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| - The United States and Britain rushed ventilators and vaccine materials to India on Monday, where the situation was described by the World Health Organization as "beyond heartbreaking", while Italy started to lift some of its Covid-19 restrictions. India, with its population of 1.3 billion, is battling a catastrophic new surge in infections, with hospitals overwhelmed and crematoriums working at full capacity. It recorded 352,991 new infections and 2,812 deaths on Monday -- the highest levels since the start of the pandemic -- as the Hindu-nationalist government comes under fire for allowing mass gatherings such as religious festivals and political rallies across the country in recent weeks. But with its health system and hospitals completely overwhelmed and crematoriums working at full capacity, Western countries are rushing to India's aid. The WHO "is doing everything we can, providing critical equipment and supplies," its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. The UN health agency was also sending "thousands of oxygen concentrators, prefabricated mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies" and had also transferred more than 2,600 of its experts from various programmes, including polio and tuberculosis, to work with Indian health authorities to help respond to the pandemic. From Britain, the first of nine airline containers of supplies -- including ventilators and oxygen concentrators -- was set to arrive in India early Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, pledging the UK would do "all it can" to help. In the US, the White House said it was making vaccine-production material, therapeutics, tests, ventilators and protective equipment immediately available to India. France, Germany and Canada have similarly also pledged support. The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 3.1 million people worldwide out of at least 147 million infected. And Tedros complained that globally, new case numbers have been rising for the past nine weeks straight. "To put it in perspective," he said, "there were almost as many cases globally last week as in the first five months of the pandemic." Nevertheless, some countries in Europe are beginning to lift some of the lockdowns and restrictions as the pace of inoculation picks up. In Italy -- the first European country to be hit by the pandemic in early 2020 and still one of the worst affected -- bars, restaurants, cinemas and concert halls reopened on Monday. Prime Minister Mario Draghi has admitted that doing so represented a "calculated risk", with virus statistics improving but Covid-19 deaths still mounting by hundreds every day. But Europe's third-biggest economy is pinning its hopes on a 222.1-billion-euro investment and reform plan funded largely by the European Union. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government was looking at relaxing restrictions for people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, as the pace of inoculations picks up. France is also hoping for further improvement with millions of children returning to primary schools and kindergartens on Monday after a three-week shutdown against a severe third wave of infection. In the UK, Scottish pubs were allowed to reopen for the first time this year, along with non-essential retail and leisure facilities such as gyms, swimming pools and nail bars. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Johnson is facing calls to resign after the Daily Mail newspaper reported he had said he would rather see "bodies pile high in their thousands" than impose a third coronavirus lockdown. Elsewhere, countries are continuing to tighten restrictions to curb new waves of infections. In Thailand, prime minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha was fined for not wearing a mask after new restrictions came into force to try to halt an outbreak that saw deaths hit a record single-day high over the weekend. Japan's annual "Golden Week" holiday got under way with new restrictions in Tokyo and Osaka, where shopping malls were asked to close and residents urged to avoid non-essential travel. Fiji's capital Suva entered a 14-day lockdown Monday after detecting the first community transmission cases in 12 months following a funeral. The tourism-dependent islands have recorded fewer than 100 cases and just two deaths in a population of 930,000. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a full lockdown from April 29 to May 17 as the nation of 84 million has seen daily Covid-19 death tolls to higher levels than during two previous spikes last year. In Iran, the Middle East's worst-affected country, the death toll passed 70,000, according to health ministry figures, with a record 496 deaths in the past 24 hours. burs-spm/jz
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