Record toll for India

Death surge quashes hopes of reprieve

NEW DELHI: India has recorded yet another record day for COVID-19 cases and deaths, dashing tentative hopes that its catastrophic surge might be easing.

The health ministry reported 3980 deaths in the most recent 24-hour reporting period, taking the national total to 230,168, as well as 412,262 new cases, taking the caseload since the pandemic began to more than 21 million.

Many experts suspect that with low levels of testing and poor record-keeping — and crematoriums being overwhelmed — the real numbers could be much higher.

The rise follows several days of falling case numbers that had raised government hopes that the virus surge may have been easing.

Having hit a high of 402,000 last Friday, the daily number of cases eased to as low as 357,000 before creeping up again. Senior health ministry official Lav Aggarwal on Monday said there was a “very early signal of movement in the positive direction”.

The sharp rise in cases since late March has overwhelmed hospitals in many places, with fatal shortages of beds, drugs and oxygen.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has resisted imposing a new lockdown, although several regions have done so.

Until now the worst-hit areas have been Delhi and Maharashtra but other states including West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka are also reporting sharp rises. Kerala’s chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced a week-long lockdown in the southern state of 35 million people, which has one of India’s best healthcare systems.

West Bengal, which controversially just completed an eight-phase election, also announced tighter curbs including a suspension of local trains. Weddings are still allowed, however, with a maximum of 50 people.

K. Vijay Raghavan, the Indian government’s principal scientific adviser, said the country of 1.3 billion people had to be ready for another wave of infections after the current second one.

“Phase 3 is inevitable given the high levels of circulating virus. But it is not clear on what timescale this phase 3 will occur. We should prepare for new waves,” he said.

With the government facing criticism as patients die outside hospitals, consignments of oxygen and equipment have been arriving from overseas.

But India will need yet more oxygen from other countries to fight the surge until numbers stabilise, one government official said.

“We did not and do not have enough oxygen,” the top government official said.