India extends record rise in daily infections

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU • India extended a record daily run of new Covid-19 infections yesterday, spurred by hundreds of positive tests at a major religious gathering, as politicians pushed ahead with election rallies against advice that they could worsen the outbreak.

India is battling a massive second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, with new restrictions imposed in Mumbai, New Delhi and other cities. There are also growing calls for officials to speed up the country's vaccination programme as hospitals are swamped.

The 217,353 new cases reported by the Health Ministry yesterday marked the eighth record daily increase in the past nine days and took total cases to nearly 14.3 million. India's case count is second to that of the United States, which has over 31 million infections.

Deaths in India rose by 1,185 over the past 24 hours - the highest single-day rise in seven months - to reach a total of 174,308, the Health Ministry reported.

Experts have raised concerns about the spread of more contagious and deadlier variants of the disease, particularly given widespread participation in religious festivals and political rallies. A Lancet study this month estimated that India's fatalities could double by June.

"The biggest fight we have is in the society... Over a period of time, people have adopted a casual approach," Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said yesterday.

Several senior leaders and opposition lawmakers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress' Mr Rahul Gandhi, have been holding large rallies for supporters amid elections in five regions, including West Bengal.

Visuals from the rallies have shown thousands of mask-less people crowded together and chanting slogans as they listened to speeches from politicians, in clear violation of social distancing and other Covid-19 norms. Interior Minister Amit Shah was scheduled to hold public meetings and roadshows in West Bengal yesterday.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people at a religious gathering in Haridwar in the north of the country tested positive for Covid-19, as tens of thousands of pilgrims jostled to take a holy dip in the Ganges during the weeks-long Kumbh Mela festival, which one local official called a "super-spreader" event.

India has so far administered 115 million vaccine doses, the highest globally after the US and China, but that covers only a small fraction of its 1.4 billion people. In the heat of the latest wave of infections, India has shifted from being a mass vaccine exporter to a major importer.

Officials abruptly changed the rules to fast-track vaccine imports, having earlier rebuffed foreign drugmakers such as Pfizer. It will import Russia's Sputnik V vaccine from this month to cover as many as 125 million people. India is also seeking to inoculate more of its population with home-grown shots.

Meanwhile, hospitals are seeing an overwhelming number of Covid-19 patients.

In a Delhi government hospital, two men wearing oxygen masks gasping for air shared a bed. At Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, one of India's largest Covid-19-only facilities with more than 1,500 beds, a stream of ambulances ferried patients to the overflowing casualty ward. Some came in three-wheeled auto rickshaws and buses. The youngest patient was a newborn baby.

"We are definitely over-burdened. We are already working at full capacity," said the hospital's medical director Suresh Kumar.

From an initial 54 beds, the hospital now has more than 300 for Covid-19 patients in critical condition. Even that is not enough.

REUTERS