It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, January 08, 2022
Wolf Volcano erupts in Galapagos Islands A column of smoke rises after the eruption of the Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island on the Galapagos Archipelago in Ecuador on Friday. Photo courtesy of Galapagos National Park/EPA-EFE
Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Wolf volcano, the tallest volcano in the Galapagos Islands, has erupted for the first time in more than six years, Ecuadorian geologists announced Friday.
The eruption occurred just before midnight Thursday on Isabela Island, the Geophysical Institute reported.
The agency said the volcano spewed gas and ash clouds between 6,233 feet and 12,467 feet into the air.
The clouds dispersed toward the northeast and west of the island. Lava flows descended along the southern and southeastern flanks of the mountain.
"There are no populations near or located in the direction of the gas and ash clouds that could be affected by this activity," the Geophysical Institute said.
Wolf Volcano last erupted in May 2015. The Galapagos Islands, in one of the world's most volcanically active areas, are noted for their unique ecosystem, studied in 1835 by Charles Darwin. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
At 5,600 feet tall, Wolf Volcano is the tallest volcano on the Galapagos Archipelago.
Shocker: 194M bolts of lightning detected in the U.S. last year
By Monica Danielle, AccuWeather, Accuweather.com A bolt of lightning hits the spire of One World Trade Center as dark thunderstorm clouds pass over the Manhattan skyline in New York City on November 13.
If it seems like you experienced a lot more severe weather than usual last year, you aren't imagining things. The year 2021 featured a host of record-breaking storms across America. From the Heartland to the Northeast to the Desert Southwest and along the West Coast, it was a stormy year. And a new report says there was more lightning, too.
The year "2021 is a little bit closer to normal," he told AccuWeather national reporter Bill Wadell. "That's still about 15 to 20 million lightning events lower than what we would usually see."
Vagasky said a severe weather outbreak in spring was the biggest lightning maker of 2021.
"We had tornadoes in Colorado, Texas, the Southeast, but the bulk of the activity was on May 2, which was over 4 million events, the most we've detected since 2017."
AccuWeather senior weather editor Jesse Ferrell noted that "the county density data showing above-normal lightning activity in Michigan, Utah, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut roughly corresponds with record-high severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings and reports in 2021."
Texas, with nearly 42 million lightning strikes, was the state with the most lightning strikes in 2021, but the Lone Star State tops the charts every year due to its size and location. Florida was a distant second at 14.6 million strikes with Louisiana, Oklahoma and Missouri rounding out the top five. Taking land area out of the equation, Florida experienced the most lightning density -- strikes per square kilometer -- of any state last year, at 85.99, followed by Louisiana at 81.62.
When data was averaged out between 2016 and 2020, Oklahoma overtook Florida for the distinction as the lightning capital of the United States, but Vagasky says the Sooner State had a big drop last year and is no longer a contender. "Last year, we were talking about: 'Is Oklahoma the lightning capital or is Florida the lightning capital?' Oklahoma didn't even hit 10 million lightning events in 2020, so that was a big decline for them," he said. While the data isn't official yet, it sounds like the Sunshine State may be taking that title back.
In the West, lightning strikes are typically lower, largely due to the cooler air blowing off the Pacific Ocean. Cooler air near the ground provides a relatively small amount of vertical temperature difference, so the air is less likely to rush upward and produce thunderclouds. Also, cooler air holds less moisture than warm air. Less moisture means less fuel to kick-start storms. As a result, Alaska ranked as the fewest lightning strikes per square mile at 0.52. Washington (0.78), Oregon (2.0), Hawaii (2.62) and California (2.67) round out the bottom five.
Ferrell said the U.S. building struck the most by lightning in 2021 was no surprise. "The Willis Tower in Chicago was the most frequently-struck skyscraper in 2021, taking on 216 strikes, while One World Trade Center was the most-struck in New York City and was hit 109 times during the year." Ferrell added, "A report AccuWeather commissioned via Vaisala in 2021 also gave the Willis Tower the No. 1 ranking for the tallest skyscrapers hit by lightning over a five-year period."
Elsewhere in the U.S., the Desert Southwest had an uptick in storms. "Arizona had a big return of the monsoon. In 2020, they had only about a million lightning events detected, but in 2021, there were three-and-a-half million," Vagasky explained. More than 2 million acres across the drought-stricken western U.S. were burned in wildfires sparked by lightning. This number includes the Bootleg Fire in Oregon that burned more than 400,000 acres in 40 days and began generating its own weather.
"What we hope to see continue is this lightning data will better help us understand the planet, help us understand the weather patterns that are going on and help keep people safe," Vagasky said.
Technology and safety awareness seem to be paying off. Although there were more lightning strikes than 2020, lightning fatalities dropped with only 11 deaths reported in 2021 -- the lowest since records began in 1940. "This new low of 11 lightning deaths is dramatically fewer than the 432 Americans killed by lightning in 1943," said John Jensenius, a lightning safety specialist with the National Lightning Safety Council.
Internationally, Brazil had more total lightning than any other place on the planet, with more than 225 million strikes in 2021. The U.S. comes in second, the Democratic Republic of Congo third, with Australia and China rounding out the top five. However, the most lightning density per square kilometer award went to Singapore.
The global trend getting the most attention is a dramatic surge of lightning in the Arctic. In the spring of 2021, a paper reported that lightning had tripled in the Arctic over the previous decade. Typically, lightning is rare in the Arctic compared to other parts of the world, in part because thunderstorms require heat, and most of the area is covered by ice and snow. Climate scientists attribute the increase to rapid warming related to climate change and an increasing loss of sea ice. Because the thunderstorms that generate bolts require heat to form, lightning strikes are one variable scientists use to track climate change.
"Going from Siberia into the Arctic Ocean and developing storms there is not very common," Vagasky explained. "But in 2021, north of 80 degrees north [latitude], so this is the very high reaches of the planet, we detected almost twice as much lightning as we did between 2011 and 2020."
Vagasky says experts around the world are monitoring the changes that indicate a warming trend in one of the coldest places on Earth is happening faster than in other locations around the globe.
"Monitoring what's happening in the Arctic is going to be critically important to understanding how [the] climate is changing."
A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 struck China's remote northwestern Qinghai province
The epicentre of the quake, which struck at about 1:45 am (1745 GMT) at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), was located about 140 kilometres north-northwest of the city of Xining, US seismologists said.
A 5.1-magnitude aftershock followed about 25 minutes later, USGS said.
The China Earthquake Networks Center put the magnitude at 6.9, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
"There is a low likelihood of casualties," USGS said in its assessment of the quake, adding that there however was a likelihood of "significant damage".
The US agency warned that "the population in this region resides in structures that are highly vulnerable to earthquake shaking, though some resistant structures exist".
The sparsely populated province is spread across the Tibetan plateau.
In 2010, a 6.9-magnitude quake in Qinghai left 3,000 people dead or missing.
bur-sst/ec
A year after Jan. 6 riot, Americans and Canadians agree U.S. democracy in peril: poll
By Sean Boynton Global News Posted January 6, 2022
One year after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, a majority of Americans and Canadians alike say democracy in the United States is under threat, a new poll suggests.
The poll, conducted by the Angus Reid Institute and released Thursday, also found stark differences in how the event is viewed by conservatives and liberals in both countries.
The divide is more severe in the U.S., where 68 per cent of respondents who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election disagree that the riots were an act of domestic terrorism — an opinion at odds with the FBI and other officials — while nearly three quarters still believe Trump won the election that he lost.
“There are only two (major) political parties in the U.S. … and this has become the narrative of one of those parties,” said Matthew Lebo, a political science professor at Western University who studies U.S. and Canadian politics. “You cannot have a democracy with only one party that believes in democracy.”
Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of the riots, which saw supporters of Trump violently storm the Capitol building and disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory the previous November. Seven people, including police officers, died during and after the siege.
Trump and his allies had spent months falsely declaring the election had been stolen from him, and had urged his supporters to “fight” at a rally held the morning of the attack.
Capitol riot: Merrick Garland says investigation continues, but ‘must collect the evidence’
A massive FBI investigation has resulted in criminal charges for over 725 people who participated in the riot, and a parallel investigation by U.S. lawmakers is looking into what Trump and his allies knew before and on Jan. 6 — as well as whether Trump stood by and did nothing as the riot unfolded.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday that more than 325 of those rioters face felony charges, and vowed to hold all “perpetrators” accountable — suggesting organizers of the earlier rally could face scrutiny.
For the poll, Angus Reid surveyed over 1,000 Americans and more than 1,000 Canadians online over two days just before the end of 2021.
It found that a quarter of American respondents view the riots as a genuine attempt to defend American democracy, with 15 per cent going further by blaming foreign powers for orchestrating it. A quarter of Americans also believe the riots were a fiction created by the media, the poll suggests.
Overall, just under 60 per cent of Americans who responded to the survey said they agree the riots were an act of domestic terrorism. Among Biden voters, 92 per cent agreed.
Canadians view the riots more negatively, although political divisions were also found north of the border. Three-quarters of Canadian respondents said “domestic terrorism” was an appropriate label, with nearly all Liberal and NDP voters agreeing. One-third of Conservatives disagreed.
Yet Lebo says even the most extreme Conservative voters still believe in Canadian democracy, making the likelihood of a similar riot at the Parliament buildings unlikely.
“They may dislike (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau and they may dislike Liberal politics, but I don’t think that they see the system as fundamentally against them,” he said.
“Remember, it didn’t just take Donald Trump to get the United States to 2020. It took several decades of slow, democratic decline in lots of American institutions, undermining trust in government. That’s not even remotely happening to the same degree in Canada.”
Evidence grows suggesting Trump stood by as Capitol riot unfolded
The poll found an almost equal number of Canadians and Americans — just over 60 per cent — agreeing that the U.S. is no longer a good example of democracy in the world. Yet among Americans, the sentiment was shared by more Trump voters (69 per cent) than Biden voters (56 per cent).
Recent polling by Ipsos in the U.S. found similar sentiments. An NPR/Ipsos poll conducted around the same time as Angus Reid’s found 64 per cent of respondents agreeing American democracy is in crisis and at risk of failing. A separate poll by Ipsos for ABC News suggests even more Americans — 72 per cent — said democracy was threatened specifically by the rioters at the Capitol.
Last November, the Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance added the U.S. to its annual list of “backsliding democracies” for the first time, highlighting a “visible deterioration” it said began at least in 2019.
Lebo pinpoints the start of that decline even earlier, when sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act were repealed by the Supreme Court in 2013.
Since then, Republican state lawmakers have pursued election law reforms that allow them more control over the certification of Electoral College votes, while making it harder for people to cast a ballot in some states.
As those efforts continue — while a majority of the party’s voters continue to believe Trump’s lies about the election — Lebo says the next several years could see democracy backslide even further.
“I’m 51, and I don’t expect it to to be fixed in my lifetime,” he said.
“Until Republicans realize that pursuing this rhetoric and undermining democracy is a losing electoral strategy, this is going to continue. But right now, they’re having to play to where their voters are. And they want Trump back in power at all costs.” The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Dec. 29- 30, 2021 among a representative randomized sample of 1,035 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. ARI conducted an additional online survey from Dec. 29-30, 2021 among a representative randomized sample of 1,025 American adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by ARI. Detailed tables are found at the end of this release.
AMERIKA IS AN ARYAN NATION ‘Hatred in the eyes’: How racist rage animated Jan. 6 riots By FARNOUSH AMIRI 1 of 4
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., speaks during an interview Nov. 12, 2021, in Northwoods, Mo. Bush is no stranger to protests. She spent years marching the streets of St. Louis and Ferguson, Mo., rising to public office on the strength of her activism. But as she looked out the window of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, only her third day as a member of Congress, she knew what was about to take place would be no peaceful protest. The Confederate flags in the crowd, and the makeshift noose and gallows erected on the Capitol grounds, spoke to a more sinister reality. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Cori Bush is no stranger to protests. She spent years marching the streets of St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri, rising to public office on the strength of her activism.
But as the Missouri Democrat looked out the window of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — only her third day as a member of Congress — she knew what was about to take place would be no peaceful protest. The Confederate flags in the crowd, and the makeshift noose and gallows erected on the Capitol grounds, spoke to a more sinister reality.
“I’ve been to hundreds of protests and have organized so many protests, I can’t count. I know what a protest is: This is not that,” Bush, who is Black, said recently in an interview with The Associated Press.
The insurrection by pro-Trump supporters and members of far-right groups shattered the sense of security that many had long felt at the Capitol as rioters forcibly delayed the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
But for people of color, including many in Congress, the attack was more than a violent challenge to a free and fair election — it was an eerily familiar display of white supremacist violence, this time at the very seat of American democracy.
“First of all, as a Black woman, that is already just tough on a level that’s different from what a white person would experience,” Bush said of the imagery and rhetoric surrounding the attack, especially the Confederate flag that was carried by a rioter inside the Capitol. “But it’s especially different for Black people because of our history. The history of this country has been that type of language and imagery is directed right at us in a very negative and oftentimes violent way.”
While Bush managed to escape the Capitol and barricade with her staff in her office in a nearby building, dozens of police officers faced down the violent mob in hours of frantic hand-to-hand combat. More than 100 officers were injured, some severely.
A group of officers testified to Congress in July about the physical and verbal abuse they faced from supporters of former President Donald Trump. Harry Dunn, a Black officer, recalled an exchange he had with rioters who disputed that Biden defeated Trump.
When Dunn said that he had voted for Biden and that his vote should be counted, a crowd began hurling a racial slur at him.
“One woman in a pink MAGA (Make America Great Again) shirt yelled, ‘You hear that guys, this n—- voted for Joe Biden!’” said Dunn, who has served more than a dozen years on the Capitol Police force.
“Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in, screaming, ‘Boo! F—-ing n—-!’” he testified. He said no one had ever called him the N-word while he was in uniform.
Later that night, Dunn said, he sat in the Capitol Rotunda and wept.
Meanwhile, as the attack unfolded at the Capitol, a handful of lawmakers remained trapped in the House and Senate galleries with no escape as rioters fought to break in.
After a gunshot killing Ashli Babbitt, who was among the rioters and attempting to leap through a broken window, rang out in the House chamber, Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado decided the best thing members could do was take off their congressional pins identifying them as lawmakers.
But for lawmakers of color like Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., removing the pin was not an option.
“I thought there’s no way I’m taking off my pin. Because it was either you get recognized by the insurrectionist or you don’t get recognized by Capitol Police as a brown woman or Black woman,” Jayapal told the AP in December.
She added: “And so many of the members of color that I know did not take off their pins.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the panel investigating Jan. 6 and among those stuck in the gallery, said that day specifically brought back “unpleasant experiences” from his early days as a Black politician in Mississippi.
“I saw the kind of hatred in the eyes of the people who broke in the Capitol. It was that same kind of hatred I saw in people who wanted to stop people of color from casting a ballot for the candidate of their choice in Mississippi,” Thompson said.
In the aftermath of the attack, Crow and other white lawmakers reckoned with the experiences their colleagues of color faced that day. Crow told his Democratic colleague Rep. Val Demings, a Black former Orlando police chief who was also trapped in the gallery, that he didn’t realize at the time how difficult it would be for members of color to disguise themselves from the mob.
“Jason shared after all of it with me that for him — these are his words — as a white male he could take off his pin, or he could keep his pin and run over to the other side with the Republicans and stand there and people may not know the difference,” Demings said.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., also reflected on his ability to blend in more easily.
“I think to myself, well, if I need to, I can untuck my shirt, I can throw my jacket away. I’m a white guy,” Himes said. “There’s actually a reasonable probability that I get through this crowd, right? In retrospect, I reflected on the fact that that was not true for Ilhan Omar,” he said, referring to the Black Democrat from Minnesota.
Crow himself called the interaction that day a “learning moment.”
“It wasn’t until that day when I was on the receiving end of the violence of white supremacy in our nation that I understood,” he said.
The attack finally ended and the Capitol was secured. The rioters were allowed to peacefully leave the complex and lawmakers who stayed to finish the certification of the election went home. The images that surfaced online and on television showed the Capitol’s janitorial staff, the majority of them people of color, sweeping the broken glass and scrubbing the walls.
Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., joined them, getting on his hands and knees to pick up water bottles, clothing, Trump flags and U.S. flags. The son of Korean immigrants and, in 2018, the first Asian American to represent New Jersey in Congress, Kim reflected at the time how he, a person of color, was cleaning up after people who waved white supremacist symbols like the Confederate flag during the melee.
While he hadn’t considered race at the time, Kim told the AP shortly after the attack, “It’s so hard because we don’t look at each other and see each other as Americans first.”
___
Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
Millhaven inmates held hunger strike in protest of possible move within the prison
By Paul Soucy Global News Posted January 7, 2022 Inmates at Millhaven Institution recently held a hunger strike in protest of a possible move to a different range. Nick Westoll / Global News
A group of inmates at Millhaven Institution held a hunger strike this week in protest of a potential move to a different ward.
Correctional Services Canada confirmed this in an email to Global News.
According to CSC, there is a construction project taking place at the prison, which would have required inmates to be temporarily relocated, however, the inmates had concerns over potential exposure to COVID-19.
There are currently four cases of the virus within the prison’s inmate population.
According to CSC, contact tracing is ongoing and testing is being offered to inmates and staff.
Woman raises concerns about conditions in Millhaven Institution during hot weather
Woman raises concerns about conditions in Millhaven Institution during hot weather – Jul 15, 2020
The construction project that led to the hunger strike included upgrades to the lights, fire detection system and other maintenance work that is also taking place in each of the other ranges.
In the end, after meeting with the inmates, CSC decided against moving them.
ALDERSON, WV (WOAY) – Friends and families of the women at Alderson Federal Prison say their loved ones are suffering.
They had a peaceful protest Wednesday in downtown Alderson, due to a rampant COVID-19 outbreak and short supply of staff. These friends and families claim authorities don’t seem to care.
Velma Bowens, a friend of some of the inmates and former inmate, herself, says through the limited contact the inmates are able to have with the outside, they report nearly 165 cases of COVID and conditions that are only getting worse.
“They’re not following CDC guidelines there, the staff is not wearing masks, the inmates have to buy their own meds, and at one point, they have cut the commissary down to $25, which is not a lot to buy personal items plus your own meds,” Bowens says.
Friends and loved ones have tried to reach out to various authority figures within and outside of the prison, but to no avail.
A mother of one of the inmates, Anita Remme, says that even despite some of the health conditions being dire, the inmates continue to receive no proper medical treatment or attention.
“My daughter, for one, has COVID and has had to go to the hospital, has been on oxygen, and passed out three times before she even ever got care,” says Remme. “There’s another lady up there who is a Diabetic and they don’t have needles to give her insulin. They’re not providing the proper healthcare to help these women get over it.”
Loved ones say visitation to the prison stopped in March of 2020. Once the Cares Act was put in place to potentially get inmates out, reports of guards instigating fights with the inmates started to come about. They claim the guards would write the inmates up, ensuring they cannot leave.
The loved ones of the inmates now feel that releasing them is the only logical step left to take.
“If they’re at a camp, there are a few reasons why they’re there. It’s white-collar crime most of the time, or they have worked themselves down with good behavior to get there if they’re at a camp, they basically just need to be at home,” Bowens says.
With such bad conditions, the friends and families want their loved ones in the prison to be able to go home and be put on house arrest for the remainder of their sentence.
After the friends and families started making the community aware of the ongoing issue at the prison, they are now receiving more responses from people wanting to help.
They plan to continue the protests until the issue is finally heard by the prison authorities.
World passes 300 million COVID cases as Omicron breaks records
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient, emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML
The total number of COVID-19 cases registered worldwide passed 300 million on Friday, with the Omicron variant's rapid spread setting new infection records in dozens of countries over the last week.
In the past seven days, 34 countries have recorded their highest number of weekly cases since the start of the pandemic, including 18 nations in Europe and seven in Africa, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
While far more contagious than previous coronavirus variants, Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than its predecessors.
Even as it spurred the world to record 13.5 million cases in the last week alone—64 percent higher than the previous seven days—the global average of deaths dropped three percent.
France's public health authority said Friday that the risk of hospitalisation was about 70 percent lower for Omicron, citing data from the US, the UK, Canada and Israel.
However with a global average of two million new cases being detected daily, experts warn the sheer numbers threaten to overwhelm health systems.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Omicron should not be categorised as mild, as it "is hospitalising people and it is killing people".
"In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick, that it is overwhelming health systems around the world."
'Here to stay'
Omicron's dizzying spread since being detected six weeks ago has prompted many nations to push harder for more vaccinations and some to clamp down with restrictions.
Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday that access to the country's bars and restaurants will be limited to those who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from the virus and can also provide a negative test result.
However, people who have received a booster shot will be exempted from the test requirement.
In neighbouring Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer meanwhile tested positive for COVID.
"No cause for worry, I'm fine," he said. "I continue to plead: get vaccinated."
In the United States, challenges against vaccine mandates imposed by the administration of President Joseph Biden were heard by the Supreme Court on Friday.
The mandates, requiring COVID jabs at businesses that employ 100 people, have come under attack from some Republican lawmakers and business owners as an infringement on individual rights and an abuse of government power.
But Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan asked: "Why isn't this necessary to abate the grave risk?"
"It is by far the greatest public health danger that this country has faced in the last century," she added.
As cases skyrocket in the US—which also broke its daily caseload record this week—Biden said that COVID "as we are dealing with it now is not here to stay".
"But having COVID in the environment—here and in the world—is probably here to stay."
In France, President Emmanuel Macron stood by controversial comments in which vowed to "piss off" unvaccinated people until they get jabbed.
"People can get upset about a way of speaking that seems colloquial, but I fully stand by it," he said, adding: "I'm upset about the situation we're in".
Men's tennis world number one Novak Djokovic has been at the centre of his own controversy after being dramatically refused entry to play in Australia due to his vaccine status.
From inside a Melbourne immigration detention facility pending an appeal, Djokovic posted on Instagram his thanks to "people around the world for your continuous support".
'Superspreader'
In India, Omicron-led rising case numbers have brought fears of a return to the country's darkest pandemic days last year, when thousands were dying of COVID every day.
Gautam Menon, a professor at India's Ashoka University who has worked on COVID infection modelling, told AFP that "this could potentially stress out health care systems to levels comparable to or worse than the second wave".
However Calcutta's High Court rejected a bid to cancel a major Hindu festival, despite fears the virus could spread rapidly among the 500,000 expected attendees.
"People from all states in the country will attend the religious festival and take a holy dip," environmentalist Subhash Dutta told AFP.
INDIA Lessons forgotten: Election rallies feed Indian virus surge By SHEIKH SAALIQ 1 of 7
FILE - A crowd of supporters gather to listen to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he lays the foundation stone of Major Dhyan Chand Sports University in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh state on Jan. 2, 2022. Coronavirus cases fueled by the highly transmissible omicron variant have rocketed through India and the country is scrambling to ward off its impact by swiftly introducing a string of restrictions that the population thought were history. But India’s political leaders, including Modi, have largely flouted some of these guidelines and traversed cities in a massive campaign trail ahead of crucial state polls, addressing packed rallies of tens of thousands of people without masks.
(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File)
NEW DELHI (AP) — Coronavirus cases fueled by the highly transmissible omicron variant are rocketing through India, prompting the federal government and states to swiftly reintroduce a string of restrictions.
Night curfews are back. Restaurants and bars are running at half their capacity. Some states have closed schools and movie theaters. Large gatherings are to be downsized.
But India’s political leaders are busy on the campaign trail ahead of crucial state polls, addressing packed rallies of tens of thousands of people, many without masks.
The scenes are strikingly similar to last year’s election season, when the delta variant ravaged the country and made India one of the world’s worst-hit countries. Some political parties have begun to curtail their campaigns and halt a few rallies, but health experts worry that the lessons learned last year have already been forgotten.
“The highly transmissible omicron variant chases and catches you. But our politicians are out there to welcome it with a hug,” said Dr. T. Jacob John, an Indian virologist. “I fear it is beginning to look a lot like last year.”
A devastating surge of infections tore through India last year. It was partly fed by large crowds at election rallies, where politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often appeared without masks and addressed teeming crowds.s
That surge left the country’s health system battered, with people begging for oxygen and hospital beds. Crematoriums ran out of space. Daily deaths crossed 4,000 during the peak of the crisis, with at least 200,000 people dying between March and May, a number widely believed to be a vast undercount.
Health officials say the new surge is causing fewer deaths and many cases are asymptomatic. But they warn against taking the omicron variant too lightly, and say that numerous cases, even if milder, could still pressure the country’s fragile health system.
Overall, new daily cases have increased nearly fourfold in the last week. Hospital admissions are rising and medical staff in some states have been asked to cut short their winter holidays.
Cities are experiencing a massive surge, with Mumbai, India’s financial capital, surpassing its previous highest daily count. New COVID-19 cases in five states immersed in election campaigning — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur — have shot up.
On Saturday, the health ministry said more than 141,986 cases were reported in the previous 24 hours, nearly a 21% increase from the previous day.
Health experts say increased social contact at packed election rallies is feeding the virus spread.
“The transmission chains that started at the beginning of the year due to these rallies will take months to burn out,” John, the virologist, said.
Over the past few weeks, Modi has addressed huge gatherings in several cities, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state which is ruled by his Bharatiya Janata Party. The party’s political opponents have also hit the campaign trail, flouting health guidelines.
Earlier this week, the Congress party organized a marathon in which thousands of people ran without masks and were packed so tightly that they collapsed onto each other. The chief minister of New Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, contracted the virus after he was seen maskless while leading political rallies in multiple states.
With health experts warning of a rapid growth in infections, and data suggesting they are spreading faster than during the peak of last year’s surge, several political parties have started a course correction.
The Congress party said it is stopping political rallies in Uttar Pradesh and switching to virtual campaigning. A few other parties, including Modi’s, have followed suit. It’s unclear, however, whether they will cancel all future rallies.
The dates of the elections have not yet been announced but are expected in February or March.
On Wednesday, V.K. Paul, a doctor working with the government on its coronavirus response, said it was likely that “systems will be overwhelmed.” He said restricting political activities and rallies was a decision the Election Commission needed to make.
The Election Commission has deflected that call, saying political parties want the rallies to go forward.
S.Y. Quraishi, a former chief of the Election Commission, said campaigning could be banned or restricted if the commission wanted to do so.
“But they lack the will,” Quraishi said. “What’s the point in banning rallies after the virus has already spread through the entire country?”
John, the virologist, said officials in states with upcoming elections are being inconsistent by imposing curfews and restrictions on everyday gatherings but allowing large election rallies to be held.
“The government has once again sent out a message that politics is more important than health,” he said.
NO DISTRIBUTION EFFORT Florida's Desantis: 'Lack of demand' reason 1M COVID-19 tests expired By UPI Staff Governor Ron DeSantis acknowledged this week that between 800,000 and 1 million COVID-19 tests sat expired in a state warehouse because of a "lack of demand." File Photo By Gary I Rothstein/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Florida governor Ron DeSantis said Friday that 1 million COVID-19 test kits expired because of a lack of demand in the state in September, October and November.
There was widespread desire for tests in December as COVID-19 case counts in the state skyrocketed and lines for tests stretched for hours, but Guthrie and DeSantis said there hadn't been a demand for them.
The comment came as the governor announced a plan to get 1 million tests to distributed to Florida's seniors.
"Having a stockpile was the right thing to do," Desantis said Friday during a press conference in Lake Butler, Fla.
"We just had a lack of demand that happened in September, October, November. Nobody was requesting them. They would've been used had we had Omicron then," Desantis said.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried accused the governor of stockpiling soon-to-be-expired tests, an allegation DeSantis's office called "bizarre."
DeSantis said Thursday that there wasn't adequate staff on hand to distribute the tests.
Testing sites across the state have been overwhelmed for weeks with people looking to get screened for COVID-19 because of the contagious Omicron variant.
