Bengalaru, India
Reuters
India reported a record 412,262 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday and a record 3,980 daily death toll, as a second wave of infections swamps the health system and spreads from cities into the vast countryside.
COVID-19 infections in the world’s second most populous nation have surged past 21 million, with a death toll of 230,168, health ministry data show.
A man wearing personal protective equipment stands next to a burning funeral pyre of a relative, who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), before his cremation, at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, on 5th May. PICTURE: Reuters/Adnan Abidi.
Government modelling had forecast a peak in second wave infections by Wednesday.
“This temporarily halts speculations of a peak,” Rijo M John, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in the southern state of Kerala, said on Twitter.
With hospitals scrabbling for beds and oxygen in response to the surge in infections, the World Health Organization said in a weekly report that India accounted for nearly half the coronavirus cases reported worldwide last week and a quarter of the deaths.
Medical experts say India’s actual figures could be five to 10 times the official tallies.
CHURCHES IN INDIA TO HOLD A DAY OF PRAYER AND FASTING
Churches in India will hold a day of prayer and fasting for the healing of the nation on Friday as the country faces a rising death toll from the coronavirus.
The day is being organised by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, the National Council of Churches in India, and the Evangelical Fellowship of India, which represent 27.8 million Christians in the nation.
The initiative also has the support of the World Council of Churches and the Christian Conference of Asia. In a joint letter to the church in India dated 5th May, the two organisations expressed solidarity with the churches in India “in the midst of the suffering and loss of thousands of lives in India”
“We grieve with you before God, for loss of so many family members, friends, pastors, teachers and health care workers who have been taken by this pandemic,” said the letter signed by Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, acting general secretary of the WCC, and Dr Matthews George Chunakara, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia.
“We also share the pain of those who are sick and suffering. It is our hope and prayer that during this period of crisis, God Almighty will continue to accompany you, and uphold each other as they struggle for healing and recovery.
Church of South India general secretary C Fernandas Rathina Raja said that the day is “genuinely a prompt and proper prospect of prayer which will definitely make a motion towards constant and empathetic mission accompaniment”.
The WCC has provided a range of resources to help people pray including the publication, “Voices of Lament, Hope, and Courage”, which has been designed for use in prayer groups, congregational services, personal prayer, and in the pastoral accompaniment of those directly affected in different ways by the pandemic.
– DAVID ADAMS/Sight
India’s COVID-19 crisis has been most acute in the capital, New Delhi, among other cities, but in rural areas – home to nearly 70 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion people – limited public healthcare is posing more challenges.
“The situation has become dangerous in villages,” said Suresh Kumar, a field coordinator with Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan, a human rights charity.
In some villages where the charity works in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh – home to about 200 million people – “there are deaths in almost every second house”, he said.
“People are scared and huddled in their homes with fever and cough. The symptoms are all of COVID-19, but with no information available many think it is seasonal flu.”
India’s Goa state, a hugely popular tourist destination on the western coast, has the highest rate of COVID-19 infections in the country, with up to one in every two people testing positive in recent weeks, government officials said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been widely criticized for not acting sooner to suppress the second wave, after religious festivals and political rallies drew tens of thousands of people in recent weeks and became “super spreader” events.
The surge in infections has also coincided with a dramatic drop in vaccinations because of supply and delivery problems, despite India being a major vaccine producer.
Life and death decisions
In the capital Delhi, fewer than 20 of more than 5,000 COVID-19 ICU beds are free at any one time.
Student doctors like Rohan Aggarwal, 26, recruited to fight the second wave, are being forced to make life and death decisions.
His Holy Family Hospital in Delhi normally has a capacity for 275 adults, but is currently caring for 385.
“Who to be saved, who not to be saved should be decided by God,” Aggarwal told Reuters during a grim overnight shift.
“We are not made for that – we are just humans. But at this point in time, we are being made to do this.”
The country’s top scientific adviser has warned of a possible third wave of infections.
“Phase 3 is inevitable, given the high levels of circulating virus,” the government’s principal scientific adviser, K VijayRaghavan told a news briefing on Wednesday.
“But it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur…We should prepare for new waves.”
While India is the world’s biggest vaccine maker, it is struggling to produce enough product for the surge in infections. Its two current vaccine producers will take two months or more to boost total monthly output from the current 70 million to 80 million doses.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday threw his support behind waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines in a move to boost vaccinations worldwide.
