At the Serum Institute of India on Monday. (Photo: Reuters)
While the chances that an affordable Covid-19 vaccine will be available by February next year may seem high, 59 percent of the more than 8,900 who responded to a survey question said they won’t rush to take it, according to the survey findings released Tuesday.
The online survey was conducted between November 23 and 30 by LocalCircles, a social media platform that has been collecting citizens’ opinions on various topics related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The online survey received more than 25,000 responses from 262 districts in India, of which 69% of respondents were male and 31% female. The survey responses were also compared to responses from a similar survey conducted in October.
RT-PCR tests: only 1,565 passengers screened, many escape at Mumbai airport
In the week since the Maharashtra government announced a mandatory Covid-19 RT-PCR test for passengers traveling from Delhi, Rajasthan, Goa and Gujarat, only 1,565 domestic passengers arriving at the airport have been tested. The new rule went into effect on November 25, but the limited staff at the airport cannot guarantee that everyone who arrives without a negative RT-PCR test report from their departure point will be screened.
On a daily basis, thousands of passengers who do not carry a negative RT-PCR report sneak away untested at the airport. Faced with 250-260 daily tests at the airport, the railroads are testing between 2,000 and 2,500 passengers arriving from these four states, but the number of passengers arriving by train is much higher.
Yoshihide Suga, Prime Minister of Japan, speaks during a plenary session in the upper house of parliament in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, November 30, 2020 (Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg).
Japan’s parliament passed a bill to provide coronavirus vaccines for free with the central government covering the cost, offering a key plan to stop the virus as the country struggles with its worst wave of infections yet. Wednesday’s approval in the upper house of parliament after passage in the more powerful lower house will put the law into effect. It also holds local governments responsible for administering vaccines, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
The move comes as a new wave of virus infections has prompted hardest-hit areas to ask bars and restaurants to close early, and forced Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to partially suspend a travel incentive program meant to shore up regional economies in suffering. While Japan’s death toll is by far the lowest of any advanced nation in the Group of Seven, the country suffered its worst economic recession on record in the April-June quarter.
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