Cemeteries are running out of space, hospitals are pushing patients away and desperate families are asking for help on social media to get beds and medicine.
India reported 295,041 coronavirus cases and 2,023 deaths on Wednesday, its highest increase in cases and the highest increase in deaths in a single day since the start of the pandemic, according to a CNN data count of the Ministry of Health of India.
“The volume is huge,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior lung consultant at Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital, who had to turn his lobby into an additional Covid room. “It’s like a tsunami.”
“Things are out of control,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
“There is no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It is impossible to do a test. You have to wait more than a week. And almost all the systems that can break down in the health system have been broken,” he said. .
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Tuesday and acknowledged the country’s “great battle” against Covid-19.
He appealed to states to “use a blockade as a last resort,” even as the capital of New Delhi entered its first full day of a one-week blockade.
On Monday, Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, warned that failure to stop movements in the city could lead to a “tragedy”.
“We don’t want to take Delhi to a place where patients are lying in the hospital corridors and people are dying on the roads,” Kejriwal said.
He warned on Tuesday that some hospitals in Delhi were left “with few hours of oxygen” as authorities struggled to turn sports complexes, banquet halls, hotels and schools into much-needed treatment centers, with the aim of ‘add 6,000 extra beds. in a matter of days.
“Our health care system has reached its limit. It is now in a state of distress. It has not yet collapsed, but it is in difficulties,” Kejriwal said. “Every healthcare system has its limits. No system can accommodate unlimited patients.”
With the nationwide shortage notification, local and state leaders appealed to the federal government for more oxygen and drugs.
Modi appeared to respond to those calls on Tuesday, announcing plans for the delivery of 100,000 oxygen cylinders nationwide, new oxygen production plants and hospitals dedicated to Covid patients.
But experts fear it will be too little, too late, as positive patients compete for limited resources and mass rallies threaten to spread the virus even further.
Asking for help online
With few official options available, some families turn to social media for help.
Mumbai resident Anil Tiwari, 34, lost his father to Covid-19 in November last year. Last week, her 58-year-old mother tested positive. She was admitted to the hospital but needed an intensive care unit (ICU) bed, Tiwari said.
After days of efforts, including calling on city authorities to get a waiting list, Tiwari’s mother was finally given a bed for the ICU, Tiwari said Tuesday. But now he needs oxygen, which the hospital lacks.
He is still able to walk, but he has difficulty breathing, Tiwari said.
Concerned families are also appealing on social media to get supplies of the antiviral drug Remdesivir.
Demand for the drug and its active pharmaceutical ingredients has risen during the second wave, prompting the government to temporarily ban the export of the drug to increase its supply to the domestic market.
Abhijeet Kumar, a 20-year-old college student, went on Twitter to raise money to pay for Remdesivir injections for her 51-year-old uncle.
Kumar said his uncle had been at Raipur Hospital in the central state of India, Chhattisgarh, since April 9 after testing positive for Covid.
“Injections are very expensive,” Kumar said. “They say it costs between 12,000 and 15,000 rupees (about $ 160-200). He’s gotten two doses of the injection, but he needs a third and we can’t afford it … my uncle works as a plumber.”
Seven major manufacturers of Remdesivir have reduced prices to between 899 and 3,490 rupees (about $ 12-47) due to “government intervention,” according to a government memorandum on April 17.
But several states have recognized that high demand and low supply have created a black market for remdesivir and similar drugs.
Even many doctors and nurses are also frantically looking for open beds and treatment options for their loved ones, said Parkar, the Bombay lung specialist.
“Everyone is sick,” he said. “The time has come when we don’t have beds for our own classmates, for our parents, for our own extended family.”
Complacency and public gatherings
The second wave, which has long surpassed the first wave in both new cases and the rate of infection, was “a situation created by complacency,” Laxminarayan said. of the Center for Dynamics, Economics and Disease Policy.
After the first wave ended in the winter, the government and the public relaxed too much due to a mixture of coveted fatigue and a false sense of security, according to experts.
This kind of triumphant rhetoric meant residents relaxed their safe Covid behavior, such as social distancing or the use of masks, experts say. And, despite Covid’s risk warnings, large meetings continued to be held: sports matches resumed, elaborate weddings continued, and cinemas reopened.
The festival officially began on April 1 and ends later this month. There are safe Covid guidelines: visitors must register online and take a negative Covid-19 test to participate in the sacred baths, and thousands of agents are on the lookout, but experts are concerned that there are none. it is enough to contain risk, given the large number of attendees. Several million are expected to visit the “auspicious” days.
“The Kumbh Mela could fall as one of the most massively widespread mass events in history, simply because of the size of the number of people who show up for the ritual bath in the Ganges,” Laxminarayan said.
For weeks, Modi, who has a major Hindu base, refrained from commenting on the Kumbh Mela and its Covid risks. But earlier this week, he finally appealed to pilgrims to avoid congregating in Haridwar.
“Now Kumbh should be carried out symbolically in the midst of the ongoing crown crisis,” Modi posted on Saturday.
But for some, Modi’s message it sounded empty as the prime minister continued to hold mass political rallies before the parliamentary and local council elections to four states and a union territory.
Videos of Modi rallies, including one in Tamulpur, Assam state, on April 3, show him speaking in front of massive, packed and lively crowds.
In the state of West Bengal, an important electoral field, tens of thousands attended the rallies of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) in Modi and the ruling Trinamool Congress party.
In the face of expanding cases, the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party, has suspended all public rallies in West Bengal.
And on Monday, the BJP said it would only hold “small public meetings” with a limit of 500 people in the state due to “the difficult phase of the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, Kumbh Mela has not been ordered to stop, nor have new rules been imposed. The state of Uttarakhand has issued a number of new restrictions, including the remnants of night taps and the limit on public gatherings, but the festival is exempt.
Haridwar has experienced an increase in infections, with more than 6,500 new cases reported since the Kumbh Mela began.
Several religious subgroups, including Juna Akhara and Niranjani Akhara, have called on their out-of-state supporters to return home and follow the guidelines. Some states and cities require festival returnees to be tested and quarantined.
But medical workers fear it is too late.
“It’s been a couple of weeks. Now, of course, they’re spreading, but they may be bringing the virus home at this time,” Laxminarayan said. “It’s really a terrible situation right now.”
CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed to this report.