Covid-19 in India
India's virus surge damages Modi's image of competence
India’s hospitals were packed with coronavirus patients, relatives of the sick scrambled to find supplies of oxygen, and crematoriums were running near full capacity to handle the dead.
Yet despite those clear signs of an overwhelming health crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed ahead with a densely packed campaign rally.
“I have never seen such a huge crowd before!” he roared to his supporters in West Bengal state on April 17, before key local elections. “Wherever I can see, I can only see people. I can see nothing else.”
As another deadly wave of COVID-19 infections was swamping India, Modi's government refused to cancel a giant Hindu festival. Cricket matches, attended by tens of thousands, carried on, too.
The catastrophic surge has badly dented Modi’s political image after he drew praise last year for moving quickly to lock down India’s nearly 1.4 billion people. Now, he’s been called a “super-spreader” by the vice president of the Indian Medical Association, Dr. Navjot Dahiya.
With deaths mounting and a touted vaccine rollout faltering badly, Modi has pushed much of the responsibility for fighting the virus onto poorly equipped and unprepared state governments and even onto patients themselves, critics say.
“It is a crime against humanity,” author and activist Arundhati Roy said of Modi’s handling of the virus. “Foreign governments are rushing to help. But as long as decision-making remains with Modi, who has shown himself to be incapable of working with experts or looking beyond securing narrow political gain, it will be like pouring aid into a sieve.”
The 70-year-old, whose image as a technocrat brought him deep approval from a middle class weary of corruption and bureaucratic dysfunction, has been accused of stifling dissent and choosing politics over public health.
When the official COVID-19 death toll crossed 200,000 — a number experts say is a severe undercount — Modi was silent.
His government says it is on a “war footing,” ramping up hospital capacity, supplies of oxygen and drugs.
“The present COVID pandemic is a once-in-a-century crisis,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told The Associated Press. “All efforts are being made to overcome the situation by the central government in close coordination with the state governments and society at large.”
When Modi won national elections in 2014, he presented himself as someone who could unlock economic growth by merging business-friendly policies with a Hindu nationalist ideology.
Critics saw him as craving power over the national welfare and catering to his Hindu nationalist base. They blamed him — although courts exonerated him — in the bloody 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state, where he was chief minister.
The economy tumbled after his government overhauled India’s cash supply and introduced a goods and services tax. Yet, he easily won reelection in 2019 on a wave of nationalism following clashes with archrival Pakistan.
Despite a second term marred by a souring economy, widening social strife, and deadly clashes with neighboring China, “Modi has proven to be incredibly politically resilient,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
When the coronavirus hit, Vaishnav said Modi took an approach different from former President Donald Trump and current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
“He never called the virus a hoax. He took it seriously. He encouraged mask-wearing, social distancing. He encouraged the sorts of things health authorities everywhere have been calling for,” he added.
The strict lockdown, imposed on four hours’ notice, stranded tens of millions of migrant workers who were left jobless and fled to villages with many dying along the way. But experts say the decision helped contain the virus and bought time for the government.
Cases rose when the country started reopening in June 2020, and the government developed emergency infrastructure plans. When the wave receded and reported cases plummeted over the winter, many officials saw it as a triumph. States dismantled makeshift hospitals and delayed adding ICU beds and ventilators.
The government had sought to create 162 oxygen plants earlier, but has only built 38. It says 105 more will be built this month.
The fragile health care system was not upgraded enough, said Gautam Menon, a science professor at Ashoka University, “and with the current surge, we’re seeing precisely the consequences of not doing this.”
When cases ebbed in January, Modi crowed about India’s success, telling the World Economic Forum that the country “has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.”
His ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hailed his “visionary leadership,” making India a “proud and victorious nation in the fight against COVID.”
In mid-March, tens of thousands attended cricket matches against England at Narendra Modi stadium in Gujarat, an event that swelled national pride even amid warnings that infections were climbing.
On March 21, advertisements on the front pages of newspapers read, “Beautiful Clean Safe,” as Modi and a political ally welcomed Hindu devotees to the Kumbh Mela, a pilgrimage to the Ganges River that drew millions throughout April.
By contrast, in March 2020, his government blamed a Muslim gathering of 3,000 for an initial spike in infections in a move that triggered violence and boycotts, even as courts dismissed the accusations.
Critics have blasted the BJP for holding election rallies packed with tens of thousands of unmasked supporters, particularly in West Bengal. Other parties also campaigned to large crowds. Bowing to criticism, Modi began appearing over video instead of live, but the crowds remained.
Though his party was defeated in the state, analysts say he still enjoys popularity nationwide.
Meanwhile, India’s vaccination campaign begun in January has sputtered amid perceptions the virus was defeated. Only 10% of the population has received one shot and fewer than 2% have gotten both since it began in January.
The latest effort to inoculate those between 18 and 44 has been left to states and the private sector — an approach that critics say will make it easier for the government to pass blame when problems arise. Already, several states have said they don’t have enough vaccine to even start.
The surge has sparked assistance from overseas, a reversal of India’s earlier success at “vaccine diplomacy” when it exported 64 million doses. Some say Modi’s flagship self-sufficiency campaign, known as “Make in India,” is being undermined.
“India has long sought to project itself as a strong nation that need not be dependent on any other. Its immediate need for international assistance flies in the face of that image,” said Michael Kugelman of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center.
Some Modi supporters are lashing out. When BJP lawmaker Kesar Singh Gangwar died of the virus in Uttar Pradesh state, his son said Modi’s office didn't help.
“What kind of government is this? What kind of PM is Modi?” said Vishal Gangwar. “If he cannot provide treatment to a lawmaker of his own party, what is happening to a common man is anybody’s guess.”
To circumvent such criticism, the government ordered Twitter to remove posts criticizing his pandemic response. In BJP-run Uttar Pradesh, authorities recently charged a man over a tweet pleading for oxygen for his dying grandfather, accusing him of “circulating a rumor," as top officials deny widespread oxygen shortages.
“To blame social media or users for either critiquing or begging for help is just — I mean, what are their priorities? To help people or silence criticism?” said digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa.
The level of urban and middle class anger at Modi is unprecedented, political analyst Vaishnav said, although it is blunted by supporters who believe he can do no wrong.
“He shouldn’t be expected to solve all problems by himself. The government machinery which existed before him, full of corruption, is to blame,” said Sunil Saini, a driver in New Delhi. “My vote will go to Modi the next time too.”
Why India’s pandemic data is vastly undercounted
Even after more than a year of devastating coronavirus surges across the world, the intensity and scale of India’s current crisis stands out, with patients desperate for short supplies of oxygen, pleas for help from overwhelmed hospitals, and images of body bags and funeral pyres.
As daily case counts soar far beyond what other countries have reported, experts caution the official COVID-19 numbers from the world’s second most populous country are likely a massive undercount. But why is India’s data considered inaccurate? Is the data any less accurate than what other nations report? And which numbers give a good indication of the crisis?
IS INDIA COUNTING EVERY CASE?
India is not counting every coronavirus case, but no nation can. Around the world, official tallies generally report only confirmed cases, not actual infections. Cases are missed because testing is so haphazard and because some people infected by the coronavirus experience mild or even no symptoms.
The more limited the testing, the more cases are being missed. The World Health Organization says countries should be doing 10 to 30 tests per confirmed case.
India is doing about five tests for every confirmed case, according to Our World in Data, an online research site. The U.S. is doing 17 tests per confirmed case. Finland is doing 57 tests per confirmed case.
“There are still lots of people who are not getting tested,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto. “Entire houses are infected. If one person gets tested in the house and reports they’re positive and everyone else in the house starts having symptoms, it’s obvious they have COVID, so why get tested?”
Jha estimates, based on modeling from a previous surge in India, that the true infection numbers could be 10 times higher than the official reports.
WHAT ABOUT DEATHS?
Deaths are a better indicator of the shape of the pandemic curve, Jha said, but there are problems with the data here too.
“The biggest gap is what’s going on in rural India,” Jha said. In the countryside, people often die at home without medical attention, and these deaths are vastly underreported. Families bury or cremate their loved ones themselves without any official record. Seventy percent of the nation’s deaths from all causes occur in rural India in any given year.
Counting rural deaths can be done, as Jha’s work with the Million Death Study has shown. The pre-pandemic project used in-person surveys to count deaths in rural India, capturing details of symptoms and circumstances with results of the “ verbal autopsies ” reviewed and recorded by doctors.
Many low- and middle-income countries have similar undercounts of death data, Jha said, but India could do better.
“It’s a country that’s got a space program. Just counting the dead is a basic function,” he said. “India should be doing much, much better.”
DOES IT MATTER?
Knowing the size and scope of the outbreak and how it is changing helps governments and health officials plan their responses.
Even with the known problems with the data, the trajectory of COVID-19 cases and deaths in India is an alarming reminder of how the virus can rocket through a largely unvaccinated population when precautions are lifted.
“What happens in India matters to the entire world,” said Dr. Amita Gupta, chair of the Johns Hopkins India Institute in a Facebook conversation Thursday. “We care from a humanitarian perspective, a public health perspective, and a health security perspective.”
12 die as Delhi hospital runs out of oxygen
The oxygen crisis in the Indian capital is escalating with each passing day. A week after 50 patients on ventilator died at two private hospitals in Delhi due to "low pressure oxygen", 12 more people lost their lives at another leading medical facility in the national capital on Saturday after it ran out of the life-saving gas.
Batra Hospital said the Covid care facility ran out of oxygen at 11.45am. "Supply came at 1.30pm (a second tanker reached at around 4pm). But we were out of oxygen for 1 hour and 20 mins. By the time supplies came, 12 people, including a doctor, were dead. Most of them were Covid patients on life support," the hospital said in a statement.
The deceased doctor has been identified as RK Himthani, the head of the hospital's gastroenterology unit. "He was also a Covid patient undergoing treatment at the hospital. Over 200 patients at the medical facility are still in a critical condition," a spokesperson for Batra told the media.
Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia took to Twitter to express his anguish at the loss of lives. "The central government) Friday told the Supreme Court that some 10,000 MT oxygen is produced daily in the country, which is quite surplus to the daily needs of 7500MT. Delhi needs 976MT, yet Delhi's quota is 490MT and supplies only 312MT. Why?"
Also read: 25 die in Delhi hospital due to oxygen shortage
India's main opposition Congress party's chief Sonia Gandhi too lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government for the deteriorating Covid-19 situation in the country.
In a video message, the 74-year-old called for a nationwide strategy to fight the surge in Covid cases in India. "Testing should be increased across the country and medical oxygen and other resources should be arranged on war footing. Free vaccination should be arranged for all the citizens so that people can be saved," she said.
"It's high time that the federal and state governments wake up and fulfil their responsibilities. Migration of the labourers should be stopped. A minimum of Rs 6,000 should be added to their accounts till the crisis is over," Gandhi said in the video message shared by the Congress on the party's official Twitter handle.
Gandhi's call for a nationwide strategy and the 12 deaths at the Delhi hospital came on a day when India registered a record four lakh cases in a span of 24 hours, for the first time after reporting over three lakh daily infections for nine days in a row. Delhi alone has been logging nearly 20,000-25,000 Covid cases daily for the past fortnight.
Also read: Indian capital gasps for oxygen
In the past one week, at least 50 Covid patients on life support have died at two leading Delhi hospitals due to oxygen shortage. On April 24, Jaipur Golden Hospital, a dedicated Covid medical facility in Delhi, announced the death of 25 Covid patients in 24 hours due to "low-supply oxygen" to critical patients on ventilator.
A day before, another leading hospital in Delhi also said in a statement that 25 patients lost their lives in 24 hours due to an acute shortage of oxygen. "25 sickest patients have died in the last 24 hours. Oxygen will last another two hours. Major crisis likely. Lives of 60 sickest patients at risk, need urgent intervention," Sir Ganga Ram Hospital had said.
It may also be mentioned here that as many as 24 Covid patients on ventilator at a government hospital in the western state of Maharashtra died some 10 days ago after their oxygen supply ran out following leakage of the life-supporting gas from a tanker. The tanker was brought to Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital in Nashik district to replenish the cylinders.
India's top court warns against any clampdown on social media Covid appeals
India's top court on Friday warned state governments across the country against any clampdown on citizens taking to social media for help or airing their grievances amid a surge in Covid-19 cases.
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court said that it would initiate contempt action against state governments and law enforcement authorities if they file a police case or arrest people appealing for help or putting out their SOS messages on social media or elsewhere during the pandemic.
"It is of grave concern to me as a citizen or (a) judge. If citizens communicate their grievances on social media, we do not want a clampdown on information. Let us hear their voices. We will treat this as contempt if any citizen is harassed if they want bed or oxygen. We are in (a) human crisis," said Justice DY Chandrachud, who led the bench.
"Even doctors and healthcare workers are not getting beds," he said, describing the situation in the country "grim".
The court's warning came in the wake of a deluge of SOS messages on social media amid an escalating oxygen crisis in India, particularly in the national capital. Hospitals after hospitals in Delhi and its suburbs are sending out SOS messages to health authorities daily, seeking adequate supply of the life-saving gas.
Last week, at least 50 Covid patients on life support died at two leading Delhi hospitals due to oxygen shortage. Jaipur Golden Hospital, a dedicated Covid medical facility in Delhi, said on Saturday morning that 25 Covid patients died around midnight on Friday due to "low-supply oxygen" to critical patients on ventilator.
On Friday morning too, another leading hospital in Delhi announced the deaths of 25 patients in 24 hours due to a shortage of oxygen.In a statement, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital had said, "25 sickest patients have died in the last 24 hours. Oxygen will last another two hours. Major crisis likely. Lives of another 60 sickest patients at risk, need urgent intervention."
It may also be mentioned here that 24 Covid patients on ventilator at a government hospital in the western Indian state of Maharashtra died on Wednesday after their oxygen supply ran out following leakage of the life-supporting gas from a tanker.
The tanker was brought to Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital in the state's Nashik district to replenish the oxygen cylinders at the medical facility for continuous supply to the 150-plus Covid-19 patients on life support.
Indians turn to black market, unproven drugs as virus surges
Ashish Poddar kept an ice pack on hand as he waited outside a New Delhi hospital for a black market dealer to deliver two drugs for his father, who was gasping for breath inside with COVID-19.
But the drugs never arrived, the ice that was intended to keep the medicines cool melted and his father died hours later.
As India faces a devastating surge of new coronavirus infections overwhelming its health care system, people are taking desperate measures to try to keep loved ones alive. In some cases they are turning to unproven medical treatments, in others to the black market for life-saving medications that are in short supply.
Poddar had been told by the private hospital treating his father, Raj Kumar Poddar, that remdesivir, an antiviral, and tocilizumab, a drug that blunts human immune responses, were needed to keep the 68-year-old man alive.
“It’s nearby” and “coming” read some of the texts that Ashish received as he waited.
“I wish he had at least told me that he isn’t going to come. I could have searched elsewhere,” the grieving son said.
India set another global record in new virus cases Thursday with more than 379,000 new infections, putting even more pressure on the country’s overwhelmed hospitals. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people has now recorded over 18 million cases, behind only the U.S., and over 200,000 deaths — though the true number is believed to be higher.
Death is so omnipresent that burial grounds are running out of space in many cities and glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night.
The few medicines known to help treat COVID-19, such as remdesivir and steroids in hospitalized patients, are scarce. The most basic treatment —oxygen therapy — is also in short supply, leading to unnecessary deaths. Even hospital beds are scarce. There were just 14 free intensive care beds available in New Delhi, a city of 29 million people, on Thursday morning.
India’s latest treatment guidelines mirror those of the World Health Organization and the United States with a key exception: India allows mildly ill patients to be given hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, drugs used for certain tropical diseases.
There is little evidence they work against COVID-19, and the WHO strongly recommends against hydroxychloroquine’s use for COVID-19 of any severity and against using ivermectin except in studies.
While India is a leading producer of medicine globally, its regulation of drugs was poor even before the pandemic. And mounting despair is driving people to try anything.
Dr. Amar Jesani, a medical ethics expert, said many prescription drugs can be bought over the counter, including emergency drugs greenlit by Indian authorities for COVID-19.
“Hospitals and doctors are so used to having a ‘magic bullet’ that will cure you,” he said, explaining the use of unproven drugs as COVID-19 cases skyrocket.
When Suman Shrivastava, 57, was infected with the virus, her doctor in Kanpur city in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, prescribed ivermectin. When her symptoms worsened, her doctor then asked her to take favipiravir, an antiviral, though it is unproven against COVID-19.
Her nephew, Rajat Shrivastava, said that drug was hard to find but he eventually located it in a pharmacy which was rationing its supplies by giving a single strip daily to each patient. He eventually bought extra doses from an online volunteer on Twitter and now his aunt is doing well.
Dr. Anant Bhan, who researches public health and ethics in the city of Bhopal, warns there are risks in the do-it-yourself approach. Bhan said antivirals and steroids should be taken in a hospital setting due to the risk of side effects. And drugs that are life-saving at one point could be harmful at another, depending on timing and how severe the symptoms are.
“It’s scary because these aren’t vitamin pills,” he said.
Black market prices for remdesivir, which is produced by several Indian companies, have increased up to 20-fold to about $1,000 for a single vial, said Siddhant Sarang, a volunteer with Yuva Halla Bol, a youth activist group which is helping patients find medicines and hospital beds.
In September, federal data showed that Indian drug makers had made over 2.4 million vials of the drug. But when cases dipped in September, companies destroyed much of their expired stock and production declined.
India was then slow to respond to the uptick of infections in February, and production was only scaled up in March. Earlier this week, Merck announced a deal with five makers of generic drugs in India to produce molnupiravir, an experimental antiviral similar to remdesivir, which is given by IV, but in a more convenient pill form. It’s unclear when that might become available.
With demand high, black market dealers are insisting on cash upfront, said Sarang.
“People are going to dealers with 200,000 to 300,000 rupees ($2,700-$4,000) in a suitcase,” he said.
Authorities have started cracking down on the dealers. In New Delhi, for instance, raids are being carried out on shops or people suspected of hoarding oxygen cylinders and medicines.
Despite all the desperate efforts, medicines that work remain unavailable to many.
Virus-blocking antibody drugs, widely used elsewhere, aren’t yet authorized in India. Roche, which works with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals on marketing one such treatment, said Wednesday it is negotiating with India to speed up emergency use. American drug maker Eli Lilly, which makes a similar treatment, said it is in discussions with the Indian government.
Stuti Bhardwaj, 37, went from one pharmacy to another in southern New Delhi this week. Her parents, both in their seventies, were not able to get tests but showed symptoms of COVID-19 and had dangerously low oxygen levels. A doctor advised a host of medications, including hydroxychloroquine.
She eventually found it and bought it, aware it was unlikely to work.
“My parents are dying,” Bhardwaj said. “I am desperate.”
India tops 200,000 dead as virus surge breaks health system
India crossed a grim milestone Wednesday of 200,000 people lost to the coronavirus as a devastating surge of new infections tears through dense cities and rural areas alike and overwhelms health care systems on the brink of collapse.
The health ministry reported 3,293 daily COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing India’s total fatalities to 201,187, as the world’s second most populous country endures its darkest chapter of the pandemic yet.
The country also reported 362,757 new infections, a new global record, which raised the overall total past 17.9 million. The previous high of 350,000 on Monday had capped a five-day streak of recording the largest single-day increases in any country throughout the pandemic.
India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, is the fourth to cross 200,000 deaths, behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico. And as in many nations, experts believe the coronavirus infections and fatalities in India are severe undercounts.
The first known COVID-19 death in India happened on March 12, 2020, in southern Karnataka state. It took five months to reach the first 50,000 dead. The toll hit 100,000 deaths in the next two months in October 2020 and 150,000 three months later in January this year. Deaths slowed until mid-March, only to sharply rise again.
For the past week, more than 2,000 Indians have died every day.
Also read: Virus ‘swallowing’ people in India; crematoriums overwhelmed
India thought it had weathered the worst of the pandemic last year, but the virus is now racing through its population and systems are beginning to collapse.
Hospitalizations and deaths have reached record highs, overwhelming health care workers. Patients are suffocating because hospitals’ oxygen supplies have run out. Desperate family members are sending SOS messages on social media, hoping someone would help them find oxygen cylinders, empty hospital beds and critical drugs for their loved ones. Crematoriums have spilled over into parking lots, lighting up night skies in some cities.
With its health care system sinking fast, India is now looking at other nations to pull it out of the record surge that is barreling through one state and then another.
Many countries have offered assistance, including the U.S., which has promised to help with personal protective equipment, tests and oxygen supplies. The U.S. will also send raw materials for vaccine production, strengthening India’s capacity to manufacture more AstraZeneca doses.
Also read: UK to send medical supplies to India
Health experts say huge gatherings during Hindu festivals and mammoth election rallies in some states have accelerated the unprecedented surge India is seeing now.
They also say the government’s mixed messaging and its premature declarations of victory over the virus encouraged people to relax when they should have continued strict adherence to physical distancing, wearing masks and avoiding large crowds.
The national capital New Delhi is in lockdown, as are the southern states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Some other states, too, have enforced restrictions in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus.
India has also called on its armed forces to help fight the devastating crisis. India’s chief of Defense Staff, General Bipin Rawat, said late Monday that oxygen supplies would be released from armed forces reserves and its retired medical personnel would join health facilities to ease the pressure on doctors.
Meanwhile, India’s vaccination program appears to be struggling. So far nearly 10% of the country’s population have received one jab, but just over 1.5% have received both vaccines
Indians 18 and older will be eligible for a vaccine from Saturday.
‘No place for you’: Indian hospitals buckle amid virus surge
Seema Gandotra, sick with the coronavirus, gasped for breath in an ambulance for 10 hours, as it tried unsuccessfully at six hospitals in India’s sprawling capital to find an open bed. By the time she was admitted, it was too late, and the 51-year-old died hours later.
Rajiv Tiwari, whose oxygen levels began falling after he tested positive for the virus, has the opposite problem: He identified an open bed, but the 30-something resident of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh can’t get to it. “There is no ambulance to take me to hospital,” he said.
Such tragedies are familiar from surges in other parts of the world — but were largely unknown in India, which was able to prevent a collapse in its health system last year through a harsh lockdown. But now they are everyday occurrences in the vast country, which is seeing its largest surge of the pandemic so far and watching its chronically underfunded health system crumble.
Tests are delayed. Medical oxygen is scarce. Hospitals are understaffed and overflowing. Intensive care units are full. Nearly all ventilators are in use, and the dead are piling up at crematoriums and graveyards. India recorded over 250,000 new infections and over 1,700 deaths in the past 24 hours alone, and the U.K. announced a travel ban on most visitors from the country this week. Overall, India has reported more than 15 million cases and some 180,000 deaths — and experts say these numbers are likely an undercounts.
India’s wave of cases is contributing to a worldwide rise in infections as many places experience deepening crises, such as Brazil and France, spurred in part by new, more contagious variants, including one first detected in India. More than a year into the pandemic, global deaths have passed 3 million and are climbing again, running at nearly 12,000 per day on average. At the same time, vaccination campaigns have seen setbacks in many places — and India’s surge has only exacerbated that: The country is a major vaccine producer but was forced it to delay deliveries of shots to focus on its domestic demand.
Also read: Indian capital gasps for oxygen
Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who has been tracking India’s pandemic, said India failed to learn from surges elsewhere and take anticipatory measures.
When new infections started dipping in September, authorities thought the worst of the pandemic was over. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan even declared in March that the country had entered the “endgame” — but he was already behind the curve: Average weekly cases in Maharashtra state, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, had tripled in the previous month.
Mukherjee was among those who had urged authorities to take advantage of cases being low earlier in the year to speed up vaccinations. Instead officials dithered in limiting huge gatherings during Hindu festivals and refused to delay ongoing elections in the eastern West Bengal state, where experts fear that large, unmasked crowds at rallies will fuel the spread of the virus.
Now India’s two largest cities have imposed strict lockdowns, the pain of which will fall inordinately on the poor. Many have already left major cities, fearing a repeat of last year, when an abrupt lockdown forced many migrant workers to walk to their home villages or risk starvation.
New Delhi, the capital, is rushing to convert schools into hospitals. Field hospitals in hard-hit cities that had been abandoned are being resuscitated. India is trying to import oxygen and has started to divert oxygen supplies from industry to the health system.
Also read: India's capital to lock down as nation's virus cases top 15M
It remains to be seen whether these frantic efforts will be enough. New Delhi’s government-run Sanjay Gandhi Hospital is increasing its beds for COVID-19 patients from 46 to 160. But R. Meneka, the official coordinating the COVID-19 response at the hospital, said he wasn’t sure if the facility had the capacity to provide oxygen to that many beds.
The government-run hospital at Burari, an industrial hub in the capitals’ outskirts, only had oxygen for two days Monday, and found that most vendors in the city had run out, said Ramesh Verma, who coordinates the COVID-19 response there.
“Every minute, we keep getting hundreds of calls for beds,” he said.
Kamla Devi, a 71-year-old diabetic, was rushed to a hospital in New Delhi when her blood sugar levels fell last week. On returning home, her levels plummeted again but this time, there were no beds. She died before she could be tested for the virus. “If you have corona(virus) or if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. The hospitals have no place for you,” said Dharmendra Kumar, her son.
Laboratories were unprepared for the steep rise in demand for testing that came with the current surge, and everyone was “caught with their pants down,” said A. Velumani, the chairman and managing director of Thyrocare, one of India’s largest private testing labs. He said that the current demand was three times that of last year.
Also read: India records over 260,000 daily COVID-19 cases, tally at 14,788,109
India’s massive vaccination drive is also struggling. Several states have flagged shortages, although the federal government has claimed there are enough stocks.
India said last week that it would allow the use of all COVID-19 shots that had been greenlit by the World Health Organization or regulators in the United States, Europe, Britain or Japan. On Monday, it said that it would soon expand vaccinations to include every adult in the country, an estimated 900 million people. But with vaccine in short global supply, it isn’t clear when Indian vaccine makers will have the capacity to meet these goals. Indian vaccine maker Bharat Biotech said it was scaling up to make 700 million doses each year.
Meanwhile, Shahid Malik, who works at a small supplier of oxygen, said that the demand for medical oxygen had increased by a factor of 10. His phone has been ringing continuously for two days. By Monday, the shop still had oxygen but no cylinders.
He answered each call with the same message: “If you have your own cylinder, come pick up the oxygen. If you don’t, we can’t help you.”
Indian capital gasps for oxygen
Believe it or not, rising Covid-19 cases have left the Indian capital's medical infrastructure on the brink of collapse. Several hospitals in the city are left with just a few hours of oxygen, the Chief Minister of Delhi said on Tuesday, prompting the High Court to slam the federal government for not banning the industrial use of the life-supporting gas immediately.
On Tuesday, India reported as many as 259,170 Covid-19 cases and 1,761 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic broke out over a year ago. The national capital alone reported over 30,000 new Covid cases and some 250 deaths.
Also read: India's capital to lock down as nation's virus cases top 15M
"Serious oxygen crisis persists in Delhi. I again urge the Centre (federal government) to urgently provide oxygen to Delhi. Some hospitals are left with just a few hours of oxygen," Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, after a number of leading private hospitals claimed that their oxygen supplies will last for a maximum of 8-12 hours.
Local TV channels also beamed footage of hundreds of Delhi residents queuing up in hospitals, begging for beds for their loved ones with Covid-19 positive reports.
Also read: India records over 260,000 daily COVID-19 cases, tally at 14,788,109
Taking cognizance of the media reports and Kejriwal's tweets, the Delhi High Court also came down heavily on the federal government and questioned its decision to implement a ban on the industrial use of oxygen for Covid patients only from April 22. "Economic interests can't override human lives. Else we are heading for a disaster," the court said.
"Out of 130 crore, there are less than two crore official cases. Even if it's five times, that means only 10 crore cases. We should protect the remaining people. At this rate, we might lose one crore people. We should act fast. We are not here to run the government but you have to be sensitive to the situation," a two-judge bench said.
Also read: Covid-19: Global cases near 142 million, deaths top 3 million
UNB had earlier reported that the Covid-19 pandemic has suddenly turned India into a Covid vaccine importer from a mass exporter. And the government has turned to foreign vaccine producers for inoculating the citizens. The Sputnik vaccine from Russia, officials had said, would arrive next month.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest Covid inoculation programme on January 16. Two 'Made in India' jabs, one developed by the Serum Institute in collaboration with AstraZeneca, and the other by Bharat Biotech, are being given.
India's COVID-19 tally rises to 11,385,339 as daily cases continue to rise
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 11,385,339 on Monday as 26,291 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, said the latest data from the federal health ministry.
Global Covid-19 cases surpass 114 million mark
The confirmed cases of coronavirus exceeded 114 million across the globe as of Monday.