800,000 AND COUNTING: Why cases in India are rising
IN THREE WEEKS, NATION HAS SHOT UP TO THE THIRD SPOT
The number of coronavirus cases in India has crossed 800,000 yesterday, with 26,616 cases added in the last 24 hours. The cases went from 700,000 to 800,000 in just three days and now stand at 821,458.
In just three weeks, India went from the world’s sixth to the third-worst hit country by the coronavirus pandemic. India’s fragile health system was bolstered during the lockdown but could still be overwhelmed by an exponential rise in infections. Here is where India stands in its battle against the virus:
Steady rise, many peaks
India is testing more than 250,000 samples daily after months of sluggishness, but experts say this is insufficient for a country of nearly 1.4 billion people.
“This whole thing about the ‘peak’ is a false bogey because we won’t have one peak in India, but a series of peaks,” said Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global health researcher.
He pointed out that the capital of New Delhi and India’s financial capital, Mumbai, had already seen surges, while infections had now begun spreading to smaller cities as governments eased restrictions.
The actual toll would be unknown, he said, unless India made testing more accessible.
Dubious data
The Health Ministry said on Thursday that India was doing “relatively well” managing Covid-19, pointing to 13 deaths per 1 million people, compared to about 400 in the United States and 320 in Brazil.
But knowing the actual toll in India is “absolutely impossible” because there is no reporting mechanism in most places for any kind of death, said Dr. Jayaprakash Muliyil, an epidemiologist at the Christian Medical College in Vellore who has been advising the government.
Official data show 43 per cent of the people who have died from the coronavirus were between the ages of 30 and 60, but research globally indicates that the disease is particularly fatal to the elderly, suggesting to Muliyil that many virus deaths among older Indians “don’t get picked up” or counted in the virus fatality numbers.
‘No central coordination’
In India, public health is managed at a state level, and some have managed better than others. The southern state of Kerala, where India’s first three virus cases were reported, has been held up as a model. It isolated patients early, traced and quarantined contacts and tested aggressively. By contrast, Delhi has been sharply criticised for failing to anticipate a surge of cases in recent weeks as lockdown measures eased. Patients have died after being turned away from Covid-designated hospitals that said they were at capacity. It led the Home Ministry to intervene and allocate 500 railway cars as makeshift hospital wards.
But as the capital rushes to conjure new beds, officials admit that they’re worried about the lack of trained and experienced health care workers. According to Jishnu Das, a professor of economics at Georgetown University, there is “no central coordination” to move health care staff from one state to another.
India’s role in global fight
India has seven vaccines in various stages of clinical trial, including one by Bharat Biotech that the Indian Council on Medical Research pledged would have results from human trials by August 15, the country’s Independence Day. The top medical research body quickly backtracked, but regardless of whether India comes out on top in the global race for a vaccine, the country will play a critical role in the world’s inoculation against Covid-19.
The Serum Institute of India in Pune is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. India makes about 1,000 ventilators and 600,000 personal protective equipment kits per day.