India's COVID-19 death toll surpasses 300,000

India's COVID-19 death toll has topped 300,000 amid New Delhi’s efforts to contain the huge outbreak of the coronavirus.

Health ministry data showed on Monday that the COVID-19 death toll had risen to 303,720 and the total number of infections reached more than 26.7 million.

The South Asian nation is the third country with the highest number of COVID-19 fatalities, after the United States with 589,000, and Brazil with 450,000.

Indian health experts, however, believe that the real number is much higher, particularly as the disease spreads beyond major cities into rural areas where the majority of the 1.3 billion population lives and where health facilities and record-keeping is poor.

The pandemic has not only overwhelmed medical staff and administrators at hospitals but also led to a severe shortage of oxygen and critical drugs.

India has administered close to 200 million vaccines but experts say the inoculation program needs to be ramped up significantly to effectively contain the pandemic.

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Another Asian country that has faced criticism over a slow inoculation rate is Japan, whose medics advise against holding the Olympic Games this summer.

Till now, just two percent of Japan's 125 million population has been fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, hospitals in Japan's second-largest city of Osaka are buckling under a huge wave of new coronavirus infections, running out of beds and ventilators as exhausted doctors warn of a "system collapse."

“Simply put, this is a collapse of the medical system,” said Yuji Tohda, the director of Kindai University Hospital in Osaka. “The highly infectious British variant and slipping alertness have led to this explosive growth in the number of patients.”

To contain the huge outbreak, Japan opened its first mass vaccination centers in Tokyo and Osaka on Monday. The centers will vaccinate thousands of people every day, giving a boost to Japan's slow inoculation program.

The Tokyo center will operate 12 hours a day to dispense shots to 10,000 people daily for the next three months. The Osaka center will do about 5,000 shots a day.

The mass vaccination centers, which are for the elderly, are using Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines. Johnson & Johnson is in line for regulatory approval of its one-shot vaccine, which it said it could begin supplying in early 2022. 

Japanese authorities are trying to speed up their vaccination drive with just two months left to the start of the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games.

Public opinion is largely opposed to holding the Olympic Games this summer, insisting that the event cannot be held safely.

Japanese officials say the majority of athletes and others staying in the Olympic village will be vaccinated before they enter Japan so there is no danger.

However, inoculation is not a prerequisite for participation in the Olympics.

Elsewhere, nearly half the 150 passengers booked on Australia's first repatriation flight from India were barred from boarding on Friday.

An Australian government source, who sought anonymity as he was not allowed to speak to media, said that the barred passenger, or their close contacts, tested positive for the coronavirus.

Australia's second-most populous state of Victoria reported on Monday four new COVID-19 cases, all in the city of Melbourne.

The infections were the first cases of transmission of disease in the state in nearly three months and the source is under investigation.

The four cases, including a pre-school child, came from one extended family in two households in a northern suburb of Melbourne.

The new infections have raised alarm amid a slow take-up of vaccinations in Australia.

Other countries in the region, including Singapore and Thailand, have also reported an increase in the number of coronavirus infections in the past few weeks.

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