Covid-19 and Vaccine News: Live Updates – The New York Times

India on Saturday reported a daily record of 145,384 new infections as Covid-19 raced out of control. Deaths, while still relatively low, are rising. Vaccinations, a mammoth task in such a large nation, are dangerously behind schedule. Hospital beds are running short.

Parts of the country are reinforcing lockdowns. Scientists are rushing to track new versions, including the more hazardous variants found in Britain and South Africa, that may be hastening the spread. But the authorities have declared contact tracing in some places to be simply impossible.

Complacency and government missteps have helped turned India from a seeming success story into one of the world’s worst-hit places, experts say. And epidemiologists warn that continuing failure in India would have global implications.

Proud Boys and other far-right groups raise millions via Christian funding site | The far right | The Guardian

Revealed: groups banned from other sites fundraising on GiveSendGo as data breach identifies high-dollar donors

A data breach from Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has revealed that millions of dollars have been raised on the site for far-right causes and groups, many of whom are banned from raising funds on other platforms.

Source: Proud Boys and other far-right groups raise millions via Christian funding site | The far right | The Guardian

Bolsonaro’s ‘genocidal’ Covid response has led to Brazilian catastrophe, Dilma Rousseff says | Brazil | The Guardian

Rousseff claimed Bolsonaro’s sabotaging of containment and vaccination efforts, refusal to order a lockdown and failure to offer adequate economic support to the poor had contributed to a tragedy of “catastrophic proportions”.

“I’m not saying Brazil wouldn’t have suffered deaths [with a different response] – all countries did,” she said. “I’m saying that part of the level of deaths here is fundamentally down to incorrect political decisions, which are still being taken.”

Brazil’s breakdown was also an international threat. “The absence of an effective fight against the pandemic [in Brazil] leads to something extremely serious: the emergence of the so-called new variants, which are highly infectious and have increased the number of deaths in neighbouring countries,” Rousseff said, pointing to how South American neighbours were closing their borders for fear of the more contagious P1 variant linked to Brazil’s Amazon.

Many critics now argue Bolsonaro’s actions amount to “genocide” – and Rousseff said she was among them.

“I use that word. What characterizes the act of genocide is when you play a deliberate role in the death of a population on a massive scale,” the 73-year-old said from her home in Porto Alegre, one of many cities where hospitals have been overwhelmed and doctors forced to play God.

Source: Bolsonaro’s ‘genocidal’ Covid response has led to Brazilian catastrophe, Dilma Rousseff says | Brazil | The Guardian

Coronavirus: US midwest sees signs of a new wave as hospitalisations soar | Michigan | The Guardian

In Michigan, hospitalisations have soared and intensive care beds are being rapidly filled. An average of 7,226 cases a day were confirmed in the state last week, according to Johns Hopkins University data, approaching record highs seen in November. Michigan’s public health system “is overwhelmed”, warned the state’s top medical official, Joneigh Khaldun.

The surge has prompted Governor Gretchen Whitmer to urge people to restrict activities and wear masks and for schools to halt in-person learning.

“A year in, we all know what works and this has to be a team effort,” the Democrat said. “We have to do this together. Lives depend on it.”

Source: Coronavirus: US midwest sees signs of a new wave as hospitalisations soar | Michigan | The Guardian

At Least 60 Killed During Myanmar Regime’s Massacre at Anti-Regime Strongholds

At least 60 people were gunned down in Bago Friday in a brutal assault on anti-regime strongholds by troops loyal to the military regime.

An accurate death toll was impossible, but the actual number of those killed was believed to be much higher…

However, local people said the number killed in Bago is likely to be much higher, perhaps more than 80.

Some of those wounded were taken away, and an accurate death toll was impossible because rescue workers were threatened with being shot if they ventured out. On Saturday, residents claimed that they saw piles of bodies at the town’s Sin Phyu Kwin cemetery.

Source: At Least 60 Killed During Myanmar Regime’s Massacre at Anti-Regime Strongholds

10th Day of April – Fatcowco – 1925 – The Great Gatsby is first published

1925 – The Great Gatsby is first published

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway’s interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby’s obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

1925 – The Great Gatsby is first published

After its publication by Scribner’s on 10th April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, bu some literary critics believed it did not hold up to Fitzgerald’s previous efforts and signaled the end of the author’s literary achievements.

Despite the warm critical reception, Gatsby was a commercial failure.

The book sold fewer than 20,000 copies by October, and Fitzgerald’s hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized.

Source: 10th Day of April – Fatcowco

AstraZeneca Vaccine and Blood Clots: What Is Known So Far – The New York Times (Me: 34 million shots(!) and 222 blood clots = over-reaction by bureaucrats…)

As of April 4, European regulators had received reports of 222 cases of the rare blood-clotting problem in Britain and the 30-nation European Economic Area (the European Union plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein). They said that about 34 million people had received the AstraZeneca vaccine in those countries, and that the clotting problems were appearing at a rate of about one in 100,000 recipients.