “They have become endemic and we have learned to live with them and we learn how to do risk assessments and how to protect those we want to protect.”

  A CLOSER LOOK

  Coronavirus World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak

  Vaccines that are highly effective against Covid were developed rapidly, but global distribution has been plodding and unequal. As rich countries hoard vaccine doses, poorer countries face big logistical challenges to distributing the doses they manage to get and vaccine hesitancy is an issue everywhere. And experts warn the world is getting vaccinated too slowly for there to be much hope of ever eliminating the virus.

  Only two countries have fully vaccinated more than half of their populations, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. They are Israel and the East African nation of the Seychelles, an archipelago with a population of fewer than 100,000. And just a handful of other countries have at least partially vaccinated nearly 50 percent or more, including Britain, tiny Bhutan, and the United States.

  Less than 10 percent of India’s vast population is at least partly vaccinated, offering little check to its onslaught of infections.

  In Africa, the figure is slightly more than 1 percent.

  Still, public health experts say a relatively small number of countries, mostly island nations, have largely kept the virus under control and could continue keeping it at bay after vaccinating enough people.

  New Zealand, through stringent lockdowns and border closures, has all but eliminated the virus. Dr. Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago who helped devise the country’s coronavirus response, said New Zealand would likely achieve herd immunity by immunizing its population, but it has a long way to go with only about 4.4 percent of New Zealanders at least partially vaccinated.

  “All of the surveys show there is a degree of vaccine hesitancy in New Zealand, but also a lot of people are very enthusiastic,” Dr. Baker said. “So I think we will probably get there in the end.”

  While new daily cases have remained at near-world record levels, the number of deaths has dropped fro

  
  

  

  
  

  

  A bar in Columbia, Mo., on Saturday. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises even vaccinated people to continue to wear masks in indoor public spaces.Credit...Jacob Moscovitch for The New York Times

  Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said on Sunday that he was open to relaxing indoor masking rules as more Americans are vaccinated against the virus, just two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention belatedly emphasized the danger of airborne transmission.

  Dr. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for the pandemic, said that as vaccinations climb, “we do need to start being more liberal” in terms of rules for wearing masks indoors, though he noted that the nation was still averaging about 43,000 cases of the virus daily. “We’ve got to get it much, much lower than that,” he said.

  On Friday, the C.D.C. updated its guidance about how the coronavirus spreads, stating explicitly that people could inhale airborne virus even when they were more than six feet away from an infected individual. Previously, the agency had said that most infections were acquired through “close contact, not airborne transmission.”

  The update brought the agency in line with evidence of the danger from airborne droplets that epidemiologists had noted as the pandemic unfolded last year. According to some experts, it also underscored the urgency for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue standards for employers to address potential airborne hazards in the workplace.

  Dr. Fauci’s comments on Sunday came in response to a question about comments that Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, made last week on CNBC. Dr. Gottlieb said that relaxing indoor mask mandates now — “especially if you’re in environments where you know you have a high level of vaccination” — would give public health officials “the credibility to implement them” again in the fall or winter if cases surge.

  Dr. Fauci, asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Sunday program “This Week” whether he agreed, said: “I think so, and I think you’re going to probably be seeing that as we go along, and as more people get vaccinated.”

  “The C.D.C. will be, almost in real time, George, updating their recommendations and their guidelines,” Dr. Fauci continued. “But yes, we do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated.”

  Over a third of the U.S. population — more than 112 million people — is fully vaccinated and another 40 million people have received the first dose of a two-dose protocol.

  The C.D.C., which issues national guidance on masking, says that even vaccinated people should continue to wear masks in indoor public spaces, including restaurants when they are not actively eating and drinking. In many places across the country, it is clear that the guidance is not being followed.

  In a separate interview on Sunday, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Jeffrey Zients, Mr. Biden’s Covid response coordinator, was somewhat more circumspect than Dr. Fauci when asked about Dr. Gottlieb’s comments.

  “I think everyone is tired, and wearing a mask is — it can be a pain,” Mr. Zients said. “But we’re getting there. And the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter and brighter. Let’s keep up our guard. Let’s follow the C.D.C. guidance. And the C.D.C. guidance across time will allow vaccinated people more and more privileges to take off that mask.”

  Mr. Zients also suggested that instead of reaching herd immunity — the point when enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer spread through the population — the goal should be to achieve some sense of normalcy by getting 70 percent of Americans immunized. President Biden has called for 70 percent to have at least one dose by July 4.

  Reaching 70 percent will create “a pattern of decreasing cases, hospitalizations and deaths and take us down to a sustainable low level,” Mr. Zients said, pointing to Israel, a world leader in vaccinations, as a model.

  In that country, vaccinations have reached almost 60 percent of the population since they began on Dec. 19 last year, and the seven-day average of new cases has dropped from a high of more than 8,600 on Jan. 17 to fewer than 60 as of Saturday.

FOOTBALL: Man City confirmed EPL champions after Man Utd lose to Leicester City

 

Manchester City have been confirmed English champions, after Leicester City beat Manchester United 2-1 on Tuesday night.

Luke Thomas opened scoring with a stunning volley past David De Gea, before Mason Greenwood levelled for United.

However, Caglar Soyuncu headed in the winner in the second half.

The result leaves United with 70 points from 35 matches, 10 behind City with three fixtures left.

Manchester City have three league fixtures remaining, before attention will turn to their first-ever Champions League final.

The club’s latest league title moves them on to seven in total, with Manchester United still out in front on 20.

FOOTBALL: We lacked continuity- Buffon finally decides to leave Juventus

 

Juventus goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, has finally confirmed that he would leave the club at the end of the season.

Buffon, 43, made the announcement to beIN Sports.

According to him, Juventus lacked continuity this season.

The Italian shot-stopper returned to Turin in July 2019 after one year with Paris Saint-Germain, but his contract expires in June and he feels it’s time to part ways with the Bianconeri.

“I’ve decided to leave Juventus at the end of the season, I’m not extending the contract,” Buffon said.

“We lacked continuity,” he added. “In the end, in the games, we played against the top five, six teams, we often won. We drew sometimes and lost some.

“But it has always been even games. Instead, we lost stupid points against the lesser teams. This means you are a team that has yet to grow in character.”

Buffon kept three clean sheets in seven Serie A games this season for Juventus.

He also helped Andrea Pirlo’s side to the Coppa Italia final, which seems set to be his last match with the club on May 19.

Juventus fight for a place in the Champions League next season, as they sit fifth in the Serie A table, one point behind Napoli at fourth.

FOOTBALL: He’s very nice to me – Buffon criticizes Juventus over Ronaldo

 

Juventus goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, has said the team’s performances have not helped forward Cristiano Ronaldo this season.

The 43-year-old believes Ronaldo, who is very nice to him, has suffered because of Juventus’ display this term.

Juventus are currently fighting for a place in the Champions League next season, as they sit fifth in the Serie A table, one point behind Napoli at the fourth position.

The Old Lady were also knocked out of this season’s Champions League by FC Porto.

“I have an excellent relationship with Ronaldo,” Buffon told beIN Sports. “He’s very nice to me.

“He has scored a lot of goals, always like in the last few years. The individual is enhanced when the team reaches important goals.

“If this doesn’t happen, the performances of the individuals suffer as well.”

He added, “My future is clear and defined. This beautiful and very long experience with Juve will come to a definitive end this year.

“I feel I gave everything for Juve. I have received everything and more than this cannot be done.

“We have reached the end of a cycle and it’s right for one to remove the disturbance.”

FOOTBALL: Victor Moses not likely to play under Tuchel at Chelsea

 

Victor Moses is unlikely to play again for Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea and is close to sealing a permanent move away.

Jordan Larsson’s last-gasp win for Spartak Moscow against Khimki on Monday night should ensure that a £4 million clause in Moses’ loan contract gets activated.

If the Russian team qualifies for the Champions League, they will be obliged to pay a release clause to sign the former Super Eagles star permanently.

The move might be sealed this weekend if Spartak can avoid defeat away to Akhmat Grozny, while also keeping their goal difference advantage of 10 goals intact over their rivals.

Moses made 128 appearances for Chelsea, winning both the Premier League and two Europa League titles at Stamford Bridge.

 

FOOTBALL: EPL.Guardiola reacts as Man Utd lose to Leicester, Man City confirmed champions

 

Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has claimed this was the hardest title to win, after they were confirmed champions on Tuesday night.

Leicester City’s 2-0 win at Old Trafford, means United cannot catch their city rivals again this season.

“This has been a season and a Premier League title like no other.

“This was the hardest one. We will always remember this season for the way that we won. I am so proud to be the manager here and of this group of players.

“To come through this season, with all the restrictions and difficulties we’ve faced — and show the consistency we have is remarkable. It is relentless,” Guardiola said.

After joining City in 2016, Guardiola won his first league title and the club finished with a league-record 100 points.

City retained their title the next season, finishing on 98 points, one point ahead of Liverpool.

Guardiola has previously won the title in La Liga with Barcelona and the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.