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COVID leaves Indians with mounting medical debt
In May, as India's new COVID-19 cases broke global records to reach 400,000 a day, Saurav was put on a ventilator. [...] Sharma exhausted his savings paying for an ambulance, tests, medicines and an ICU bed. Then he took out bank loans.As the costs mounted, he borrowed from friends and relatives. Then he turned to strangers, pleading online for help on Ketto, an Indian crowdfunding website. Overall, Sharma says he has paid more than $50,000 in medical bills. [...] Even before the pandemic, healthcare access in India was a problem. Indians pay about 63 percent of their medical expenses out-of-pocket. That is typical of many poor countries [BWAH!] with inadequate government services.
South Korea's health ministry said they have been informed about a production issue with the Moderna vaccine, potentially causing a dent in the country's vaccination drive.
PFIZERLEAK: EXPOSING THE PFIZER MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLY AGREEMENT, alleged
Rockwell said all countries agreed on the need to ramp up production quickly, but disagreed on how best to achieve the goal.
[WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell] said there was surplus capacity in Senegal, Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Thailand, Morocco and Egypt, but while they might have untapped expertise, they would need to have technology and know-how on producing Covid-19 vaccines. [...] Rockwell said the opponents of the idea included European countries, Japan and South Korea.... The negotiations have hit a few particular sticking points, notably the duration of the waiver, the scope in terms of products covered and the TRIPS provisions. Other tricky areas include implementation, and the protection of ["]undisclosed information["], said Rockwell.
Tokyo reported 2,848 new Covid-19 cases, exceeding its earlier record of 2,520 daily cases on Jan. 7. That brings its total to more than 200,000 since the pandemic began last year. Suga's government has been criticized for what some say is prioritizing the Olympics over the nation's health. His public support ratings have fallen [BWAH!] to around 30% in recent media surveys, and there is little festivity surrounding the Games. ... Japan's vaccination drive began late and slowly, but picked up dramatically in May for several weeks as the supply of imported vaccines stabilized and the government pushed to inoculate more people before the Olympics. The government says 25.5% of Japanese have been fully vaccinated, still way short of the level believed to have any meaningful impact on reducing the risk for the general population.
The government says 25.5% of Japanese have been fully vaccinated, still way short of the level believed to have any meaningful impact on reducing the risk for the general population.
The document was first published by the Albanian independent media outlet Gogo.al back in January, but came to prominence in the Anglosphere three days ago, when Twitter user Ehden posted a long thread breaking down its contents. His account has since been "limited" (we've all been there), but you can read his blog here. [...] Stronger evidence can be found on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Health, where they have a (heavily redacted) copy of their "REAL-WORLD EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE COLLABORATION AGREEMENT" with Pfizer (we downloaded a copy of that too, just in case.)
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