India uses railway carriages as wards following infection surge

INDIA will not reach its coronavirus peak until mid-november, according to researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research, as Delhi plans to convert train carriages into isolation wards and a new lockdown looms for 15million people in the city of Chennai.

After a surge in infections, some hospitals in Delhi were unable to admit coronavirus-positive patients as they had run out of beds, despite fewer than 40,000 cases being recorded.

India’s capital has only 9,816 dedicated beds for coronavirus patients but Manish Sisodia, its deputy chief minister, has warned 500,000 people will be infected by July 31. The Indian government has now stepped in to convert 500 train carriages into isolation wards in Delhi for around 8,000 people.

The number of tests being carried out in Delhi will be doubled over the next two days, and a temporary 10,000bed hospital is being built in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas Ashram.

On Friday, a lockdown will be reimposed on the city of Chennai and several neighbouring districts due to a rise in infections, state officials said.

India has the fourth-highest number of cases in the world – now over 332,000 – while the number of one-day infections surpassed 12,000 for the first time over the weekend.

Nearly 60 per cent of India’s cases are found in seven densely populated cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, with infections surging since a nationwide lockdown was lifted on June 1.

The predicted mid-november peak is also fuelled by the ongoing movement of 100million migrant labourers from India’s cities, heading back to their homes in the rural periphery.

“We are far from the peak,” warned Dr Nivedita Gupta, chief epidemiologist at the ICMR.