Saudi Arabia joins other Arab countries in helping Tunisia, which is facing the collapse of its health care system, including Egypt, Algeria, UAE, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar.

The Saudi Press Agency said on Monday the aid also includes 190 respirators and other equipment.

“We are in a catastrophic situation … the health system has collapsed, we can only find a bed in hospitals with great difficulty,” said health ministry spokesperson Nisaf Ben Alaya.

Intensive care units are full and there is a severe shortage of oxygen, officials said.

The latest aid brings to 2 million vaccine doses donated to Tunisia, where vaccinations lag far behind other countries. So far, only 730,000 people have been fully vaccinated out of a total of 11.6 million residents.

Tunisia recorded 106 deaths on Monday and reported 4,300 new coronavirus cases.

The total number of coronavirus cases so far in the country has climbed to more than 500,000, with about 16,500 deaths.

Max Healthcare, which runs a network of hospitals in north India, tweeted that it had less than two hours of oxygen left while Fortis Healthcare, another big chain, said it was suspending new admissions in Delhi.

“We are running on backup, waiting for supplies since morning,” Fortis said.

India is in the grip of a rampaging second wave of the pandemic, hitting a rate of one COVID-19 death in just under every four minutes in Delhi as the capital’s underfunded health system buckles.

The government has deployed military planes and trains to get oxygen to Delhi from the far corners of the country and overseas including Singapore.

The number of cases across the country of around 1.3 billion rose overnight by 346,786, the Health Ministry said, for a total of 16.6 million cases, including 189,544 deaths.

COVID-19 deaths rose by 2,624 over the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate for the country so far. Crematoriums across Delhi said they were full up and asked grieving families to wait.

Hospitals in Delhi have gone to the city’s high court this week seeking it to order the state and federal governments to make emergency arrangements for medical supplies, mainly oxygen.

“It’s a tsunami. How are we trying to build capacity?” the Delhi high court asked the state and federal governments in response to this plea.

Television showed families tending to the sick in hospital corridors and streets as they waited for medical attention.

One man identified as Amit who was grieving for his brother at Delhi’s Jaipur Golden hospital said he had seen families running around with oxygen cylinders trying to get them refilled.

“You can’t leave me in the lurch,” a lawyer appearing for the Jaipur Golden hospital told the high court on Saturday, seeking its intervention.

The court asked the government to ensure supplies, as well to make security arrangements for medical centres amid people’s desperation.

“We know how people react, let’s not have a law and order situation,” the court said in its direction to the authorities.

India surpassed the U.S. record of 297,430 single-day infections anywhere in the world on Thursday, making it the global epicentre of a pandemic that is waning in many other countries.

Winter Easing

The federal government had declared it had beaten back the coronavirus in February.

Health experts said India became complacent in the winter, when new cases were running at about 10,000 a day and seemed to be under control. Authorities lifted restrictions, allowing for the resumption of big gatherings.

Others said that it could also be a more dangerous variant of the virus coursing through India. It is the world’s second most populous country and people live in close proximity, often six to a room.

“While complacency in adhering to masks and physical distancing might have played a role, it seems increasingly likely that this second wave has been fuelled by a much more virulent strain,” wrote Vikram Patel, Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School, in the Indian Express.

Experts say the only way India can turn the tide is to ramp up vaccinations and impose strict lockdowns in the so-called red zones of high infection. It has opened up the immunisation programme to all adults but faces a shortage.

India is currently using the AstraZeneca shot and homegrown Covaxin. It has also approved Russia’s Sputnik V and has urged Pfizer Moderna and Johnson and Johnson to provide it with vaccines.

Khamenei’s ruling apparatus is deeply concerned about losing its sovereignty…

While the COVID-19 epidemic still plagues the world and most countries have devoted almost all their energy, effort, and resources to fight the virus by vaccinating or quarantining all or parts of their country and population, Iran’s situation is quite different.

Most countries have even abandoned political considerations to obtain the vaccine from wherever possible and give priority to the welfare of their people. For example, Germany and Austria, while members of the European Union, are independently negotiating the purchase of the Russian vaccine, and Italy has signed a contract to produce the Russian vaccine in its own country. While, in Iran, with a population of nearly 83 million people, fewer than one percent of the population has been able to receive even the first dose of a vaccine.

Some countries have largely succeeded in promoting general vaccination in their own country. For example, the UAE has vaccinated 80%, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia between 40% and 50% of their population. In Turkey, with a population similar to Iran, according to Iranian regime officials, the first dose of the vaccine has reached 8,711,271 people and 6,731,876 people have received both doses. That is, 10.4% of people have received the first dose, and 8% the second.

In comparison, many fewer than one million people have received the first dose of the vaccine in Iran. Nevertheless, despite these alarming statistics, Iran continues to postpone vaccine imports. Khamenei has banned the import of the reputable American Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which provide the highest degree of immunity.

The question is, why is Iran not able, or willing to vaccinate its population, and what are the obstacles? To answer this question, we must understand Khamenei’s mindset regarding the Coronavirus. Khamenei, who has an iron grasp on all the internal and international affairs of Iran, is well aware of the dire economic and living conditions of the people, the rampant inflation, government’s corruption, poverty, high unemployment and the ever-increasing dissatisfaction of the people towards the regime. By disallowing the vaccine’s purchase, Khamenei is trying to create a defensive shield against popular uprisings and preserve the regime’s survival.

On the other hand, by signing a secret and non-transparent contract with Cuba, Hassan Rouhani’s government has started to vaccinate 30,000 municipal workers, who are among the country’s most deprived members of society, with the Cuban vaccine which is still in a pilot phase. Meanwhile, the country’s medical staff, who are at the highest risk of contracting the disease, and many of whom have died due to the disease, have not yet been vaccinated.

Of course, the reason is clear; the medical staff know about the different kinds of injectable vaccines, their safety and effectiveness. Unlike the medical staff, the deprived members of society are typically not aware of the reality that in fact the human testing phase of this vaccine is being performed on them.

The ignoring of the medical staff by the government does not end here, many nurses do not even receive their monthly salaries on time, and this has led to many of them protesting and being subject to harsh treatment and arrest in response. Many also have left the country searching for work in other countries that recognize and appreciate the value and important role of their medical staff.

Meanwhile, according to reliable sources, more than 240,000 people in Iran have fallen victim to this disease and lost their lives. But the regime has blatantly lied by announcing the number of deaths to be about a quarter of the real number. It is almost shocking to see that, despite the fact that in the past few months several hundred ordinary people have been victims of this disease every day, none of the high-ranking officials of the country have been infected, let alone died as a result of it.

Khamenei and Rouhani spent months in quarantine. On rare occasions, Khamenei was seen performing religious ceremonies alone, without anyone else in attendance, which the people ridiculed. Similarly, Rouhani held cabinet meetings online and did not meet even with any of his ministers in person. Recently, they have both been appearing in public quite often, without even wearing a mask. This is clear evidence of them having been vaccinated, but they do not confess to that.

Of course, one of the reasons for this catastrophic situation of the outbreak of Corona in Iran, which is one of the wealthiest countries in the world with the largest oil and gas reserves and other underground resources, is the colossal government corruption. Iran’s leaders’ intentions are to become richer and fund their expansionist intentions by supporting proxy groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

Furthermore, the government is talking about privatizing some of the vaccine imports. This will facilitate the regime’s affiliates acquiring funding from the government, importing vaccines from abroad, and selling them to ordinary people and hospitals at much higher prices. Khamenei’s ruling apparatus is deeply concerned about losing its sovereignty. He plans to oust the incumbent president in June in a show of force and to consolidate his rule. As a result, he wants to make the most of this disease. He wants to continue to expose the people to the virus until the elections are held and use this as a pretext for preventing any large-scale protests and rallies .

Khamenei understands fully that any controversy regarding the upcoming presidential election in Iran could be instrumental in forming widespread demonstrations throughout Iran, similar to the ones in 2019, and this could lead to the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime, hence his cynical use of the virus situation for his own ends. 

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the middle east countries in general and Iran in particular.

“I feel guilty, I feel very sad, because I want all my family safe,” Daiq told.

As a Palestinian living in Jerusalem, Ismail Daiq is used to negotiating the dividing lines between communities: the daily commute to his Jordan Valley date farm involves crossing a checkpoint on his way home.

Now the coronavirus pandemic has created another faultline for him to navigate: the stark difference between access to vaccines in Israel and in the Palestinian territories.

Living within the Israeli health system, Daiq, 62, has already received his second COVID-19 vaccination in a country that is a leader in the world’s inoculation drive.

But his Palestinian siblings and 95-year-old mother in Jericho are still awaiting a vaccine rollout that has only just begun under the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited sovereignty in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Daiq is eligible for vaccination because he became a Jerusalem resident two decades ago when he married a woman from the city.

The rest of his family, friends and employees do not qualify, because they only have West Bank identity papers that do not let them pass through the Israeli checkpoints that control entry to the city.

So when the date farmer travels each day into the Palestinian territories, he is uncomfortably aware that while he feels safe, his loved ones are still at risk from the virus.

“I feel guilty, I feel very sad, because I want all my family safe,” Daiq told Reuters.

“When you see that you can get these services, the vaccination, and all of the family, they can’t get this vaccination, you feel that there is a difference between you and your family.”

Although Israel and the Palestinian Authority coordinate on security issues, political relations have foundered. Negotiations last broke down in 2014.

In January, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry accused Israel of ignoring its duties as an occupying power by not including Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in their inoculation programme.

Israeli officials have said that this is the job of the Palestinian authorities.

“If it is the responsibility of the Israeli health minister to take care of the Palestinians, what exactly is the responsibility of the Palestinian health minister?” Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told the BBC last month.

While Israel has so far vaccinated a third of its 9 million citizens, the Palestinian Authority received its first batch of 2,000 vaccines – supplied by Israel – on Monday. West Bank health workers received the first shots.

Daiq said he tried to avoid the subject with his family, because his mother kept asking him when she would be inoculated.

His brother Ibrahim, 60, said that he wished good health to “every person on this land” but that there was a sense of unfairness among Palestinians.

“Because of this, my natural rights as a human being, me and the rest of the people living in the West Bank and Gaza, considering we are a country living under occupation, we should also have the right to benefit from this vaccination.”

The West Bank, where 3.1 million Palestinians live, has reported 101,221 coronavirus cases, with 1,271 deaths. Gaza, with a population of two million, has registered more than 51,000 cases with 523 deaths. Israel has reported 663,665 coronavirus cases and 4,888 deaths.

Hossein Salami said on October 31 on state-run TV that the plan would-be set-in motion on November 10. The IRGC commander used the word “attack” to describe the plan.   

“We will attack the places where the coronavirus is located and has created a platform for distribution”, Salami said.

The IRGC Commander in Chief said the Basij would go “house to house” and quarantine infected people. He also said 54,000 local Basij bases would take part in the plan.

In a report by the state-run Mehr News Agency, Iran’s Interior Minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on October 31 that the “plan of comprehensive screening and identification” of COVID-19 patients should be “implemented as a priority”.

“We need to identify anyone infected with the virus and those they were in contact with”, Rahmani Fazli said.

According to Rahmani Fazli, the plan is to “reduce the number of people who come to hospitals”.

Following the announcement, Iranians took to Twitter to express their suspicions over the plan.

Iranians accused the regime of using the COVID-19 plan as a pretext to attack homes and suppress further anti-government protests. They also mocked the IRGC commander for using the word “attack” to refer to anti-COVID measures.

One Twitter user said, “attacking the places where the coronavirus is located” was synonymous to “attacking the gathering places of protesters“, and that “stopping the spread of the virus” actually meant “we will carry out maneuvers in the key points of the city” to intimidate would be protesters.   

Another Twitter user said with this plan “anyone protesting on the streets will be attacked (with a bullet) for being infected with and spreading the virus, and will die because of the severity of the disease. And those who have a less severe case of the virus will be transferred to quarantine centers (Tehran’s Evin prison)”.

Another user tweeted, “They want to attack residencies with the coronavirus, and who knows who they want to suppress under the pretext of fighting the virus.”

“The regime has listened to Khamenei about November 2019 protests when he said they should not have let the protests get out of hand. They don’t want to face Iranians on the streets, and these are preemptive measures to stifle any movement at the source”, another tweet said.

Around 1,500 volunteers equipped with face masks, hand disinfectant and tracking gadgets attended an indoor concert in Germany on Saturday as part of a study to simulate how the novel coronavirus spreads in large gatherings.

As part of the so-called Restart19 study, researchers from the University Medical Center in Halle want to find out how cultural and sporting events can safely take place without posing a risk to the population.

Volunteers were handed protective facemasks of the type typically used in hospitals and bottles of flurorescent hand sanitizer at the concert of German singer-songwriter Tim Bendzko in an indoor arena in Leipzig.

“I am extremely satisfied with the discipline displayed by the participants,” Stefan Moritz, the head of the study, told a news conference after the concert. “I was surprised how disciplined everyone was in wearing masks.”

He said results of the study, which is being financed by the states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, were expected in 4-6 weeks.

The participants were also given contact tracers to help track the distance between concertgoers and to identify in which parts of the arena, such as entrance halls and grandstands, people might crowd too closely together.

Researchers asked participants to regularly disinfect their hands using the fluorescent sanitiser so scientists can identify – with the help of ultra-violet light – which surfaces are touched frequently and pose a risk for spreading the virus.

Sporting events such as Liverpool’s Champions League soccer match against Atletico Madrid and the Cheltenham Festival, a horseracing event, in Britain in March have been blamed for playing a role in spreading COVID-19.

Most events with big crowds have been put on hold.

A decision to grant approval for a concert of German singer Sarah Connor with 13,000 attendees on Sept. 4 in Duesseldorf has faced sharp criticism by virologists and local politicians.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday it saw no evidence of coronavirus being spread by food or packaging and urged people not to be afraid of the virus entering the food chain.

Two cities in China said they had found traces of the coronavirus in imported frozen chicken wings from Brazil and on outer packaging of frozen Ecuadorian shrimp, raising fears that contaminated food shipments might cause a new outbreak.

“People should not fear food, or food packaging or processing or delivery of food,” WHO head of emergencies programme Mike Ryan told a briefing in Geneva. “There is no evidence that food or the food chain is participating in transmission of this virus. And people should feel comfortable and safe.”

WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said China had tested hundreds of thousands of packages and “found very, very few, less than 10” proving positive for the virus.

Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry said in a statement that it was seeking clarification on the Chinese findings. Ecuador’s production minister, Ivan Ontaneda, told Reuters that the country maintains strict protocols and cannot be held responsible for what happens to goods after they leave the country.

More than 20.69 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and almost 750,000​ have died, according to a Reuters tally.

The WHO urged countries now that are striking bilateral deals for vaccines not to abandon multilateral efforts, since vaccinating pockets will still leave the world vulnerable.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had become the first country to grant regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing, a move Moscow likened to its success in the Cold War-era space race.

Moscow’s decision to grant approval before then has raised concerns among some experts. Only about 10% of clinical trials are successful and some scientists fear Moscow may be putting national prestige before safety.

The WHO does not have enough information to make a judgment on the expanded use of the Russian vaccine, said Bruce Aylward, WHO senior adviser.

“The vast majority of the population of the world is susceptible to this disease,” he told the briefing. “The second thing that we are seeing is the stringency of the application of control measures is dropping. People are coming closer together…masks aren’t being used the way that they should etc.

“So any levelling of the disease that we are looking at is just lulling you into a sense of false security … because it has lots of space to still cause trouble,” Aylward added.

His comments were echoed by Danny Altmann, a professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, who said the “collateral damage” from deploying any vaccine that is not yet known to be safe and effective “would exacerbate our current problems insurmountably”.

Even as Russia declared victory, more than half a dozen drugmakers around the world are in the process of conducting large-scale, advanced human trials of their potential COVID-19 vaccines, each with tens of thousands of volunteer participants.

Several of these frontrunners, including Moderna (MRNA.O), Pfizer (PFE.N) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L), say they hope to know if their vaccines work and are safe by the end of this year.

All are expected to publish their trial results and safety data and submit them to regulators in the United States, Europe and elsewhere for scrutiny before any licence could be granted.

The Russian vaccine’s approval by the Health Ministry comes before trials that would normally involve thousands of participants, commonly known as a Phase III trial. Such trials are usually considered essential precursors for a vaccine to secure regulatory approval.

Peter Kremsner, an expert at Germany’s University Hospital in Tuebingen who is working on clinical trials of a vaccine candidate from CureVac, said Russia’s move was “reckless”.

“Normally you need a large number of people to be tested before you approve a vaccine,” he said. “I think it’s reckless to do that if lots of people haven’t already been tested.”

Experts said the lack of published data on Russia’s vaccine – including how it is made and details on safety, immune response and whether it can prevent COVID-19 infection – leaves scientists, health authorities and the public in the dark.

“It is not possible to know if the Russian vaccine has been shown to be effective without submission of scientific papers for analysis,” said Keith Neal, a specialist in the epidemiology of infectious diseases at Britain’s Nottingham University.

Around the world, politicians, drugmakers and regulators offer contradictory outlooks on when a COVID-19 vaccine will be ready. Much depends on what ‘ready’ means and for what group of people. Some key questions around the timeline are:

When we know a Vaccine works?

More than half a dozen drugmakrs around the world are conducting advanced clinical trials, each with tens of thousands of participants, and several expect to know if their COVID-19 vaccines work and are safe by the end of this year.

The most optimistic timeline comes from AstraZeneca Plc, which is running a study in Britain that it says could be completed as early as August.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, told Reuters last week that a trial by Moderna Inc could produce decisive results by November or December. Others will come later, some much later.

Some experts are skeptical that the trials, which must study potential side effects on different types of people, can be completed that quickly. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, says that collecting enough data to prove a vaccine is safe for the world could take until mid-2021.

When will the first shots be ready?

Several drugmakers are building manufacturing capacity so they can begin production as soon as vaccines are approved by regulators. Some efforts are backed by a U.S. government program called ‘Operation Warp Speed’.

Fauci told Reuters he expects “tens of millions” of doses to be available in early 2021, and that by the end of the year there could be more than a billion. That contrasts with more optimistic guidance from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said a vaccine could be ready before the Nov. 3 presidential election, though he did not define ‘ready’.

Several companies, including Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer Inc, say they each expect to make more than 1 billion doses next year. That could mean several billion available by the end of 2021.

When can I get it?

First supplies late this year or early next would likely go to those in rich nations who are deemed by governments to work in essential industries or who are at greatest risk from the virus. That is likely to include people with other issues such as diabetes, healthcare workers, and members of the military.

Countries including Canada, Japan, Britain, and the United States have locked in deals putting their citizens first in line for inoculations as they become broadly available during 2021.

Most vaccines are being tested as two shots given a month apart, giving full strength protection only after the second shot is administered.

When will the world be inoculated?

The wait time for COVID-19 vaccines will likely be longer for people in developing countries, which don’t have early supply deals. Some may struggle to pay for vaccines that could cost upwards of $40 per person, said Hotez.

“I am worried that Operation Warp Speed vaccines will not reach developing countries any time soon,” Hotez said.

Gavi, a vaccine alliance for developing countries, aims to secure 2 billion doses of vaccine in 2021, enough to inoculate the most vulnerable 20% of the population in poorer countries. Several manufacturers, including the Serum Institute of India, are preparing to manufacture for poor and middle-income countries.

Will I be able to get a Chinese Vaccine?

The Chinese government has authorized some experimental vaccines to be used in select patients outside of clinical trials, making it the first country to have vaccines authorized for wider use.

But they are unlikely to be available in the West any time soon. Domestic regulators would need to approve them, and clinical trials by Chinese companies outside of China are still ongoing.

What about Russia?

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had become the first country in the world to grant regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing.

The vaccine still has to complete final trials, raising concerns among some experts at the speed of its approval. Still, Russian business conglomerate Sistema has said it expects to put it into mass production by the end of the year.