In the period between March and December 2020, twice as many years of life were lost in the poorest areas of the country compared with the wealthiest. Ethnic inequalities were a feature across all waves of the pandemic, with rates of death highest among the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities.
Though COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to decline over the past 4 weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) is tracking rises in two of its regions, South East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. In its weekly update today, it also noted rises in individual countries in other parts of the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week boosted the XBB.1.16 Omicron subvariant to a variant of interest (VOI) from a variant under monitoring (VUM), based on the latest assessments from its technical advisory group on virus evolution.
The subvariant is fueling India's biggest surge in about 7 months, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported another jump in the proportion of XBB.1.16 viruses.
Experts often cite mistrust of the government as a key reason certain communities have suffered disproportionately during deadly outbreaks, including Ebola and Covid-19. Mistrust is a serious problem in a pandemic if it prevents people from obeying health recommendations, seeking medical care and accepting vaccines.
