Virus Surges in Myanmar, Where Generals Control Vaccines
By Richard C. Paddock, 7/1/21, New York Times

The ousted govt in the SE Asian nation had acquired
3.5 million vaccines from India before the coup. The junta
commandeered most of the shots, but ignored plans to prior-
itize vaccinations for the elderly. Some shots went to
vaccinate soldiers, acc. to a doctor at a Yangon military
hospital. In protest, many doctors refused to get a
2nd dose from the regime.

The military’s unwillingness to provide details about its
vaxx program prompted Covax, the global vaccine-sharing
program, to delay a shipment of 5.5 million doses in March,
said Dr. Stephan Paul Jost, the WHO’s rep for Myanmar.
No new shipment has been scheduled.

Myanmar’s health care system may buckle under the outbreak.
Doctors & other health care workers have already gone on
strike to protest the coup & troops have occupied dozens
of medical facilities, prompting many patients to stay away
for fear of being detained or shot. Some doctors estimate
that 100s of patients are dying each week because they
can't get the care they need.

“The de facto authorities need to create an environment
where people can work without fear & patients can get care
without fear,” Dr. Jost said. “It is creating the ultimate
dilemma for health workers, whether to serve the country
of the future or the patients of the present.”

One community hit hard by the virus is the town of Kalay,
65 mi from the border with India. In April, soldiers firing
machine guns & rocket-propelled grenades attacked anti-coup
protesters there who had barricaded Kalay’s streets, killing
at least 11. Community leaders say the regime is providing
little help in combating the outbreak.

Kalay General Hosp, the lone public hospital in the area,
has been overwhelmed by the surge in cases. All its beds
are occupied by people in critical condition, said Lal Puia,
a volunteer leader at the Ate Sut Community Center, which
has been converted into a field hospital. Over 250 people
who have tested positive are staying there, he said, & many
others are staying at home, where they risk infecting
family members.

The town has been placed under a stay-at-home order & its
streets are empty except for people buying food & medicine
or trying to rent oxygen tanks, which are in short supply.

The regime reports that 138 people have died nationwide
from Covid in the past two months, including 13 on Thurs.
Mr. Lal estimates that nearly 400 people have died in his
community alone in that same period, although the number
could not be independently confirmed.

“The military govt is doing nothing for Covid here so
people have to take care of themselves,” Lal said. “Now,
the situation is very bad. Every house has Covid patients
because there are not enough places to isolate.”

The situation is so dire in Kalay that a pregnant woman
with Covid died last month because she could not get
treatment, relatives said.

Bual Cin Par, 37, was struggling to breathe & about to
deliver her baby when a soldier turned her away from the
understaffed general hospital at gunpoint & threatened to
shoot her if she didn’t leave, said a family member who
accompanied her. The mother of 4 was also refused care at
the town’s military hospital. She rented an oxygen tank
but died shortly after returning home. Her baby also died.

Myanmar had suffered a major outbreak from Sept-Jan, with
over 140,000 cases & 3,100 deaths. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s
health ministry, which was testing more than 20,000 people/
day, had nearly contained the virus by Feb. 1,
acc. to govt data.

Some health experts were concerned that the large street
demo's held against the military would lead to a rise in
infections. Most protesters wore face masks, which may have
helped keep transmission relatively low, Dr. Jost said.
A military-imposed curfew also helped. But when testing
plunged after the coup, it became difficult to verify the
number of cases in the country.

In recent days, testing has gradually increased to as much
as 9,400/ day, acc. to the health ministry. But the posi-
tivity rate has also been rising, more than doubling over
the past 4 weeks, Jost said. In mid-June, the ministry
confirmed the presence of the Delta, Alpha & Kappa
variants of the virus.

Int'l health experts had once praised Myanmar’s vaxx
program. Aung San Suu Kyi was quick to secure a promise
of 3.5 million vaccines from India, the first batch of
which arrived in late Jan. The govt vaccinated 105,000
health care workers — & many top officials — in the days
before the coup.

A spokeswoman for the junta’s health ministry, Khin Khin
Gyi, said that all 3.5 million doses have now been admini-
stered, & that many of them were made available to the
public at vaxx centers across the country. China has since
donated half a million doses of its Sinopharm vaccine,
with 200,000 earmarked for the military, she said.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who faces half a dozen criminal charges,
received her 2nd vaccine dose in custody. She is being
held in isolation & learned this week of the recent
outbreaks in Myanmar from her attorney, Daw Min Min Soe.
“She was very worried,” the lawyer said. “She wants all
the people to be aware of Covid & take care.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/world/asia/covid-myanmar-coup.html