India overtakes Brazil as country with second-worst Covid outbreak, with surge in cases ‘yet to peak’

The deadly second wave in the country has pushed India’s tally to 13.53 million Covid-19 cases, surpassing Brazil’s 13.45 million cases

People continue to gather in markets of crowded city area in Bengaluru, even as cases grow (EPA)

India has again become the country with the world’s second-highest coronavirus infections, overtaking Brazil, as doctors report shortage of hospital beds and ventilators and warn of a situation that will fast slip out of control if urgent action isn’t taken.

India hit the highest record of daily caseload with nearly 170,000 cases in the past 24 hours on Monday. The deadly second wave in the country pushed India’s tally to 13.53 million Covid-19 cases, surpassing Brazil’s 13.45 million cases and only behind US by some eight million cases.

The second populous country in the world has been hitting new records each day with single-day cases peaking six times last week, crossing the 100,000 mark. India now has the highest daily average of new infections in the world.

Experts and doctors have raised an alarm over the “critical” situation and warned that the worst is yet to come.

Dr Arvind Kumar, leading robotic chest surgeon at Delhi’s Sir Gangaram Hospital, told The Independent that the situation is “critical” across India as hospitals are now witnessing a shortage of ventilators, ICU beds and oxygen tanks.

“Situation in all hospitals across Delhi and rest of the country is highly critical. Hospitals are almost full in all cities, there are no ventilators, ICU beds and other Covid beds which are available,” Dr Kumar, chairman of the Centre for Chest Surgery at Sir Gangaram Hospital, said.

Dr Kumar, who has been at forefront treating coronavirus infections in Delhi, indicated that the situation is slipping out of hand and there is an urgent need to come up with additional temporary healthcare facilities to treat more people.

“People are rushing from one place to another to seek help for their loved ones. From morning my phone is ringing for arranging hospital beds, ventilators in hospitals and including my own hospital where everything is full,” he described the situation in the hospitals.

India has nearly 1.2 million active cases now and 170,000 deaths with about 904 new deaths added to the tally in past 24 hour.

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The surge, experts say, is driven by laxity in following coronavirus protocol, emergence of more infectious mutant virus and large population of susceptible people.

With the onset of the second wave in March, India broke the lull it witnessed in cases after bending the curve in the beginning of the year.

This is the second time India overtook Brazil since the beginning of the pandemic. It surpassed Brazil on 7 September, 2020, with some 90,000 cases added to the nationwide tally of 4 million cases.

Dr Kumar, who was one the first to raise an alarm over community spread in India as government denied it, says infections are yet to peak and “it is going to get worst” if action is not taken now.

“We are soon going to cross 200,000 in daily spike as the peak of second wave is yet to come by the end of the month. We have to take measures now so that we can see the results in 10-15 days,” he said.

Several Indian states have gone back to adopting lockdown measures to curb the surge.

India’s second most populous state of Maharashtra is mulling a 15 day state-wide lockdown from 14-30 April. The decision is yet to come.

Maharashtra added the highest tally of 63,294 new cases and 349 deaths in the last 24 hours as cities Pune and Nagpur reported shortage of ventilators. Resident doctors of the Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagpur held protests on Sunday alleging shortage of oxygen cylinders, beds and Remdesivir injections.

The situation also worsened in national capital Delhi as it saw 10,774 new infections and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the fourth wave is "much more dangerous."

He warned of a lockdown in the wake of new cases but said he is not in favour of it as it “is not the solution to Corona.” But if “the number of beds in hospitals starts falling short, we might have to impose a lockdown. I am not in favour of lockdown. I just need your cooperation,” Mr Kejriwal said.

The health ministry said 10 states that are showing a steep rise are: Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Despite the current surge, visuals went viral of millions of devotees across the country thronging the banks of Ganges, a river Hindus consider holy, in the northern city of Haridwar.

They showed a sea of people packing the banks without masks and social distancing norms to take a dip in the ice-cold waters of the Ganges to celebrate the Kumbh festival, one of the largest religious congregations in the world.

Dr Kumar said it could emerge as a hotspot, however, permission for it was issued much earlier.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi declared a “Tika Utsav” or “vaccine festival” from 11-14 April to infuse the population with fresh enthusiasm and ramp up the vaccination drive that stated in January. His call came amidst reports of shortage of vaccines in most of the centres in at least six states.

India has issued more than 100 million doses so far but experts suggest the country needs to pick up pace control the second wave and cut the chain of transmission.