India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi warned on Friday that if the deadly second wave of COVID-19 sweeping the country is brought under control, it will decimate India and threaten the rest of the world.
In a letter, Gandhi implored Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prepare for another national lockdown, speed up a nationwide vaccination program and scientifically monitor the virus and its mutations.
Gandhi said the world’s second most populous nation has a responsibility in a “globalized and interconnected world” to stop the “explosive” growth of COVID-19 within its borders.
“India is home to one in six human beings on the planet. The pandemic has demonstrated that our size, genetic diversity and complexity make India fertile ground for the virus to mutate rapidly, transforming into a more contagious and dangerous form, “Gandhi wrote.
“Allowing the uncontrollable spread of the virus in our country will be devastating not only for our people but also for the rest of the world.”
India’s highly contagious COVID-19 variant B.1.617 has already spread to other countries such as Britain, forcing countries to cut or restrict movement from India.
Over the past week, India reported 1.5 million more new infections and a record daily death toll as its hospitals run out of beds and medical oxygen. Since the start of the pandemic, it has reported 21.49 million cases and 234,083 deaths. It currently has 3.6 million active cases.
Modi has been widely criticized for failing to act sooner to suppress the second wave, after religious festivals and political rallies have drawn tens of thousands of people in recent weeks and have become “super-broadcaster” events.
His government has also been criticized for lifting social restrictions too soon after the first wave and for delays in the country’s vaccination program, which medical experts say is India’s only hope of controlling the second wave. COVID-19.
Although India is the world’s largest vaccine maker, it is struggling to produce and distribute enough doses to stem the tide of COVID-19.
Modi stressed that Indian states must maintain vaccination rates. Although the country has administered at least 157 million doses of the vaccine, its inoculation rate has fallen sharply in recent days.
“After hitting a rate of around 4 million per day, we are now down to 2.5 million per day due to vaccine shortages,†said Amartya Lahiri, professor of economics at the University of Colombia. Briton in the Mint newspaper.
“The 5 million a day target is the lower end of what we need to aim for, because even at this rate it will take us a year to get everyone two doses. Unfortunately, the situation is very grim.â€
RECORD INFECTIONS
India reported another record daily increase in coronavirus cases, 414,188, on Friday, bringing the total number of new cases for the week to 1.57 million. Deaths from COVID-19 increased from 3,915 to 234,083.
Medical experts say the actual extent of COVID-19 in India is five to ten times the official figures.
The Indian healthcare system is collapsing under the weight of patients as hospitals run out of beds and medical oxygen. Mortuaries and crematoriums cannot handle the number of dead and makeshift funeral pyres burned in parks and parking lots.
Prominent US disease modeler Chris Murray, of the University of Washington, said the scale of infections in India over a short period of time suggests that a “leak variant” could overcome any previous immunity to natural infections.
Infections are now spreading from overcrowded cities to remote rural villages that are home to nearly 70% of the 1.3 billion people.
Although northern and western India are most affected by the disease, southern India now appears to be the new epicenter. The share of the southern five states in the nation’s daily outbreak of infections rose from 28% to 33% in the first seven days of May, data showed.
In the southern city of Chennai, only one in a hundred beds with oxygen and two in a hundred beds in intensive care units (ICUs) were vacant Thursday, compared with a vacancy rate of more than 20% every two weeks, according to the data. of the government.
In India’s tech capital, Bengaluru, also in the south, only 23 of 590 intensive care unit beds were vacant, and only 1 in 50 beds with a ventilator were vacant, a situation officials say indicates a looming crisis .
The rate of positivity testing – the percentage of people tested who have the disease – in the city of 12.5 million tripled to almost 39% on Wednesday, from around 13% two weeks ago, the data showed.
Bengaluru has 325,000 active cases of COVID-19, with demand for intensive care beds and high dependency units (HDUs) more than 20 times greater, said HM Prasanna, president of the Association of Private Hospitals and Homes Nursing Center in Karnataka State, which includes Bengaluru.
“Every patient who comes to the hospital needs an intensive care unit or an HDU bed … that’s why patients move from one hospital to another looking for a treatment bed. intensive, â€he said.
“There is also a shortage of medical oxygen … Most of the small hospitals that cannot get oxygen on a daily basis refuse to admit COVID patients.”
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
