India re-opens major cities

Key Indian cities re-opened for business yesterday, with long queues for buses in the financial hub of Mumbai while traffic returned to the roads of New Delhi after a devastating second wave of coronavirus that killed hundreds of thousands.

The 100,636 new infections of the past 24 hours were the lowest in the world's second most populous nation since April 6, and well off last month's peaks of more than 400,000, allowing authorities to re-open parts of the economy.

"We have to save ourselves from infection but also bring the economy back on track," Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Twitter.

He ordered half the capital's shops to open on odd and even numbered days of the month respectively, in a bid to limit crowds, but allowed offices and the Delhi underground rail network to run at 50% of capacity.

But some curbs were retained, such as the ban on dining in restaurants and the use of theatres and gyms in a city still slowly recovering from a surge in the months of April and May that overwhelmed hospitals.

They ran short of beds and medical oxygen, and people died in hospital parking lots and homes, while crematoriums and morgues struggled to cope with an incessant flow of corpses.

India added 2,427 deaths overnight for a toll of 349,186, the health ministry said, down from more than 4,000 each day at the height of the crisis, while its tally of infections now stands at 28.9 million.

But experts believe that both figures have been severely undercounted and could be a few times higher than the official number.

Authorities in the western state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, allowed businesses to run until late afternoon, staffed with half their employees, and opened gyms, salons and spas though cinemas and malls are to stay shut.

The re-opening efforts come as authorities struggle to vaccinate the population of nearly 1.4 billion in a strategy officials say is the only way to limiting any third wave of infections.

But tight supplies have meant that fewer than 5% of 950 million adult Indians have received the mandatory two vaccine doses.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday that the federal government would provide vaccines free of charge to all adults from June 21 in an effort to turn the tide of pandemic.

Under the earlier policy, the federal government gave free vaccines to the elderly and frontline workers, and left state governments and private hospitals to administer doses for a fee to people in the 18-45 age group.

Seven companies are producing various vaccines against the coronavirus and the trial of three more vaccines is at an advanced stage, he said, adding that research is ongoing on a nasal spray vaccine which, if successful, can significantly boost India's vaccination drive.

"This is the biggest pandemic in the last hundred years...The country fought on a war-footing," the PM said in his address to the nation.

"I appeal to states that they should use the lockdown as the last resort. Our focus should be micro-containment zones," he added.

The pressure to resume some economic activities across the country has grown as millions depend on daily wages to pay for food and rent.

"I have opened my shop after 40 days," a tea vendor, Monu Yadav, told Reuters partner ANI in the northern city of Varanasi, adding that only a fraction of his customers had returned.

Last week, the central bank cut its forecast for economic growth to 9.5% from 10.5% for the fiscal year 2021/22.

The second wave had "impaired the nascent recovery that was underway," but "not snuffed it out", said Shaktikanta Das, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

HIGH LEVELS OF IMMUNITY

A real-world study of vaccinated healthcare workers has found Covishield and Covaxin could produce a high immune response in up to 95 percent recipients and prevent serious disease in those infected after immunisation.

Interestingly, the Oxford vaccine Covishield could generate antibodies in more individuals compared to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, a pre-print of the first such Indian study has stated. Most vaccine efficacy studies so far have been lab-based.

The pan-India study of 515 vaccinated healthcare workers — 425 with Covishield and 90 with Covaxin — from 13 states and 22 cities found the vaccines could generate an immune response in 95 percent recipients 21-36 days after the second dose.

Seropositivity was observed in 98 percent of those immunised with Covishield as opposed to 80 percent Covaxin recipients, a finding the researchers called "surprising".

Even the anti-spike antibody titre was found to be significantly higher in Covishield recipients (115 AU/ml) compared to Covaxin (51 AU/ml), reports TOI.

Meanwhile, experts warned that while the crisis has eased in Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities, the disease is still spreading in rural areas and in some southern and northeastern states.

The death toll -- which usually lags infection figures by several weeks -- was still at elevated levels, they added.

"Currently, the states with high test-positivity rates like Kerala and Tamil Nadu need to maintain the restrictions as any major easing can be risky," community health expert Rajib Dasgupta told AFP.