‘TSUNAMI’ OF CORONA: INDIA’S DAILY COVID-19 CASES HIT NEW RECORD

Wed 21 April 2021:

India’s daily COVID-19 cases reached a new high early Wednesday after the country registered over 295,000 infections and more than 2,000 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to Health Ministry figures.

Healthcare and other essential services across India are close to collapse as a second coronavirus wave that started in mid-March tears through the country with devastating speed.

Graveyards are running out of space, hospitals are turning away patients, and desperate families are pleading for help on social media for beds and medicine.

“The volume is humongous,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. “It’s just like a tsunami.”

The leader of the country’s main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, said late Tuesday that India is “gasping for oxygen due to the center’s [government’s] incompetency, complacency.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed the nation the same night, asked states to use lockdowns as a last resort and urged state governments to focus on micro containment zones.

“In today’s situation, we have to save the country from a lockdown,” he said, adding the government is making efforts to meet the increasing demand for oxygen in various parts of the country.

Modi’s government is facing a number of questions for not being able to handle the situation properly. The government has allowed political rallies and the country’s biggest religious festival to take place despite the increase in cases.

Modi, who has resisted suggestions that nationwide measures should be reintroduced has attracted fire for holding rallies without proper social distancing. Hindu festivals have also been allowed to go ahead, most notably the massive Kumbh Mela gathering in Haridwar which has attracted as many as 25 million people since January, including about 4.6 million last week alone, with most people ignoring Covid-19 guidelines.

When death bodies were burning #PracharMantri Modi was busy doing election rallies…
History will never forget , Never forgive this.#ResignModi pic.twitter.com/upyCEisodR

— AlSA Chandigarh (@AISAChandigarh) April 19, 2021

India is going through a serious health crisis. As a responsible PM, Modi ji should first call off his election rallies in West Bengal and address the issues first but he seems least interested in doing so. #PMDoesNotCare pic.twitter.com/3MfCCd3KSg

— Team Dr Rana Chaterjee (@DrChaterjee) April 18, 2021

India is the only country whose chief PM Modi is busy in election campaign despite of facts that people are losing life due to shortage of of oxygen and are unable to get beds in hospitals & his cabinet is also busy in campaigning in Bengal. #ModiHataoDeshBachao pic.twitter.com/w4r0AXCVkf

— Nirmal Ghosh MLA (@NirmalGhoshMla) April 20, 2021

Demand for the drug and its active pharmaceutical ingredients has spiked during the second wave, prompting the government to temporarily ban the export of the medication to increase its supply in the domestic market.

The Indian government has approved the drug for emergency use within hospitals, though the World Health Organization (WHO) says evidence does not suggest the drug lessens the risk of dying from Covid-19 or needing mechanical ventilation.

The US Centers for Disease Control on Monday advised against all travel to India, and the UK imposed restrictions on arrivals from the country.