By Haruna Gimba
The number of people who have died from COVID-19 around the world passed three million on Saturday, according to an AFP tally at 0830 GMT, as the number of fatalities continues to rise despite vaccination campaigns.
After a slight lull last month, daily death tolls have been increasing, with an average of 12,000 deaths a day last week. While some countries like Israel have benefited from mass inoculation efforts, others such as India are battling meteoric rises in infections.
The virus that surfaced in late 2019 in central China and the ensuing pandemic has infected more than 100 million people, leaving billions more under crippling lockdowns and ravaging the global economy.
India’s capital New Delhi went into a weekend lockdown Saturday as the world’s second-most populous nation faces more than 200,000 fresh daily cases and families clamouring for drugs and hospital beds.
Hopes that South Asian countries might have seen the worst of the pandemic have been dashed, with India recording over two million new cases this month alone and Bangladesh and Pakistan imposing new shutdowns.
In Japan, rising virus cases have stoked speculation that the Olympic Games postponed last year due to the pandemic could be cancelled.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, in his first meeting with United States President Joe Biden, said his government was listening to experts and doing its “utmost” to prepare for the Tokyo games in July.
“They are doing everything possible to contain infection and to realise safe and secure games from scientific and objective perspectives,” Suga told a joint news conference, at which Biden backed Japan’s efforts to host the global event.
Coronavirus preparations are being made for another global sporting showcase, the World Cup in Qatar next year.
The Gulf kingdom is in talks with coronavirus vaccine makers to ensure all fans attending the 2022 World Cup in the country have been vaccinated, its foreign minister said Friday.
The virus continues to impact events elsewhere in the world. On Saturday, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II bids a final farewell to her late husband, Prince Philip, at a funeral restricted by coronavirus and likely watched by millions from afar.
The public has been asked to stay away because of the global pandemic. In Brazil, the country with the third-highest death toll in the world, night shifts have been added to several cemeteries as diggers work around the clock to bury the dead.
One of these is Vila Formosa, the largest cemetery in Latin America and a showcase for the lethal cost of the pandemic in Brazil, where more than 360,000 people have died from COVID-19.
Despite the high infection rate, the government of Brazil’s most populous state Sao Paulo announced it will allow businesses and places of worship to reopen from Sunday.
But there was better news in Europe, where some countries are easing their lockdowns in response to not only fatigue but falling infection numbers and progress with vaccinations.
