India battles vaccine rollout amid new surge

New Delhi: One year after imposing the world’s biggest pandemic lockdown, India is racing against time to vaccinate its 1.3 billion population against Covid-19 as a new surge threatens to derail efforts to control the disease.

The world’s second-most populous country is struggling to meet a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inoculate 300 million people by the end of July. India has already suffered enough even though its case statistics are better than many feared.

When Modi announced a strict lockdown one year ago, millions of poor migrants lost their jobs overnight and fled big cities, many on foot and some dying on the way. The harsh restrictions have gradually been eased to boost the economy and case numbers started dropping from September up to last month.

India has so far recorded more than 11.7 million Covid-19 cases -- the third-most infected nation behind the United States and Brazil -- and over 160,000 deaths, one of the lowest mortality rates among the worst-hit countries.

Authorities thought they had seen the worst of the pandemic and in January launched the huge inoculation drive on the back of being the world’s biggest vaccine maker. But a jump in infections -- above 40,000 a day after falling to below 9,000 in February -- and a slower-than-expected vaccination rollout is setting off alarm bells. The western state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, has again become a major hotspot with authorities imposing local lockdowns and conducting on-the-spot virus tests in crowded places.

"We need to recognise that we are now facing an increasing number of cases in many parts of the country and vaccination has to be one of the key aspects of responding to that strategically," public health expert Anant Bhan told AFP.

India kicked off its vaccination drive with healthcare and frontline workers, before expanding it to include over-60s and over-45s with serious illnesses. From April 1, everyone over 45 will also be eligible.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday, admitted a failed plan for a strict Easter virus shutdown was "my mistake" in a rare climbdown amid massive criticism of the government’s pandemic response.

Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 states had agreed at marathon talks on Monday that almost all shops were to be closed on April 1-5, with only grocers allowed to open on Saturday April 3. But they decided at a crisis meeting called by Merkel on Wednesday to scrap that measure, instead appealing to the public to stay home over the Easter weekend.

"This mistake is mine alone," Merkel told reporters in Berlin, adding that she bore "the ultimate responsibility" for the decision, which had led to fierce criticism. "The whole process has caused additional uncertainty, for which I ask all citizens to forgive me," she said.

The leaders had agreed the measure was "not enforceable in this form", Armin Laschet, the head of Merkel’s CDU party, told a regional parliament meeting in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Merkel acknowledged that there were prohibitive hurdles to shutting the economy down for five days next week with so little notice including rules for holiday pay and supply chain issues.

Growing discontent over the government’s handling of the pandemic has sent the CDU’s ratings plummeting as Germany grapples with what experts have called a third wave of the virus. The toughened shutdown had prompted a dramatic uproar, with the Bild daily calling the government’s pandemic management a "mess".

In a related development, the Swiss army’s nuclear, biological and chemical threats training centre has been brought to a grinding halt by an outbreak of Covid-19, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

Some 59 soldiers tested positive for the British variant of the virus at the NBC 77 training school in Spiez in central Switzerland, while a further 87 have been quarantined, the ministry said. Fortunately, there are no serious cases," it said in a statement. "Clarifications to determine how the virus may have spread through the school on such a scale are still ongoing."