COVID trying to convert India into one massive graveyard
COVID CAPERS is mourning the absolute devastation of India by COVID-19, a nightmarish situation made even worse because of the country’s selflessness and generosity in sharing its vaccines with poorer countries like Jamaica, before the tragedy hit.
Up to yesterday, India’s COVID cases had climbed from over seven million total to more than 16.9 million cases, behind only the United States, and deaths had pushed past 192,000.
The story is told in the country’s overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, and in heartbreaking images of gasping patients dying on their way to hospitals due to lack of oxygen, The Associated Press said.
Burial grounds in the capital New Delhi are running out of space. Bright, glowing funeral pyres light up the night sky in other badly hit cities. In the central city of Bhopal, some crematoriums have increased their capacity from dozens of pyres to more than 50. Yet officials say there are still hourslong waits.
The unprecedented rush of bodies has forced the crematorium to skip individual ceremonies and exhaustive rituals that Hindus believe release the soul from the cycle of rebirth.
The head gravedigger at New Delhi’s largest Muslim cemetery, where 1,000 people have been buried during the pandemic, said more bodies are arriving now than last year.
“I fear we will run out of space very soon,” said Mohammad Shameem.
The situation is equally grim at unbearably full hospitals, where desperate people are dying in line, sometimes on the roads outside, waiting to see doctors.
Health officials are scrambling to expand critical care units and stock up on dwindling supplies of oxygen. Hospitals and patients alike are struggling to procure scarce medical equipment that’s being sold on the black market at an exponential markup.
Coming Friday in COVID CAPERS: Twitter tales of corona curses