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Gallery|Coronavirus pandemic

‘Horrible’ weeks ahead for India as COVID catastrophe worsens

India’s infections and deaths mount with alarming speed, with a top health expert warning coming weeks will be ‘horrible’.

Relatives carry the body of a person who died of COVID-19 as multiple pyres of other coronavirus victims burn at a crematorium in New Delhi. [Amit Sharma/AP Photo]
Published On 4 May 20214 May 2021
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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 official count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 20 million, nearly doubling in the past three months, while deaths officially have passed 220,000. On Tuesday, the health ministry reported 357,229 new cases in the past 24 hours and 3,449 deaths from COVID-19.

The country has witnessed scenes of people dying outside overwhelmed hospitals and funeral pyres lighting up the night sky.

India’s top health official, Rajesh Bhushan, refused to speculate last month as to why authorities were not better prepared. But the cost is clear: People are dying because of shortages of bottled oxygen and hospital beds or because they could not get a COVID-19 test.

Dr Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health in the United States, said he is concerned that Indian policymakers he has been in contact with believe things will improve in the next few days.

“I have 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: area-specific shutdowns, more testing, universal mask-wearing and avoidance of large gatherings.

“That is what’s going to break the back of this surge,” he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced criticism for his handling of the pandemic as India’s under-funded healthcare system struggles to cope with the surge, with hospitals running out of oxygen and beds.

The Delhi High Court said it will start punishing government officials if supplies of oxygen allocated to hospitals are not delivered. “Enough is enough,” it said.

Experts are also worried the prices being charged for COVID-19 vaccines will make it harder for the poor to get vaccinated. On Monday, opposition parties urged the government to make vaccinations free to all Indians.

India is vaccinating about 2.1 million people daily or approximately 0.15 percent of its population.

“This is not going to end very soon,” said Dr Ravi Gupta, a virus expert at the University of Cambridge in England. “And really … the soul of the country is at risk in a way.”

An Indian health worker takes a break while waiting to collect swab samples for COVID-19 test in Hyderabad. [Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo]
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A health worker takes a nasal swab sample of a woman to test for COVID-19 in Hyderabad. [Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo]
Health workers sit in the waiting area of a vaccination centre which has been closed because of shortage of the COVID-19 vaccine in Mumbai. [Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo]
A Kashmiri man receives a vaccine for COVID-19 at a primary health centre in Srinagar city. [Dar Yasin/AP Photo]
Relatives react to heat emitting from the multiple funeral pyres of COVID-19 victims at a crematorium in the outskirts of New Delhi. [Amit Sharma/AP Photo]
A relative of a person who died of COVID-19 mourns at a crematorium in Jammu, Indian-administered Kashmir. [Channi Anand/AP Photo]
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A man walks carrying a refilled cylinder as family members of COVID-19 patients wait in queue to refill their oxygen cylinders at Mayapuri area in New Delhi. [Ishant Chauhan/AP Photo]
COVID-19 patients receive oxygen outside a Sikh temple in New Delhi. [Amit Sharma/AP Photo]
Relatives of a person who died of COVID-19 mourn outside a field hospital in Mumbai. [Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo]
Health workers bring a patient to be admitted at a government COVID-19 hospital in Ahmedabad. [Ajit Solanki/AP Photo]
Health workers attend to COVID-19 patients at a makeshift hospital in New Delhi. [AP Photo]


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