The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) conducted a study following what it called “anecdotal reports about sudden unexplained deaths among apparently healthy adults” aged 18 to 45 between October 2021 and March 2023.

“We found no evidence of a positive association of COVID-19 vaccination with unexplained sudden death among young adults,” the research group said in a study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.

“At the same time, family history of sudden death, hospitalisation for COVID-19 and lifestyle behaviours such as recent binge drinking and vigorous-intensity physical activity were risk factors for unexplained sudden death.”

ICMR researchers identified 29,171 sudden deaths and scrutinised the records of 729 of the cases as well as 2,916 “control” subjects as part of their investigation, the group said.

Government data shows India suffered 45 million COVID infections and 533,295 related deaths but experts say the actual numbers are several times higher.

Many Indian hospitals ran out of beds during the peak of the COVID crisis and many people died at home.

In a statement, the ministry said there was a “moderate rise” in hospitalisations due to a number of COVID variants found both in Israel and around the world.

“Ahead of the holidays and as a result of increased morbidity, the health ministry recommends people in at-risk groups or those who want to limit the risk of infection wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces.”

Large family gatherings are common during the Jewish holiday season, which begins on Sept. 15 and extends over about a month.

The ministry said it was soon preparing to issue vaccines that target new subvariants.

COVID infections and hospitalisations have been on the rise in the U.S., Europe and Asia but are well below previous peaks. Israel is among six countries where a highly mutated COVID variant called BA.2.86 has been detected, but which scientists have said is unlikely to lead to a devastating wave of severe disease and death.

That has led to frustration and complaints of uneven treatment among some residents.

Beijing stepped up quarantine efforts to end its month-old COVID outbreak as fresh signs of frustration emerged in Shanghai, where some bemoaned unfair curbs with the city of 25 million preparing to lift a prolonged lockdown in just over a week.

Even as China’s drastic attempts to eradicate COVID entirely – its “zero-COVID” approach – bite into prospects for the world’s second-biggest economy, new reported infection numbers remain well below levels seen in many Western cities. The capital reported 48 new cases for Monday among its population of 22 million, with Shanghai reporting fewer than 500.

Still, Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called for more thorough measures to cut virus transmission and adhere to the nation’s zero-COVID policy during an inspection tour in Beijing, state agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday.

The situation in Beijing was manageable, but containment efforts cannot ease, she said, according to Xinhua.

In one example of the stringency of Beijing’s approach, around 1,800 people in one city neighbourhood were relocated to Zhangjiakou city in the nearby Hebei province for quarantine, the state-backed Beijing Daily reported.

Still in place are instructions for residents in six of the capital’s 16 districts to work from home, while a further three districts encouraged people to follow such measures, with each district responsible for implementing its own guidelines.

Beijing had already reduced public transport, requesting some shopping malls and other venues to close and sealing buildings where new cases were detected.

In Shanghai, authorities plan to keep most restrictions in place this month, before a more complete lifting of the two-month-old lockdown from June 1. Even then, public venues will have to cap people flows at 75% of capacity.

Let’s Strike

With Shanghai officially declared to be a zero-COVID city, some authorities allowed more people to leave their homes for brief periods over the past week, and more supermarkets and pharmacies were authorised to reopen and provide deliveries.

But other lower-level officials separately tightened restrictions in some neighbourhoods, ordering residents back indoors to cement progress achieved so far during the city’s final lap towards exiting the lockdown.

That has led to frustration and complaints of uneven treatment among some residents.

While the zero-COVID status describes the entire city, and residents in some compounds have been allowed to move in and out of their homes freely, others have been told they can only go out for a few hours, and many of those stuck indoors were told nothing.

Videos circulating on social media this week showed residents arguing with officials to be let out of their residential compounds.

The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

One resident told Reuters people in his compound decided on the WeChat social media platform to go out in groups.

“Let’s strike at our gate tonight to demand that we be allowed to go out like many of other compounds in the neighbourhood,” he quoted one of his neighbours as saying in the group chat.

A video he shared then showed a group of people arguing at the entrance of the compound with a man who described himself as a sub-district official, who asked the residents to go back inside and discuss the situation.

“Don’t bother with him,” one person said as some people were socialising outside the compound.

People in at least two other compounds were planning to try going outside despite not being told they were allowed to do so, residents said.

Economic Respite?

At a time when most other countries are moving to models of living with the virus, China’s COVID measures are inflicting damage on its economy, as well as disrupting global supply chains.

Many analysts expect the economy to shrink in the second quarter, even if the overall COVID situation across China and economic activity has improved this month when compared with April. 

To support the economy, China will broaden tax credit rebates, postpone social security payments by small firms and loan repayments and roll out new investment projects among other steps, state television quoted the cabinet as saying.

In one positive signal for Shanghai, electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA.O) plans to reach on Tuesday production levels similar to those before the lockdown at its plant in the city, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

Nomura analysts estimate 26 Chinese cities were implementing full or partial lockdowns or other COVID measures as of May 23, accounting for 208 million people and 20.5% of China’s economic output. That would be down from 271 million the week before and 27% of output.

“But to us, this is merely a respite instead of a turning point,” the analysts wrote in a note. They said passing a turning point would depend exclusively on an exit from the zero-COVID strategy, and not so much on daily case numbers and monthly activity data.

In the southern city of Shenzhen, five passengers who arrived on Wednesday, on a flight from Los Angeles, tested positive for coronavirus, and three were confirmed to be Omicron infections on Dec. 24, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Xian, which started a new round of mass testing on Saturday, has announced no infections caused by the Omicron variant. Nationwide, China has reported a handful of Omicron infections among international travellers and in southern China.

Xian’s locally transmitted symptomatic cases, at 330 for the Dec. 9-24 period, are few compared with outbreaks in many other countries, but the city has imposed heavy-handed measures in line with Beijing’s policy to contain local transmission as quickly as possible.

Residents are banned from leaving town without clearance from employers or local authorities and households can send only one person to shop for necessities every two days. Other family members may not leave home unless they have essential jobs or urgent matters approved by employers or communities.

“So far the turning point for the outbreak is yet to come, and stringent curbs are necessary,” Zhang Boli, who helped to shape China’s early COVID response and treatment, told state media.

Local officials have also faced punishment over the outbreak, and domestic flights scheduled to depart the city on Friday were cancelled.

XiAn ChenXi Aviation Technology , a supplier to the Chinese military, said late on Friday it had suspended production due to the outbreak, which it expects to hurt its 2021 operating income.

Western Securities (002673.SZ) said on Friday its Xian-based branches have stopped offering face-to-face services to clients.

An oncology hospital said on Saturday its outpatient department and emergency room had stopped receiving patients due to COVID-19, after several other hospitals made similar moves.

China’s nationwide figures confirmed 87 local symptomatic cases for Friday, up from 55 a day earlier. There were 53 confirmed cases among international travellers.

Even with vaccines widely and freely available, the country has lost more lives to the virus this year than in 2020 due to the more contagious Delta variant and people refusing to get inoculated against COVID-19.

Since the start of the year, over 450,000 people in the United States have died after contracting COVID-19, or 57% of all U.S. deaths from the illness since the pandemic started.

The deaths this year were mostly in unvaccinated patients, health experts say. Deaths have increased despite advances in caring for COVID patients and new treatment options such as monoclonal antibodies.

It took 111 days for U.S. deaths to jump from 600,000 to 700,000, according to Reuters analysis. The next 100,000 deaths took just 73 days.

Other countries have lost far fewer lives per capita in the past 11 months, according to the Reuters analysis.

Among the Group of Seven (G7) wealthiest nations, the United States ranks the worst in terms of per capita deaths from COVID-19 between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, according to the Reuters analysis.

The death rate in the United States was more than three times higher than in neighboring Canada and 11 times more than Japan.

Even when the United States is compared with a larger pool of wealthy countries with access to vaccines, it ranks near the bottom. Among the 38 members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States ranks 30th. Only Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia Colombia, Poland and Slovenia had more COVID-19 deaths per capita. New Zealand had the least.

When compared with the European Union, the United States has 1.3 times the per capita deaths reported in the last 11 months than the entire bloc.

Among more than 200 nations and territories tracked by Reuters, the United States ranks 36th.

The United States has the highest number of reported total COVID-19 deaths in the world, followed by Brazil and India, according to the Reuters tally. With just 4% of the world’s population, the country accounts for about 14% of all reported COVID-19 deaths and 19% of cases worldwide. The country is set to soon surpass 50 million cases.

New infections in the United States were averaging around 120,000 a day, with Michigan contributing the most cases a day. COVID-19 patients were filling Michigan hospitals at record levels, with three out of four of them unvaccinated, according to Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA).

Scientists are still evaluating the impact of the new Omicron variant and whether vaccines could provide adequate protection against it.

‘Must Act Together’

The Delta variant remains the dominant version of the virus in the United States.

Of the 10 states that reported the most deaths per capita in the last 11 months, eight were from the country’s south – Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia, according to the Reuters analysis.

Roughly 60% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, CDC data showed.

Fears of the new variant have prompted Americans to line up for booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines at a record pace. Just under a million people a day received booster doses of one of the three authorized vaccines last week, the highest rate since regulators gave the nod to additional shots.

“We must act together in this moment to address the impact of the current cases we are seeing, which are largely Delta, and to prepare ourselves for the possibility of more Omicron,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing on Tuesday.

“As we head into the winter months with a strained health system in many areas … a high degree of caution is needed to minimize spread and impact, particularly during the upcoming holiday season,” said chief medical officer Theresa Tam.

Canada has so far recorded 87 COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, all of them asymptomatic or mild. Most of the initial cases detected were linked to recent international travelers or their close contacts.

Omicron has the potential to spread much faster than the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is responsible for most Canadian cases, Tam said.

“The trend in average daily case counts has shifted from decline to a gradual but steady increase,” she told a briefing. “With daily new cases increasing, there is concern that national severity trends could begin to rise again.”

As of Nov 27, 86.2% of Canadians above the age of 12 had been fully vaccinated.

The Omicron variant has been reported in 57 nations and the number of patients needing hospitalization is likely to rise as it spreads, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said this meant Canadians wishing to travel abroad had to be vigilant.

“Things are happening very quickly outside of Canada. So if you think of traveling, that should be a serious alarm bell,” he said, adding that Canadians returning home “should expect delays and hassles”.

Canada is blocking entry to people who have recently been in 10 southern African nations and is requiring everyone arriving by air to take a COVID-19 test. The measure does not apply to flights from the United States.

Ottawa has not yet formally advised Canadians to avoid foreign travel, Duclos said, adding “that could come”.

There’s no evidence to prove that the antibodies created by COVID vaccine cause infertility.

According to a recent study, COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t affect fertility and one’s ability to have a family in the future. The internet is filled with doubts about COVID vaccines, people are questioning and doubting the legitimacy of vaccines.

“As a parent it’s my job to protect my child. If there was a genuine risk that they could die of COVID, I would consider giving them a vaccine for it. But when there is a genuine risk, they could be harmed from the vaccine, it’s a big ‘no’ from me”, said a concerned anti-vaccine father on twitter.

COVID vaccines are falsely linked to infertility because research do talk about COVID-19 virus affecting men’s fertility due to the virus entering the testes cells which are vulnerable to the SARS- COV-2 hence lowering the sperm count of a man and affecting the fertility.

“Though it’s clear the vaccines don’t cause infertility, it’s possible that severe COVID-19 could influence sperm count if someone has a prolonged fever”, said Dr. Sigal Klipstein, chair of the ethics committee at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

“The possible risk factors of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) infection on fertility comes from the abundance of angiotensin‐Converting Enzyme‐2 (ACE2), receptor entry of the virus, on testes, a reduction in important sex hormone ratios and COVID‐19‐associated fever”, according to a National Center for Biotechnology Information. The virus can also affect the spermatogenesis process — the male body’s operation of generating sperms.

However, the entire theory of COVID vaccines causing infertility was based on an idea that one of the spike proteins in COVID-19 virus and in the vaccine are the same, but they are not. It has been proven in research that they are distinct from each other. The COVID vaccine works by training our bodies to develop antibodies to fight against the virus and there’s no evidence to prove that the antibodies created by COVID vaccine cause infertility.

In fact, the COVID vaccine can protect one’s fertility by protecting it from severe COVID symptoms.

“Getting COVID can be potentially detrimental to one’s fertility, and getting the vaccine is safe and could even protect fertility by protecting you against the severe effects of COVID disease,” said Jesse Ory, urology fellow in Infertility/Andrology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

The benefit of COVID vaccine can be observed in the UK. 32.2 million, almost 48.4% of the United Kingdom’s population have been fully vaccinated. In the last week UK has seen rise in delta variant of Corona virus with more than 75,000 cases confirmed by genetic analysis and British scientists estimated the variant is 40% to 80% more transmissible than the Alpha variant yet there hasn’t been a rise in hospitalization. According to the data, Over 60s, around 90% of whom are fully vaccinated, make up only 4% of cases.

“Delta variant has dominated in the UK, COVID cases rising. But hospitalizations are not rising meaning vaccines work. Fear mongering doesn’t”, said Faheem Younus, MD VP/CQO/Chief of Infectious Diseases on twitter.

Jaafar Siddiqui earned Bachelors in Journalism from the University of Hertfordshire — United Kingdom. He writes for The Milli Chronicle on Business, Politics, and Culture.