-The Hindu Despite the debilitating pandemic, state investment in the health sector remains deeply inadequate. On May 18 this year, India recorded 4,529 deaths from COVID-19, the highest daily death toll recorded in the world after the United States in January saw 4,468 deaths. As India combats the pandemic, its neighbours are experiencing spillover from the menacing second wave. The virus has swept through Nepal, while Sri Lanka added as many as...

-The Hindu The acronym ‘DOTS’ is a framework to understand the dynamics of the second wave, thereby helping mitigate the next After a long and painful month-and-a-half, confirmed cases of COVID-19 in India have been declining steadily for more than a month. Deaths have started to decrease as well. However, it is a long way down from an unprecedented peak of more than 400,000 daily cases, and the suffering will continue for...

-Moneycontrol.com Jean Dreze, the Belgian-born hunger economics expert, on the devastation of Covid, what plagues MNREGA, central government’s relief measures, stimulus packages, vaccination drive and more. The big lesson from the havoc wrought by Covid-19 is that India must abandon the “fragmented” US model of healthcare, which is a colossal failure, according to developmental economist Jean Dreze. A Belgian-born hunger economics expert who has co-authored books with Nobel laureates Amartya Sen and...

-ThePrint.in A flawed procurement process has resulted in hospitals getting cheap ventilators, many of which are unusable, say doctors even in BJP-ruled states. Maharashtra was witnessing an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths when 150 ventilators arrived at the Government Medical College and Hospital in Aurangabad in the third week of April. The Union health ministry had sent them. The hospital further distributed the machines to other district and private hospitals in...

-IndiaSpend.com The government has said that the economic impact from the second Covid-19 wave will be less than that of the first. But economists point to signs of a growing rural economic crisis, and call for urgent relief measures to ward off long-term damage. Siolim, Goa: Ramesh Ram, 31, is listed as a textile industry staff worker in the administration's database of migrant workers in south west Bihar's Kaimur district. But for...