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 India
reported a record 412,262 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours
and a record 3,980 deaths. COVID-19 infections have now surged past
21 million, with a total death toll of 230,168, health ministry data
show.
Government modelling had forecast a peak in second wave infections
by Wednesday.
"This temporarily halts speculations of a peak," Rijo M John, a
professor at the Indian Institute of Management in the southern
state of Kerala, said on Twitter.
With hospitals scrabbling for beds and oxygen in response to the
surge in infections, the World Health Organization said in a weekly
report that India accounted for nearly half the coronavirus cases
reported worldwide last week and a quarter of the deaths.
India has 3.45 million active cases.
Medical experts say India's actual figures could be five to 10 times
the official tallies.
India's COVID-19 crisis has been most acute in the capital, New
Delhi, among other cities, but in rural areas - home to nearly 70%
of India's 1.3 billion people - limited public healthcare is posing
more challenges.
"The situation has become dangerous in villages," said Suresh Kumar,
a field coordinator with Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan,
a human rights charity.
In some villages where the charity works in the northern state of
Uttar Pradesh - home to about 200 million people - "there are deaths
in almost every second house", he said.
"People are scared and huddled in their homes with fever and cough.
The symptoms are all of COVID-19, but with no information available
many think it is seasonal flu."
India's Goa state, a hugely popular tourist destination on the
western coast, has the highest rate of COVID-19 infections in the
country, with up to one in every two people testing positive in
recent weeks, government officials said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been widely criticized for not
acting sooner to suppress the second wave, after religious festivals
and political rallies drew tens of thousands of people in recent
weeks and became "super spreader" events.
The surge in infections has also coincided with a dramatic drop in
vaccinations because of supply and delivery problems, despite India
being a major vaccine producer.
Several states have imposed various levels of social restrictions to
try and stem infections, but the federal government has refused to
impose a national lockdown.
India's southern state of Kerala, which has 376,004 active cases,
announced it will impose nine days of curbs on movement from
Saturday.
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LIFE AND DEATH DECISIONS
In the capital Delhi, fewer than 20 of more than 5,000 COVID-19
intensive care beds are free at any one time.
Student doctors like Rohan Aggarwal, 26, recruited to fight the
second wave, are being forced to make life and death decisions.
His Holy Family Hospital in Delhi normally has a capacity for 275
adults, but is currently caring for 385.
"Who to be saved, who not to be saved should be decided by God,"
Aggarwal told Reuters during a grim overnight shift.
"We are not made for that – we are just humans. But at this point in
time, we are being made to do this."
In the office of a Hindu crematorium in Delhi, the floor and shelves
are overflowing with earthen pots, plastic packets and steel
containers filled with the ashes of the city's many COVID-19 victims
who have been cremated.
Practising Hindus collect the ashes of the dead a few days after the
funeral for immersion in a river or sea, one of the many rituals
that they believe lead to salvation of the soul.
"Our lockers are full. We cannot store any more ashes. We used to
get around 40 COVID-19 bodies a day. We are now telling relatives to
take the ashes with them on the same day." Pankaj Sharma, a manager
at the crematorium told Reuters.
While India is the world's biggest vaccine maker, it is struggling
to produce enough product for the surge in infections. Its two
current vaccine producers will take two months or more to boost
total monthly output from the current 70 million to 80 million
doses.
The country's top scientific adviser has warned of a possible third
wave of infections.
"Phase 3 is inevitable, given the high levels of circulating virus,"
the government's principal scientific adviser, K. VijayRaghavan told
a news briefing on Wednesday.
"But it is not clear on what time scale this phase 3 will occur...
We should prepare for new waves."
(Reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru, Danish Siddiqui in
New Delhi, Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Writing by Michael Perry;
Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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