In The Atlantic, staff writer Yasmeen Serhan writes : “India considered itself to be ‘in the endgame‘ of the pandemic just a few weeks ago. Now it is the global epicenter. The country recently surpassed the devastating milestone of more than 345,000 new COVID-19 cases in a single day, the biggest total recorded globally since the pandemic began.”

“India’s outbreak is an enormous tragedy for its own people, but it’s also a catastrophe for the rest of the world. Ninety-two developing nations rely on India, home to the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine maker, for the doses to protect their own populations, a supply now constrained by India’s domestic obligations,” adds Serhan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is quoted by Reuters saying that the situation in India is “beyond heartbreaking”.

According to Reuters, Prime Minister Modi has urged citizens to get vaccinated and “to exercise caution amid what he called a ‘storm‘ of infections, while hospitals and doctors in some northern states posted urgent notices saying they were unable to cope with the influx.”

In some of the worst-hit cities, bodies were being burnt in makeshift facilities offering mass cremations, Reuters reports.

Lockdowns and Curfews

Some states including Karnataka, Maharastra and others have ordered a-14-day-lockdown from Tuesday, according to Reuters. “Several cities have ordered curfews, while police enforce social distancing and mask-wearing. Politicians, especially Modi, have faced criticism for holding rallies during state election campaigns that draw thousands into packed stadiums.”

If you’ve never been to a cremation, the smell of death never leaves you. … My heart breaks for all my friends and family in Delhi and India going through this hell.

Vipin Narang, a political science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States (source: Reuters)

“Currently the hospital is in beg-and-borrow mode and it is an extreme crisis situation,” told a spokesman for the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the capital, New Delhi.

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How India Get to This Point?

Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia program at the Washington, D.C.–based Wilson Center, told The Atlantic that “the answer comes down to a ‘perfect storm‘ of factors that includes new and existing variants (and a lack of robust genomic sequencing to track them), a continuous stream of widely attended political rallies and religious gatherings (with no social distancing or mask wearing), and a general complacency on the part of the Indian government, which was slow to respond to a crisis in which it had prematurely claimed victory.”

“The result has been overwhelmed hospitals, depleted oxygen supplies, morgues that have run out of space, and crematoria that are melting from near-constant use. The country surpassed 2,000 deaths a day last week—and those are just the cases that have been recorded,” writes Serhan.

Christina Pagel, the director of clinical operational research at University College London, told Serhan “It’s very similar to what we saw in Manaus (the badly hit Brazilian city). … it’s not a coincidence that these variants are arising in populations that have developed immunity through infection.”

Senator Chris Murphy, one of the 10 Democratic senators who have called on the Biden administration to back the effort, told Serhan in a statement, “If we want to restore America’s global leadership in the post-Trump era, we should help other countries access the technical know-how they need to manufacture their own vaccines to fight COVID-19. It’s an easy, effective way for the United States to help.”

“Emerging variants and further delays to more equitable vaccine distribution stand to affect everyone, including vaccinated populations. India’s problem is the world’s problem,” writes Serhan.