New York Times: As India’s Covid Crisis Rages, Its Neighbors Brace for the Worst
Vaccine shortages, porous borders and fleeing migrant workers have nearby countries fearing that they will share India’s fate.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Most of Nepal is under lockdown, its hospitals overwhelmed.Bangladesh suspended vaccination sign-ups after promised supplies were cut off. Sri Lanka’s hopes of a tourism-led economic revival have collapsed.
As India battles a horrific surge of the coronavirus, the effects have spilled over to its neighbors. Most nearby countries have sealed their borders. Several that had been counting on Indian-made vaccines are pleading with China and Russia instead.
The question is whether that will be enough, in a region that shares many of the risk factors that made India so vulnerable: densely populated cities, heavy air pollution, fragile health care systems and large populations of poor workers who must weigh the threat of the virus against the possibility of starvation.
Though the countries’ outbreaks can’t all be linked to India, officials across the region have expressed growing dread over how easily their fates could follow that of their neighbor. “I feel like it’s a world war situation,” said Dr. Rajan Pandey, a physician in Banke, a Nepali district along the India border, who said he was turning away 30 patients asking for hospital beds every day.
Read more ....
More News On India's Covid Crisis Spreading To Other Countries
Red Cross warns that coronavirus cases are exploding in Asia -- AP
Scores more bodies of suspected Covid victims found in Indian rivers -- The Guardian
India's second wave is ravaging villages without hospitals or even doctors to fight it -- CNN
Coronavirus is ripping through India's remote north, where whole villages are helpless against its advance -- ABC news (Australia)
Global concern grows as COVID-19 variant ravages rural India -- Reuters
Covid research: variant found in India may spread faster than type detected in Kent -- The Guardian
Indian Covid-19 variant found in 44 countries around world, says WHO -- France 24
Japan to ban foreign residents who traveled to India, Nepal and Pakistan -- Japan Times
India's Covid-19 catastrophe could make global shortages even worse -- CNN
