Mumbai - India on Friday became the third
country in the world to record more than one million cases of
the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil,
as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller
towns.
Given India's population of around 1.3 billion, experts say,
one million is relatively low - but the number will rise
significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further
straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink.
The pandemic has surged in the country in recent weeks as it
spread beyond the biggest cities, pushing India past Russia as
the third-most-infected country last week.
Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new
containment zones in several states this week, including the
largely rural Bihar state in the east and the southern tech hub
Bengaluru, where cases have spiked.
But officials have the struggled to enforce the lockdowns
and keep people indoors.
India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking the
total to 1 003 832, with 25 602 deaths from Covid-19, federal
health ministry data showed. That compares to 3.6 million cases
in the United States and 2 million in Brazil - countries with
less than a third of India's population.
Epidemiologists say India is still likely months from
hitting its peak.
"In the coming months, we are bound to see more and more
cases, and that is the natural progression of any pandemic,"
said Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the nonprofit Public
Health Foundation of India.
"As we move forward, the goal has to be lower mortality," he
said. "A critical challenge states will face is how to
rationally allocate hospital beds."
The last four months of the pandemic sweeping India have
exposed severe gaps in the country's healthcare system, which is
one of the most poorly funded and has for years lacked enough
doctors or hospital beds.
The Indian government has defended a strict lockdown it
imposed in March to contain the virus spread, saying it helped
keep death rates low and allowed time to beef up the healthcare
infrastructure. But public health experts say shortages remain
and could hit hard in the coming months.
"As a public health measure, I don’t think the lockdown had
much impact. It just delayed the virus spread," said Dr Kapil
Yadav, assistant professor of community medicine at New Delhi's
premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
The million cases so far recorded likely left out many
asymptomatic ones, he said. "It's a gross underestimate."
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, urged
Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take concrete steps to contain
the pandemic, tweeting that the number of infections will double
to two million by August 10 at this pace.
Millions of migrant workers, left stranded in the cities by
the lockdown in March, took long journeys home on foot, some
dying on the way while others left without work or wages.
Several states including Bihar, to which many of the
migrants returned, have witnessed a surge in cases in recent
weeks as the lockdown has been eased to salvage a sagging
economy.
Babu predicts India will not see a sharp peak and decline.
"The surges are shifting from one place to another, so we
cannot say there will be one peak for the whole country. In
India, it’s going to be a sustained plateau for some time and
then it will go down."