In the beginning of the year (2021), India had only 16,946 new coronavirus infections daily. The nation was confident, being a major vaccine producer, that the virus was under control. It relaxed too soon. Daily infections have risen to about 294,000, with over 2,000 deaths a day. The suffering is unimaginable; people are dying while searching for hospital beds and ICU units are overstretched. There have been reports of robbery attacks on pharmacies to raid scarce Covid-19 drugs. The healthcare system is bursting at the seams. The surge in infection rate has prompted India to stop vaccine export.
India’s second wave is so large and it is fast-spreading to other countries; this has led the United Kingdom (UK) to ban Indians from flying in.
“The volume is humongous,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. “It’s just like a tsunami.”
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Also lamenting the COVID-19 spike, Ramanan Laxminarayan, the Director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in India, stated: “Things are out of control. There’s no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It’s impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down.”
Acknowledging the challenge, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to Indians, said the country is in a “very big battle” against COVID-19. He, however, appealed to states to “use a lockdown as their last option,” even as the capital New Delhi entered its first full day of a week-long lockdown.
Why the surge
Amongst the factors driving the sudden surge is the discovery of a new COVID-19 variant. While this new variant -B.1.617 has caused widespread concern in India and the international community, experts have blamed the COVID-19 surge on those who rushed back to shopping centres and weddings, and the country’s leaders, including Modi, who have sparked outrage for staging huge election campaigns during the second wave.
The Indian government also allowed millions of religiously observant Hindus to converge on and take a dip the river Ganges as part of the Kumbh Mela festival. Hindus believe that the river is holy and a dip in it cleanses sin. The event was a super spreader of the new coronavirus infections.
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Although India was praised for its swift lockdowns last year, the Modi-led administration is facing criticism for easing the COVID-19 restrictions too quickly.
Scientists have however warned that the new variant is deadlier, as it is more infectious and vaccine evasive.
