Scientists say India government ignored warnings amid coronavirus surge

A patient breathes with the help of oxygen provided by a Gurdwara, a place of worship for Sikhs, under a tent installed along the roadside amid Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Ghaziabad on May 1, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 02 May 2021
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Scientists say India government ignored warnings amid coronavirus surge

  • The warning about the new variant in early March was issued by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium, or INSACOG

NEW DELHI: A forum of scientific advisers set up by the government warned Indian officials in early March of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold in the country, five scientists who are part of the forum told Reuters.
Despite the warning, four of the scientists said the federal government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. Millions of largely unmasked people attended religious festivals and political rallies that were held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition politicians.
Tens of thousands of farmers, meanwhile, continued to camp on the edge of New Delhi protesting Modi’s agricultural policy changes.
The world’s second-most populous country is now struggling to contain a second wave of infections much more severe than its first last year, which some scientists say is being accelerated by the new variant and another variant first detected in Britain. India reported 386,452 new cases on Friday, a global record.
The spike in infections is India’s biggest crisis since Modi took office in 2014. It remains to be seen how his handling of it might affect Modi or his party politically. The next general election is due in 2024. Voting in the most recent local elections was largely completed before the scale of the new surge in infections became apparent.
The warning about the new variant in early March was issued by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium, or INSACOG. It was conveyed to a top official who reports directly to the prime minister, according to one of the scientists, the director of a research center in northern India who spoke on condition of anonymity. Reuters could not determine whether the INSACOG findings were passed on to Modi himself.
Modi’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
INSACOG was set up as a forum of scientific advisers by the government in late December specifically to detect genomic variants of the coronavirus that might threaten public health. INSACOG brings together 10 national laboratories capable of studying virus variants.
INSACOG researchers first detected B.1.617, which is now known as the Indian variant of the virus, as early as February, Ajay Parida, director of the state-run Institute of Life Sciences and a member of INSACOG, told Reuters.
INSACOG shared its findings with the health ministry’s National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) before March 10, warning that infections could quickly increase in parts of the country, the director of the northern India research center told Reuters. The findings were then passed on to the Indian health ministry, this person said. The health ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Around that date, INSACOG began to prepare a draft media statement for the health ministry. A version of that draft, seen by Reuters, set out the forum’s findings: the new Indian variant had two significant mutations to the portion of the virus that attaches to human cells, and it had been traced in 15% to 20% of samples from Maharashtra, India’s worst-affected state.
The draft statement said that the mutations, called E484Q and L452R, were of “high concern.” It said “there is data of E484Q mutant viruses escaping highly neutralising antibodies in cultures, and there is data that L452R mutation was responsible for both increased transmissibility and immune escape.”
In other words, essentially, this meant that mutated versions of the virus could more easily enter a human cell and counter a person’s immune response to it.
The ministry made the findings public about two weeks later, on March 24, when it issued a statement to the media that did not include the words “high concern.” The statement said only that more problematic variants required following measures already underway — increased testing and quarantine. Testing has since nearly doubled to 1.9 million tests a day.
Asked why the government did not respond more forcefully to the findings, for example by restricting large gatherings, Shahid Jameel, chair of the scientific advisory group of INSACOG, said he was concerned that authorities were not paying enough attention to the evidence as they set policy.
“Policy has to be based on evidence and not the other way around,” he told Reuters. “I am worried that science was not taken into account to drive policy. But I know where my jurisdiction stops. As scientists we provide the evidence, policymaking is the job of the government.”
The northern India research center director told Reuters the draft media release was sent to the most senior bureaucrat in the country, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, who reports directly to the prime minister. Reuters was unable to learn whether Modi or his office were informed of the findings. Gauba did not respond to a request for comment.
The government took no steps to prevent gatherings that might hasten the spread of the new variant, as new infections quadrupled by April 1 from a month earlier.
Modi, some of his top lieutenants, and dozens of other politicians, including opposition figures, held rallies across the country for local elections throughout March and into April.
The government also allowed the weeks-long Kumbh Mela religious festival, attended by millions of Hindus, to proceed from mid-March. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of farmers were allowed to remain camped on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi to protest against new agriculture laws.
To be sure, some scientists say the surge was much larger than expected and the setback cannot be pinned on political leadership alone. “There is no point blaming the government,” Saumitra Das, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, which is part of INSACOG, told Reuters.

STRICT MEASURES NOT TAKEN
INSACOG reports to the National Center for Disease Control in New Delhi. NCDC director Sujeet Kumar Singh recently told a private online gathering that strict lockdown measures had been needed in early April, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by Reuters.
“The exact time, as per our thinking, was 15 days before,” Singh said in the April 19 meeting, referring to the need for stricter lockdown measures.
Singh did not say during the meeting whether he warned the government directly of the need for action at that time. Singh declined to comment to Reuters.
Singh told the April 19 gathering that more recently, he had relayed the urgency of the matter to government officials.
“It was highlighted very, very clearly that unless drastic measures are taken now, it will be too late to prevent the mortality which we are going to see,” said Singh, referring to a meeting which took place on April 18. He did not identify which government officials were in the meeting or describe their seniority.
Singh said some government officials in the meeting worried that mid-sized towns could see law and order problems as essential medical supplies like oxygen ran out, a scenario that has already begun to play out in parts of India.
The need for urgent action was also expressed the week before by the National Task Force for COVID-19, a group of 21 experts and government officials set up last April to provide scientific and technical guidance to the health ministry on the pandemic. It is chaired by V.K. Paul, Modi’s top coronavirus adviser.
The group had a discussion on April 15 and “unanimously agreed that the situation is serious and that we should not hesitate in imposing lockdowns,” said one scientist who took part.
Paul was present at the discussion, according to the scientist. Reuters could not determine if Paul relayed the group’s conclusion to Modi. Paul did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Two days after Singh’s April 18 warning to government officials, Modi addressed the nation on April 20, arguing against lockdowns. He said a lockdown should be the last resort in fighting the virus. India’s two-month-long national lockdown a year ago put millions out of work and devastated the economy.
“We have to save the country from lockdowns. I would also request the states to use lockdowns as the last option,” Modi said. “We have to try our best to avoid lockdowns and focus on micro-containment zones,” he said, referring to small, localized lockdowns imposed by authorities to control outbreaks.
India’s state governments have wide latitude in setting health policy for their regions, and some have acted independently to try to control the spread of the virus.
Maharashtra, the country’s second-most populous state, which includes Mumbai, imposed tough restrictions such as office and store closures early in April as hospitals ran out of beds, oxygen and medicines. It imposed a full lockdown on April 14.

‘TICKING TIME BOMB’
The Indian variant has now reached at least 17 countries including Britain, Switzerland and Iran, leading several governments to close their borders to people traveling from India.
The World Health Organization has not declared the India mutant a “variant of concern,” as it has done for variants first detected in Britain, Brazil, and South Africa. But the WHO said on April 27 that its early modelling, based on genome sequencing, suggested that B.1.617 had a higher growth rate than other variants circulating in India.
The UK variant, called B.1.1.7, was also detected in India by January, including in the northern state of Punjab, a major epicenter for the farmers’ protests, Anurag Agrawal, a senior INSACOG scientist, told Reuters.
The NCDC and some INSACOG laboratories determined that a massive spike in cases in Punjab was caused by the UK variant, according to a statement issued by Punjab’s state government on March 23.
Punjab imposed a lockdown from March 23. But thousands of farmers from the state remained at protest camps on the outskirts of Delhi, many moving back and forth between the two places before the restrictions began.
“It was a ticking time bomb,” said Agrawal, who is director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, which has studied some samples from Punjab. “It was a matter of an explosion, and public gatherings is a huge problem in a time of pandemic. And B.1.1.7 is a really bad variant in terms of spreading potential.”
By April 7, more than two weeks after Punjab’s announcement on the UK variant, cases of coronavirus began rising sharply in Delhi. Within days, hospital beds, critical care facilities, and medical oxygen began running out in the city. At some hospitals, patients died gasping for air before they could be treated. The city’s crematoriums overflowed with dead bodies.
Delhi is now suffering one of the worst infection rates in the country, with more than three out of every 10 tests positive for the virus.
India overall has reported more than 300,000 infections a day for the past nine days, the worst streak anywhere in the world since the pandemic began. Deaths have surged, too, with the total exceeding 200,000 this week.
Agrawal and two other senior government scientists told Reuters that federal health authorities and local Delhi officials should have been better prepared after seeing what the variants had done in Maharashtra and Punjab. Reuters could not determine what specific warnings were issued to whom about preparing for a huge surge.
“We are in a very grave situation,” said Shanta Dutta, a medical research scientist at the state-run National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases. “People listen to politicians more than scientists.”
Rakesh Mishra, director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, which is part of INSACOG, said the country’s scientific community was dejected.
“We could have done better, our science could have been given more significance,” he told Reuters. “What we observed in whatever little way, that should have been used better.”


Trump plays golf in Scotland while protesters take to the streets and decry his visit

Updated 2 sec ago
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Trump plays golf in Scotland while protesters take to the streets and decry his visit

EDINBURGH: President Donald Trump played golf Saturday at his course on Scotland’s coast while protesters around the country took to the streets to decry his visit and accuse United Kingdom leaders of pandering to the American.
Trump and his son Eric played with the US ambassador to Britain, Warren Stephens, near Turnberry, a historic course that the Trump family’s company took over in 2014. Security was tight, and protesters kept at a distance went unseen by the group during Trump’s round. He was dressed in black, with a white “USA” cap, and was spotted driving a golf cart.
The president appeared to play an opening nine holes, stop for lunch, then head out for nine more. By the middle of the afternoon, plainclothes security officials began leaving, suggesting Trump was done for the day.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the cobblestone and tree-lined street in front of the US Consulate about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital. Speakers told the crowd that Trump was not welcome and criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for striking a recent trade deal to avoid stiff US tariffs on goods imported from the UK
Protests were planned in other cities as environmental activists, opponents of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and pro-Ukraine groups loosely formed a “Stop Trump Coalition.” Anita Bhadani, an organizer, said the protests were “kind of like a carnival of resistance.”
Trump’s late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and the president has suggested he feels at home in the country. But the protesters did their best to change that.
“I don’t think I could just stand by and not do anything,” said Amy White, 15, of Edinburgh, who attended with her parents. She held a cardboard sign that said “We don’t negotiate with fascists.” She said ”so many people here loathe him. We’re not divided. We’re not divided by religion, or race or political allegiance, we’re just here together because we hate him.”
Other demonstrators held signs of pictures with Trump and Jeffrey Epstein as the fervor over files in the case has increasingly frustrated the president.
In the view of Mark Gorman, 63, of Edinburgh, “the vast majority of Scots have this sort of feeling about Trump that, even though he has Scottish roots, he’s a disgrace.” Gorman, who works in advertising, said he came out “because I have deep disdain for Donald Trump and everything that he stands for.”
Saturday’s protests were not nearly as large as the throngs that demonstrated across Scotland when Trump played at Turnberry during his first term in 2018.
But, as bagpipes played, people chanted “Trump Out!” and raised dozens of homemade signs that said things like “No red carpet for dictators,” “We don’t want you here” and “Stop Trump. Migrants welcome.”
One dog had a sign that said “No treats for tyrants.”
Some on the far right took to social media to call for gatherings supporting Trump in places such as Glasgow.
Trump also plans to talk trade with Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. But golf is a major focus.
The family will also visit another Trump course near Aberdeen in northeastern Scotland, before returning to Washington on Tuesday. The Trumps will cut the ribbon and play a new, second course in that area, which officially opens to the public next month.
Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who is also set to meet with Trump during the visit, announced that public money will go to staging the 2025 Nexo Championship, previously known as the Scottish Championship, at Trump’s first course near Aberdeen next month.
“The Scottish Government recognizes the importance and benefits of golf and golf events, including boosting tourism and our economy,” Swinney said.
At a protest Saturday in Aberdeen, Scottish Parliament member Maggie Chapman told the crowd of hundreds: “We stand in solidarity, not only against Trump but against everything he and his politics stand for.”
The president has long lobbied for Turnberry to host the British Open, which it has not done since he took over ownership.
In a social media post Saturday, Trump quoted the retired golfer Gary Player as saying Turnberry was among the “Top Five Greatest Golf Courses” he had played in as a professional. The president, in the post, misspelled the city where his golf course is located.

US passenger plane evacuated in Denver due to brake fire

Updated 15 min 4 sec ago
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US passenger plane evacuated in Denver due to brake fire

WASHINGTON: Passengers on a US domestic flight were forced to evacuate onto a runway due to a brake fire just ahead of the plane taking off in Denver, the airline said.
American Airlines Flight 3023 was departing for Miami on Saturday but “experienced a mechanical issue” while accelerating ahead of takeoff at Denver International Airport, the airline told AFP, adding all 173 passengers and six crew “deplaned safely.”
One passenger sustained a minor injury and was taken to a hospital for evaluation, American Airlines said.
Blown tires and the deceleration of the plane while braking resulted in an isolated brake fire, which was extinguished by city firefighters, according to the airline.
Social media videos published by US media outlets showed passengers frantically evacuating an American Airlines plane via an emergency slide as smoke billowed from beneath the aircraft.
A man held a child as they rushed down the slide, stumbling as he hit the ground.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement that the crew onboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane “reported a possible landing gear incident during departure” at around 2:45 p.m. Saturday.
The FAA said it was investigating the incident.
It occurred just a day after a Southwest Airlines flight plunged mid-air to avoid colliding with another aircraft while en route to Las Vegas, injuring two flight attendants.
The latest scare adds to growing concerns over aviation safety in the United States after a string of recent accidents and near misses.
In January, a mid-air collision between a commercial aircraft approaching Ronald Reagan Airport near downtown Washington and a military helicopter killed 67 people.
In May, US President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans to overhaul its “antiquated” air traffic control system, which suffers from a shortage of controllers in FAA-managed towers.
The government has laid off hundreds of FAA employees as part of its plan to slash the federal workforce.


Greece gets EU help to battle disastrous wildfires

Updated 27 July 2025
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Greece gets EU help to battle disastrous wildfires

  • Five fires are still raging Sunday morning in the Peloponnese area west of the capital
  • There also also active fires on the islands of Evia, Kythera and Crete

ATHENS: Greece battled wildfires that have ravaged homes and sparked evacuations for a second day on Sunday, with the help of Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft expected to arrive later.

Five fires were still raging Sunday morning in the Peloponnese area west of the capital, as well as on the islands of Evia, Kythera and Crete, with aircraft and helicopters resuming their work in several parts of the country at dawn.

“Today is expected to be a difficult day with a very high risk of fire, almost throughout the territory,” fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said Sunday, though he added that the situation was improving.

Forecasters predicted the strong winds that have fanned the flames would die down on Sunday in most areas but warned that Kythera, a popular tourist island with 3,600 inhabitants, continued to face “worrying” windy conditions.

Evacuation messages were sent to people on the island, which lies off the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese, early on Sunday as the fire raged unabated.

“Houses, beehives, olive trees have been burnt,” Giorgos Komninos, deputy mayor of Kythera, told state-run ERT News channel.

“A monastery is in direct danger right now,” he said, adding that half of the island had been burnt.

Dozens of firefighters supported by three helicopters and two aircraft were battling the Kythera blaze, which erupted Saturday morning and forced the evacuation of a popular tourist beach.

Greece had earlier requested help from EU allies and two Italian aircraft were expected Sunday, according to the fire brigade, with units from the Czech Republic already at work.

Eleven regions of Greece still face a very high fire risk, according to officials.

Firefighters are working in several areas of the Peloponnese and there were numerous flare-ups overnight on the island of Evia, near Athens, where the flames have laid waste to swathes of forest and killed thousands of farm animals.

Workers have toiled since dawn to repair serious damage to Evia’s electricity network and some villages were facing problems with water supply.

Further south on Crete, reports said fires that broke out on Saturday afternoon and destroyed four houses and a church and largely been contained.

In Kryoneri north of Athens, police were reportedly bolstering security as fears grow that looters could target houses abandoned by residents fleeing a fire that erupted on Saturday afternoon but was mostly contained on Sunday.

“We are fighting here. What can we do,” asked Kryoneri Giorgos, wearing a mask to protect himself from the smoke.

He said on Saturday afternoon he and others were battling to save “the work of a lifetime.”

“By the time I got here the flames were already up here. It all happened so fast,” said Alexandros Andonopoulos, who rushed from Athens to the village.

“Fortunately the firemen arrived quickly.”

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote on social media that anyone who lost possessions “should know that the state will be by their side.”

He said Saturday was a “titanic” struggle but “the picture today looks better and the battle continues with all available resources.”

Greece has endured heatwave conditions for almost a week, with temperatures passing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in many areas.

On Saturday, the temperature reached 45.2C in Amfilohia, in western Greece.

The extreme heat is expected to die down from Monday.

Last month, fires on Greece’s fifth-biggest island Chios, in the northern Aegean, destroyed 4,700 hectares of land, while early July a wildfire on Crete forced the evacuation of 5,000 people.

The most destructive year for wildfires in the country that is deemed a climate change hotspot, was 2023, when nearly 175,000 hectares were lost and there were 20 deaths.

Greece, like many countries is experiencing hotter summers stoked by human-induced climate change, which increases the length, frequency and intensity of wildfires.


Russian navy parade canceled for ‘security reasons’

Updated 27 July 2025
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Russian navy parade canceled for ‘security reasons’

  • The parade was meant to be the highlight of Russia’s Navy Day, which falls on the last Sunday of July each year and honors the country’s sailors

MOSCOW: Russia said on Sunday a major annual navy parade had been canceled for “security reasons,” without specifying the threat or concern.
“It has to do with the general situation. Security reasons are of utmost importance,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by Russian news agencies.
The parade was meant to be the highlight of Russia’s Navy Day, which falls on the last Sunday of July each year and honors the country’s sailors.
But local authorities in the coastal city of Saint Petersburg, where the warships and submarines were scheduled to pass, said on Friday the parade had been canceled without giving a reason.
Russian President Vladimir Putin — who re-established Navy Day in 2017, nearly four decades after it was canceled in Soviet times — did not show up in person this year for the first time.
Instead, he appeared in a video message hailing the “bravery” and “heroism” of Russia’s sailors participating in the offensive in Ukraine.
Russia, which launched its military operation on Ukraine in February 2022 with daily bombardments of its neighbor, has faced retaliatory Ukrainian drone strikes on its territory in recent months.
The Russian defense ministry said on Sunday that 100 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight.
At least 10 of them were intercepted not far from Saint Petersburg and a woman was wounded, the governor for the northwestern Leningrad region, Aleksandr Drozdenko, said on Telegram.
That drone assault also disrupted operations at Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, delaying dozens of flights, the facility’s authorities said.


Questions swell in Eswatini over five men deported from US

Updated 27 July 2025
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Questions swell in Eswatini over five men deported from US

  • The five nationals of Vietnam, Laos, Yemen, Cuba and Jamaica, were flown to Eswatini’s administrative capital of Mbabane on a US military plane and incarcerated after US authorities labelled them “criminal illegal aliens”

MBABANE: In the small African kingdom of Eswatini, the arrival of five men deported from the United States under Washington’s aggressive anti-immigrant measures has sparked a rare wave of public dissent.
The five, nationals of Vietnam, Laos, Yemen, Cuba and Jamaica, were flown to Eswatini’s administrative capital of Mbabane on July 16 on a US military plane and incarcerated after US authorities labelled them “criminal illegal aliens.”
The US Department of Homeland Security said the men were convicted of violent crimes “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”
The government of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, has confirmed their presence.
But spokesman Thabile Mdluli said they would not stay permanently, and “will be repatriated in due course to their different countries.”
That assurance, though, has not quelled a tide of questions and concerns that has risen within the kingdom about the operation.
Civic and rights groups are wondering whether further deportees from the United States will arrive, and what rights the five men detained have.
Public outrage at the lack of transparency led to 150 women protesting outside the US embassy in Mbabane on Friday.
The protest, organized by the Eswatini Women’s Movement, demanded the prisoners be returned to the United States and queried the legal basis Eswatini relied on to accept them.
The five men are being held in the Matsapha Correctional Center, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Mbabane.
The facility, notorious for holding political prisoners and overcrowding, has been undergoing renovations and expansions since 2018, reportedly funded by the United States as part of a program covering all 14 of the country’s penal centers.


Sources within the penitentiary administration said the men were being held in solitary confinement in a high-security section of the facility, with their requests to make phone calls being denied.
The sources said the men have access to medical care and the same meals as the thousand other inmates, as well as a toilet, shower and television in their cells.
Prime Minister Russell Dlamini has dismissed calls by lawmakers and from other quarters for the secrecy surrounding the agreement with Washington to be lifted.
“Not every decision or agreement is supposed to be publicly shared,” he said.
Eswatini is the second African country to receive such deportees from the United States, after South Sudan earlier this month accepted eight individuals.
The situation has sparked concerns about the potential implications for Eswatini, a country already grappling with its own challenges under the absolute monarchy of King Mswati III.
The 57-year-old ruler has been criticized for his lavish lifestyle and has faced accusations of human rights violations.
US President Donald Trump has used the threat of high tariffs against other countries, such as Colombia, to coerce them to take in people deported from America.
Eswatini is currently facing a baseline US tariff of 10 percent — less than the 30 percent levelled at neighboring South Africa — which the government has said will negatively impact the economy.
Trump has directed federal agencies to work hard on his campaign promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States.
His government has turned to so-called third-country deportations in cases where the home nations of some of those targeted for removal refuse to accept them.
Rights experts have warned the US deportations risk breaking international law by sending people to nations where they face the risk of torture, abduction and other abuses.