India passes 20 million coronavirus infections
Expert warns coming weeks will be ‘horrible’
Covid-19 infections and deaths are mounting with alarming speed in India with no end in sight to the crisis and a top expert warning that the coming weeks in the country of nearly 1.4 billion people will be “horrible”.
India’s coronavirus caseload topped 20 million on Tuesday.
Staggering as those numbers are, the true figures are believed to be far higher, the undercount an apparent reflection of the troubles in the healthcare system.
The country has witnessed scenes of people dying outside overwhelmed hospitals and funeral pyres lighting up the night sky.
Infections have surged in India since February in a disastrous turn blamed on more contagious variants of the virus as well as government decisions to allow massive crowds to gather for Hindu religious festivals and political rallies before state elections.
While more than 350,000 new cases were reported in India on Tuesday, a drop from the peak of 402,000 last week, giving some cause for optimism that the worst of the devastating wave may have passed. But daily deaths are still high at 3500.
“If daily cases and deaths are analysed, there is a very early signal of movement in the positive direction,” senior health ministry official Lav Aggarwal told reporters.
“But these are very early signals. There is a need to further analyse it.”
India’s healthcare infrastructure has struggled to cope with the huge number of cases, with deep shortages of medicines, hospital beds and medical oxygen.
More states are beginning to implement lockdown across the country as its vaccination programme falters after reaching an alltime high last month.
On April 5 the country hit a peak of 4.5 million but that number has since dropped to below two million.
Clinics in one of its worst hit cities, Delhi, a handful of clinics have begun vaccinating young adults.
The wave in the South Asian nation — spurred by huge gatherings including the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela — has highlighted the danger of Covid-19, which has already claimed more than 3.2 million lives worldwide. Religious events are a threat in neighbouring Pakistan too, where authorities are battling a third wave of infections and urging Muslims to observe precautions during the Islamic month of Ramadan.
Despite the warnings, thousands of Shia Muslims — many not wearing masks — gathered in the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday for an annual religious procession.
Pakistani authorities have largely avoided clamping down on such religious activities in recent months even as markets and schools have been closed.Dr Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health in the US, is concerned that Indian policymakers he has been in contact with believe things will improve.
“I’ve been . . . trying to say to them, ‘If everything goes very well, things will be horrible for the next several weeks. And it may be much longer,’ ” he said.
Jha said the focus needs to be on “classic” public health measures: targeted shutdowns, more testing, universal mask-wearing and avoiding large gatherings. “That is what’s going to break the back of this surge.”