A version of this story appeared in the April 27 edition of CNN’s Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter. Sign up here to receive the need-to-know headlines every weekday.
India is in crisis. Hospitals have run out of supplies, family members are desperately driving from clinic to clinic in search of a spare bed for their loved ones, and mass cremations are a daily occurrence, as hundreds of thousands more people are infected with Covid-19 each day.
The country has reported more than 17.6 million cases since the pandemic began. But the real number, experts fear, could be up to 30 times higher – meaning more than half a billion infections.
The daily death toll is projected to keep climbing until mid-May, at which point it could peak at more than 13,000 a day – more than four times Tuesday’s 2,771 death toll – according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations. When it comes to overall deaths, experts believe India’s true toll could be close to 990,000, not the current figure of 198,000, due to the country’s underfunded health infrastructure which has historically struggled to count its dead, Jessie Yeung reports.
The United States said Monday that it will share millions of doses of its stockpiled AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. While White House officials did not say which countries will get the shots, the move follows global pressure to include India.
Countries such as the US have been lining up in recent days to send medical supplies to India, but some fear it may not be enough to help halt the country’s enormous second wave. “It is a drop in an ocean,” Mumbai-based Dr. Zarir Udwadia told the BBC on Tuesday, after the United Kingdom donated ventilators.
Udwadia added that the US’s AstraZeneca stockpile should come to India because “the country needs 2 billion doses at the very least,” but the world’s biggest vaccine producer, the Serum Institute of India, based in Pune, is struggling to keep up with demand.
YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED.
Q. Do my kids need to be vaccinated before going to summer camp?
A: “In the next few days very likely, the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) will be coming out with updating their guidelines of what people who are vaccinated can do and even some who are not vaccinated,” Fauci told CNN.
If you live in the US, here are some other ways to update your records.
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WHAT’S IMPORTANT TODAY
This comes as CDC data shows about 8% of Americans have missed their second dose of the coronavirus vaccine. But this is not worrying health officials. Fauci told CNN he was not surprised some people are missing the second dose, saying it happens frequently with multi-dose vaccines. “Obviously whenever you have a two-dose vaccine, you’re going to see people who for one reason or other – convenience, forgetting, a number of other things – just don’t show up for the second vaccine,” Fauci said.
President Joe Biden is expected to announce today that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidance for wearing masks outdoors, three people familiar with the expected announcement said. The Biden administration is also expected to outline several other new recommendations for fully vaccinated people, in addition to “unmasking outdoors,” a federal official told CNN.
This comes as Michigan grapples with a surge in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, prompting state officials to expand its mask mandate to include children as young as 2. The mandate, which went into effect Monday, requires children aged 2 to 4 to wear face masks while in public spaces, including at day care and camps.
In a year where Covid-19 shuttered theaters and turned movie-goers into couch potatoes, 16 of the 23 statuettes went to projects that at the very least simultaneously premiered on streaming services. Due to the pandemic, this year’s Oscars extended the awards calendar by two months and made what was described as a one-time-only exception allowing movies that premiered via streaming and weren’t released theatrically to compete.
The European Union said Monday it is suing AstraZeneca over an alleged breach of its vaccine supply contract, a dramatic escalation of a months-long dispute over delivery delays that has hampered the rollout of shots across the continent, James Frater and Angela Dewan report.
The EU’s 27 nations ordered 300 million doses of the drugmaker’s Covid-19 vaccine, to be delivered by the end of June, with an option to purchase an additional 100 million. But shipments repeatedly fell short, sparking a bitter public fight over the terms of the contract.
A vaccine maker ruined 15 million doses. Its CEO sold $11 million of stock before the news broke
Emergent BioSolutions’ stock has lost more than half of its value since the disclosure that it ruined as many as 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine at its Baltimore plant. But the company’s CEO dumped more than $11 million worth of stock ahead of the massive decline. If Robert Kramer had held onto the nearly 100,000 shares he has sold so far this year, they would be worth about $5 million less than the price for which he sold them, Chris Isidore reports.
ON OUR RADAR
- Two YouTubers are facing deportation from Bali after they made a prank video that depicted one of them breaking local mask laws.
- The economic fallout of the pandemic has been disastrous for women, who lost $800 billion in income last year, according to Oxfam International. That’s more than the combined GDP of 98 countries.
- Los Angeles County, the first county in the US to have recorded more than 1 million coronavirus cases, is set to enter its least restrictive reopening phase as early as next week.
- Turkey is beginning its national three-week lockdown on Thursday in the midst of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as the health minister warns the country will experience difficulties in securing vaccines over the next two months.
- Germany’s intelligence service said Wednesday it would put some members of an anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine movement, known as “Querdenker,” under surveillance as concerns grow over its ties to far-right extremists.
TODAY’S TOP TIP
CNN Business put together a list of companies, which includes Budweiser and Krispy Kreme, that are providing freebies when you show proof of vaccination. Click here for the list.
Get medical attention quickly if you suffer persistent, severe headaches, blurred vision, shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling, persistent abdominal pain or unusual bruising within three weeks of getting the J&J vaccine, the CDC said Monday.
Those could be signs of an extremely rare, severe blood clotting syndrome that may be linked to the shot. The risk appears greatest for women under the age of 50, the CDC said. Read more.
TODAY’S PODCAST
Pandemics and apocalyptic diseases have long fascinated both writers and readers, but will we want to read about living through Covid-19? CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta hears from writers and industry experts about the past and future of pandemics in fiction. Listen now.
For 14 months and almost 300 episodes, Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction has provided listeners with a way to make sense of the pandemic. We’re grateful you trusted us as a source of knowledge and comfort but now we’re ready for a new phase of the podcast. Stay tuned to your feed on Monday morning when you’ll hear what we have coming next.