The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic is escalating in India and now accounts for half the world’s new cases, including 800,000 over two days, and more than one-quarter of the deaths but only 5 percent of its residents have been vaccinated and medical resources are in short supply.
Numerous states in India have placed lockdowns, including capital New Delhi’s union territory through May. 10. And several nations, including the United States and neighboring Nepal, are instituting travel bans from the country.
The Asian nation, which is the second-most populous in the world with 1.4 billion, has surged to 215,542 deaths, which is fourth place in the world behind the United States with 576,770 as of Sunday, Brazil with 408,081 and Mexico with 217,168. Cases are 15,992,271, second to the United States with 32,396,973, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins.
India has recorded 6.7 percent of the world’s 3.213 million Covid-9 deaths and 10.4 percent of the 153,363,469 cases, according to Worldometers.info.
But in the last few weeks, India has been dominating the world. In one week, India’s cases have grown by 20 percent, or 2.2 million, and deaths by 53 percent, or more than 15,000.
India became the first country in the world to pass 400,000 daily cases on Saturday with 401,993 and it dropped to 392,488 Sunday. The nation recorded a record 3,689 deaths Sunday after 3,523 Saturday.
And the cases may be a fraction of the total infected because testing is not that widespread.
“A nationwide lockdown rather than what we are doing now, in bits and pieces across states, because of the simple fact that it is spreading all over,” a member of the nation’s coronavirus task force said in a report by the Indian Express.” “We are looking at the wrong end of tunnel.
“Healthcare infrastructure cannot expand indefinitely, oxygen supplies have been ramped up but still there is shortage given the case load. It’s clear that we have to decrease the cases. It is a human-to-human spread. For at least two weeks, if we are able to stop that, we will decrease the case load. That will help decrease mortality, give some relief to health infrastructure and cut the cycle of transmission,” a member said.
Until a few weeks ago, cases hadn’t passed 100,000 and deaths were under 2,000. The United States previously held the daily record for most cases in one day with 299,786 on Jan. 2. The United States has the world record with 4,474 deaths reported in one day on Jan. 12.
