The "unknown pneumonia in Kazakhstan caused 1,772 deaths in the first six months of the year, including 628 people in June alone", the Chinese embassy in the central Asian country said in a statement.
'Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease, it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country'
According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre, more than 4,000 people in the US have died due to COVID-19 and nearly 190,000 have been infected by it.
SEWA International, a leading Indian-American non-profit organisation, has so far raised more than $250,000 for its COVID-19 relief efforts. It is using the money to buy personal protective equipment's, in particular facial masks and surgical masks, to donate free to the local law enforcement officials and hospitals in some of the hot spot areas like New York, who have run out of these essential items.
'If you don't have a strong political leadership, however much expertise a country may have, in pandemic preparedness or infectious disease, will not matter.' 'It's really about having strong political leadership, that is proactive, that prioritises taking the right action.' 'And if you don't have that, then you will have a much worse pandemic experience.'
'Our drains are not filled with bodies, our hospitals not run out of beds.' 'That good news, or absence of expected bad news, is the truth that so many in the international community, and also within India, seem unable to handle,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
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