Covid crisis in India

As the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out across the world hit almost 1 billion, new cases of the virus in India rocketed to over 350,000 in a single 24 hour period. In the same time frame, the authorities registered in excess of 2,800 deaths.

Patients are being turned away by hospitals completely inundated with cases and incapacitated by a lack of vital supplies.

With oxygen reserves in short supply country-wide, the Indian government has laid on dedicated trains to ferry oxygen tanks to those cities most afflicted. Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force has been enlisted to deliver gas cylinders and ventilators both from within the country and abroad.

Claims that the drastic escalation in numbers is down to a new and more deadly strain of the virus have yet to be confirmed by epidemiologists. It's more likely that the large-scale gatherings for the recent celebrations of Holi and Kumbh Mela, drawing crowds in excess of a million, aided transmission.

A press statement from the national government put the onus for the second wave on "the laxity among everyone". Following the first wave last year, India has not experienced a total lockdown and some states object to Covid restrictions.

As a global Covid vaccine hub, India has already exported 60 million coronavirus doses. Whilst the roll-out scheme has immunized over 100 million residents since January, meeting the demands of a demographic of 1.4 billion remains a mammoth undertaking.

International support is being welcomed, as countries endeavour to ease the crisis in India with life-giving medical supplies and apparatus.

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