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US virus expert Fauci backs calls for nationwide lockdown in India

This article is more than 12 months old

NEW DELHI Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under renewed pressure as top White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci added his voice to calls for a nationwide lockdown.

The 366,161 cases and 3,754 deaths reported yesterday were off a little from recent peaks, taking the tally to 22.66 million with 246,116 deaths.

Dr Fauci said he has advised the Indian authorities they needed to shut down.

"You've got to shut down," Dr Fauci said on US network ABC on Sunday.

"I believe several of the Indian states have already done that, but you need to break the chain of transmission. And one of the ways to do that is to shut down."

Many states have imposed strict lockdowns over the last month while others have placed curbs on movement and shut cinemas, restaurants and malls.

But pressure is mounting on Mr Modi to announce a nationwide lockdown as he did during the first wave of infections last year. By yesterday, the world's largest vaccine-producing nation had fully vaccinated just over 34.8 million, or about 2.5 per cent, of a population of about 1.35 billion, government data showed.

"A failure of governance of epic and historic proportions," political science professor Vipin Narang, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, said on Twitter.

Mrs Sonia Gandhi of the opposition Congress party blamed the government for abdicating its responsibility by leaving vaccinations to the states. - REUTERS

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