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WORLD NEWS Saturday 8 auguSt 2020
India surpasses 2 million cases as health volunteers strike

By EMILY SCHMALL "But ASHA workers don't
Associated Press have masks or PPEs or even
NEW DELHI (AP) — As India sanitizers," she said.
hit another grim milestone in She added that although
the coronavirus pandemic the work has increased and
on Friday, crossing 2 million become more dangerous,
confirmed cases and more their salaries remain static
than 41,000 deaths, com- at roughly 2,000 rupees
munity health volunteers ($27) per month And the
went on strike complaining families of at least a dozen
they were ill-equipped to women who she said died
respond to the wave of in- from the virus didn't receive
fection in rural areas. compensation from India's
Even as India has main- federal insurance for front-
tained comparatively low line health care workers
mortality rates, the dis- because their deaths were
ease has spread widely not recorded as COVID-19
across the country, with the deaths.
burden shifting in recent Manisha Verma, a spokes-
weeks from cities with ro- person for the Health Min-
bust health systems to rural istry, did not immediately
areas, where resources are respond to a request for
scarce or nonexistent. Health workers put on a protective suit before screening people for COVID-19 symptoms at a comment.
The Health Ministry re- residential building in Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, in Mumbai, India, Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. In Mumbai, the capital of
ported 62,538 cases in the Associated Press central Maharashtra state,
past 24 hours, raising the cases had plateaued after
nation's confirmed total to Life cautiously returned to India were reimposing lock- being roped in to help with months of steady growth.
2,027,074. It said 886 more the streets of the capital of downs after sharp spikes contact tracing, personal But rural parts were seeing
people had died, for a to- New Delhi and the finan- in cases, including in Uttar hygiene drives and in quar- an opposite trend.
tal of 41,585. cial hub Mumbai, which Pradesh, a state of 220 mil- antine centers, but weren't Dr. S.P. Kalantri, the director
But the ministry said that appear to have passed lion residents where infec- given personal protective of a hospital in the village
recoveries were growing. their peaks. tions in every district are equipment or additional of Sevagram in Maharash-
India has the third-highest In Mayur Vihar, a neighbor- weighing heavily on the pay, according to organiz- tra, about 74 kilometers (46
caseload in the world after hood in east Delhi, shop- fragile health system. After er A.R. Sindhu. miles) from the city of Nag-
the United States and Brazil. keeper and pharmacist fully reopening in June, the The health workers, known pur, said that younger peo-
It has the fifth-most deaths Rajiv Singhal described state reimposed a week- as Accredited Social ple were cavalier about so-
but its fatality rate of about the daily phone calls he end lockdown in July. Health Activists, or ASHA, cial distancing and masks.
2% is far lower than the top received when he tested Shachindra Sharma, a which means 'hope' in Fatigue and increased fa-
two hardest-hit countries. positive for COVID-19 from 60-year-old graphic de- several Indian languages, miliarity with the disease,
The rate in the U.S. is 3.3%, officials within the Delhi signer in the state capital have been deployed in which has been most fatal
and in Brazil 3.4%, Johns state government, the Del- of Lucknow, only leaves his each village on behalf of to Indians above the age
Hopkins University figures hi police and the federal house for a weekly grocery the Health Ministry. Their of 60 with comorbidities,
show. government to check on shop. work ranges from escorting had resulted in people not
The caseload in the coun- his condition. "I do not fear the disease children to immunization being as vigilant, he said.
try of 1.3 billion has quickly "Despite our huge popula- but I do fear the govern- clinics to counseling wom- "Everyone thinks it won't be
expanded since the gov- tion and rampant illitera- ment system, which has en on childbirth. them," he said.
ernment began lifting a cy, if we have only 2 mil- crumbled," he said. But while their regular work Like in much of the rest of
monthslong lockdown hop- lion cases so far, it shows Around 900,000 members hasn't reduced, they are the world, many Indians
ing to jump-start a mori- that the government has of an all-female commu- increasingly being involved appeared to be counting
bund economy. India is played a big role in reduc- nity health force began a by state governments in on a therapeutic treatment
projecting an economic ing the spread," he said. two-day strike on Friday, the fight against the pan- or a vaccine to contain the
contraction in 2020. But authorities elsewhere in protesting that they were demic, said Sindhu. spread of the disease.q

Alpine glacier in Italy threatens valley,

forces evacuations

ROME (AP) — Experts were critical for the Planpincieux cer field under a 80-meter
closely monitoring a Mont Glacier, which lies under (265-foot) high mass of ice.
Blanc glacier on Friday, a a massif on the Italian side Abrupt shifts in tempera-
day after they evacuated of Mont Blanc, the highest ture from hot to cold to hot
75 tourists and residents mountain in the Alps. again are being blamed
amid fears the glacier Those forced to evacuate for the precarious state of
could soon break apart came from homes and hol- the glacier, which Segor
and crash into a popular iday lodgings in the Ferret says has a stream of wa-
Italian Alpine valley. Valley in the shadow of the ter running beneath it. The
Valerio Segor, a glacier glacier. Tourists on Friday Corriere della Sera news- The Planpincieux glacier, located in the Alps on the Grande
expert in Valle d'Aosta, a were barred from entering paper quoted glacier ex- Jorasses peak of the Mont Blanc massif, is seen from the road
region in northwestern Ita- the scenic valley. pert Fabrizio Troilo as saying leading to the Val Ferret, a popular hiking area on the south side
of the Mont Blanc, near Courmayeur, northern Italy, Friday, Aug.
ly, told reporters on Friday The glacier's size has been there is "the danger it could 7, 2020.
that the next 72 hours were likened to that of a soc- give way in an instant."q Associated Press