In India, a video showing pigs roaming freely in a hospital that treats coronavirus patients in Karnataka, south India, has provoked shock. Equally alarming was that people at Kalaburagi hospital appeared to be used to the sight. No one stopped dead in their tracks on seeing the grunting pigs and piglets. The pigs , who seemed very much at home, were later tranquillised and removed.
While stray dogs in government hospitals are not unusual, pigs mark a new low. The incident has highlighted why even Indians who are not affluent avoid government hospitals and are prepared to pay for a private hospital – the low hygiene standards.
Ross Taylor
(@HahahaHahKING)Pigs roaming freely in covid hospitals #Karnataka kalaburagi dist 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/cgHd6YFdeX
It also explains why some 11,000 out of 15,000 beds set aside for Covid-19 patients in the capital New Delhi are lying vacant while private hospitals are telling coronavirus patients to wait for days because they are full. If it’s not stray dogs and pigs, it’s the state of the toilets in state hospitals that frightens people.
The video emerged at a time when Karnataka is experiencing a surge in cases after initially managing to control the spread of the virus. The state now has the second fastest doubling rate in the country and close to 60,000 cases in total. While the national average of doubling is 20 days, in Karnataka it is 10 days. The rise in cases has prompted fresh lockdowns in several areas, including the capital and IT hub, Bangalore.
In evidence that India’s medical infrastructure is too decrepit to cope with the pandemic, monsoon rain last week flooded Osmania hospital. A video showed medical stuff using sandbags and mattresses to block the flow of water. Yesterday, coronavirus patients in a hospital ward in Bareilly in north India were startled when rain water gushed like a waterfall through the ceiling from a damaged pipe.
A former federal health secretary, K. Sujatha Rao, tweeted: “No wonder we are busy constructing temples. So much easier than managing govt hospitals. So shameful”.
India has crossed the one million mark and virtually every day sees a new ‘highest-ever’ single day spike. Sunday saw a new record with 40,425 fresh coronavirus cases in 24 hours.
Updated
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In Cyprus there are mounting concerns over the number of asylum seekers testing positive for coronavirus at checkpoints dividing the war-torn island.
The Greek Cypriot health minister, Constantinos Ioannou, says authorities in the island’s internationally recognised south have registered a growing number of infections among migrants crossing over from the breakaway Turkish-run north.
Crossing points between the two sectors reopened in late June after three months of closure due to coronavirus restrictions. Health officials point to at least eight Syrian migrants testing positive for the highly contagious virus in the last week.
“The virus is still here. We have not got rid of it as many think,” said Ioannou, emphasising that Covid-19 tests were being conducted at crossing points along the 120-mile UN-patrolled ceasefire line separating the ethnically split state.
The route from north to south is a well-trodden path for migrants and refugees seeking asylum in the Greek-administered EU member south. Most are believed to cross over to the Mediterranean island from Turkey – where infection rates until recently had passed a 1,000 a day.
Migrants seeking to evade detection attempt to traverse the porous dividing line by circumventing checkpoints and taking other more out of the way routes. But once they appear before Greek Cypriot authorities they are tested for the virus before being placed in reception centres.
Cyprus has so far managed to keep the virus in check, recording fewer than 1,000 confirmed cases and 19 deaths. The north has registered 121 cases and four deaths with the territory’s own health minister announcing three new cases on Sunday.
Updated
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This is not explicitly coronavirus news but it is significant nonetheless.
Saudi Arabia’s 84-year-old ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, has been admitted to hospital in the capital, Riyadh, suffering from inflammation of the gall bladder, state news agency SPA said on Monday.
The king, who has ruled the world’s largest oil exporter and close US ally since 2015, is undergoing medical checks without giving details, Reuters reports.
The de facto ruler and next in line to the throne is the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, widely referred to as MBS, who has launched reforms to transform the kingdom’s economy and end its “addiction” to oil.
The 34-year-old prince’s reforms have been accompanied by a purge of top royals and businessmen on charges of corruption, and a costly war in Yemen, which have unnerved some western allies and investors.
His prestige also suffered a blow after the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at the hands of Saudi security personnel seen as close to him.
Updated
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Beijing, meanwhile, has gone 14 days without a case of local transmission, and city authorities on Sunday said they were downgrading the emergency response level from two to three. The move is largely symbolic, with measures including mandatory social distancing, temperature checks and 14-day quarantines for passengers arriving from abroad remaining in place, AP reports.
China also Monday reported 5,370 people had been arrested for pandemic-related crimes between January and June. More than 40% were charged with fraud, the state prosecutor’s office announced on its official microblog. Another 15% were charged with obstruction of law enforcement, with others accused of producing and selling fake and shoddy goods, creating public disturbances and transporting and selling endangered species.
China has strengthened protection for wild animals following the emergence of the virus, which may have originated in bats before jumping to humans via an intermediary species such as the anteater-like pangolin.
More now on China’s latest coronavirus outbreak spreading to a second city in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, from AP.
One of the 17 new cases reported on Monday was in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, the regional government said on its official microblog. The remainder were in the regional capital of Urumqi, where all other cases have been reported since the outbreak that has now infected at least 47 people emerged earlier this month.
Authorities in Urumqi have tried to prevent the spread by closing off communities and imposing travel restrictions.
Xinjiang is a vast, thinly populated region of mountains and deserts and had seen little impact from the pandemic that emerged from the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and was largely contained within China in March. Another five new cases reported Monday by the National Health Commission were imported.
Updated
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