India has today reported a record of nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases with health services in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai swamped by the rising infections.
India’s tally has reached 286,579 confirmed cases, the fifth highest in the world, with 8,102 deaths, including 357 in the last 24 hours.
The spike comes as the government moved ahead with the reopening of restaurants, shopping centres and places of worship in most of India after a lockdown of more than two months. Subways, hotels and schools remain closed.
The actual infection numbers are thought to be higher because of limited testing.
The Health Ministry said it was ramping up the capacity with daily testing of more than 145,000 people. The number of tests in India crossed five million on Wednesday.
A worker sprays disinfectant at Okhla wholesale vegetable market after the government eased a nationwide lockdown in New Delhi on June 11, 2020
It also said that the total number of recovered patients has exceeded the active cases for the first time, with the recovery rate of nearly 49%.
Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum said India was ‘sitting on a ticking time bomb’.
He added: ‘Unless and until the government increases its spending on healthcare, things won’t change. A lot of people will die.
‘But if some strong policy decisions are made not only in Delhi but across India, we can minimise the damage.’
In New Delhi, a sprawling capital region of 46 million and home to some of India’s highest concentration of hospitals, a pregnant woman’s death after a frantic hunt for a sickbed was a worrying sign about the country’s ability to cope with a wave of new coronavirus cases.
India’s tally has reached 286,579 confirmed cases with nearly 10,000 new cases today alone, the fifth highest in the world
The country has suffered a total of 8,102 confirmed covid-19 deaths, including 357 in the last 24 hours
A man (centre) buys vegetables at Okhla wholesale vegetable market which has reopened in New Delhi despite a surge in cases, June 11, 2020
A man waits to spray disinfectant on auto rickshaws along the roadside to help prevent further covid-19 cases, in New Delhi on June 11, 2020
A worker sprays disinfectant at Okhla wholesale vegetable market in New Delhi while locals sit in the shade on June 11
‘She kept begging us to save her life, but we couldn’t do anything,’ said Shailendra Kumar, after driving his sister-in-law, Neelam, and her husband for hours, only to be turned away at eight public and private hospitals.
Half of Delhi’s 8,200 hospital beds dedicated to Covid-19 patients are already full and officials are projecting more than half a million cases in the city alone by July 31.
Private hospitals in Delhi – a wider territory that encompasses New Delhi – report that all of their sickbeds and ventilators are in use. Severely ill people have also been turned away from public hospitals.
Dr Mukesh Kumar, a neurologist at Delhi’s private Max Hospital who, like most of his colleagues, has been pulled in to care for Covid-19 patients said: ‘The surge is clearly visible now so we are in for a tough fight.’
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has come under fire for imposing a ten-week nationwide lockdown that crippled the economy and triggered a humanitarian crisis as unemployed migrant workers fled for their ancestral villages on foot.
People enquire about their relatives from a health worker at a COVID designated hospital in New Delhi, India, June 10
People bury their relative who died of covid-19 at a cemetery in New Delhi, India, June 10
Government officials defended the measures as the cost of protecting India’s 1.3 billion people from a devastating loss of life. In a national televised address, Mr Modi said Indians’ sacrifice had ‘saved the nation’.
But in recent weeks, the government has eased lockdown restrictions, resulting in nearly 10,000 new infections per day.
Nurses at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India’s premier public hospital in Delhi, have threatened to go on strike over ever-lengthening shifts and crowded personal protective equipment changing rooms.
Delhi’s government is now considering turning luxury hotels and sports stadiums into field hospitals.