Over 1 million cases: India joins US and Brazil in grim coronavirus club

Medical workers treat patients infected with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) at a hospital in New Delhi. Picture: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Medical workers treat patients infected with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) at a hospital in New Delhi. Picture: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Published Jul 17, 2020

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Mumbai - India on Friday became the third

country in the world to record more than one million cases of

the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil,

as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller

towns.

Given India's population of around 1.3 billion, experts say,

one million is relatively low - but the number will rise

significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further

straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink.

The pandemic has surged in the country in recent weeks as it

spread beyond the biggest cities, pushing India past Russia as

the third-most-infected country last week.

Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new

containment zones in several states this week, including the

largely rural Bihar state in the east and the southern tech hub

Bengaluru, where cases have spiked.

But officials have the struggled to enforce the lockdowns

and keep people indoors.

India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking the

total to 1 003 832, with 25 602 deaths from Covid-19, federal

health ministry data showed. That compares to 3.6 million cases

in the United States and 2 million in Brazil - countries with

less than a third of India's population.

Epidemiologists say India is still likely months from

hitting its peak.

"In the coming months, we are bound to see more and more

cases, and that is the natural progression of any pandemic,"

said Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the nonprofit Public

Health Foundation of India.

"As we move forward, the goal has to be lower mortality," he

said. "A critical challenge states will face is how to

rationally allocate hospital beds."

The last four months of the pandemic sweeping India have

exposed severe gaps in the country's healthcare system, which is

one of the most poorly funded and has for years lacked enough

doctors or hospital beds.

The Indian government has defended a strict lockdown it

imposed in March to contain the virus spread, saying it helped

keep death rates low and allowed time to beef up the healthcare

infrastructure. But public health experts say shortages remain

and could hit hard in the coming months.

"As a public health measure, I don’t think the lockdown had

much impact. It just delayed the virus spread," said Dr Kapil

Yadav, assistant professor of community medicine at New Delhi's

premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The million cases so far recorded likely left out many

asymptomatic ones, he said. "It's a gross underestimate."

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, urged

Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take concrete steps to contain

the pandemic, tweeting that the number of infections will double

to two million by August 10 at this pace.

Millions of migrant workers, left stranded in the cities by

the lockdown in March, took long journeys home on foot, some

dying on the way while others left without work or wages.

Several states including Bihar, to which many of the

migrants returned, have witnessed a surge in cases in recent

weeks as the lockdown has been eased to salvage a sagging

economy.

Babu predicts India will not see a sharp peak and decline.

"The surges are shifting from one place to another, so we

cannot say there will be one peak for the whole country. In

India, it’s going to be a sustained plateau for some time and

then it will go down."

Reuters

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