7th April saw India face its largest 24 hour spike in covid cases as the active caseload topped 1 million, with 1,354 new deaths reported. This is the highest number of deaths since November 14th, when India had reported 1,326 deaths. Maharashtra remains the worst affected state with 96,000 new cases and the Maharashtra government is in talks with the Centre about the proposed state-wide lockdown which will see 11.5 crore people return to being confined to their homes for the first time since June last year. Health minister Harsh Vardhan attributes this massive surge in cases to the laxity and disregard amongst people for covid norms. “We had no intention of imposing a lockdown and were averse to the idea, but unfortunately the people have not cooperated with us and now must face the consequences. Life is something that cannot be gained back, once lost”, the minister said in a video conference interview session.
However, the process of implementing a lockdown does not appear to be easy this time as 25 million traders gathered and protested outside the Bombay High Court. They demanded that the government reverse its decision of ordering closure of non-essential shops. A trade union leader was quoted saying that if the government can hold political rallies and keep up their livelihood, why can’t the traders do the same, especially after a financially disastrous year. The government is yet to respond.
Meanwhile, an alarming new study conducted by AIIMS Madras showed in its early results that both the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines are potential blood clot factor pollutants. This means that the vaccines inhibit blood from clotting if a person gets wounded. This could offer extremely serious implications as tens of millions of Indians have already been administered at least one dose of either vaccine. Channel 46 has tried contacting Serum Institute India. They are yet to respond.
(Channel 46 is the first private news agency to receive and report this data directly from the Indian Government’s Covid Statistics Branch.)