Every night funeral pyres blaze on the banks of the Ganges, a grim symbol of the ferocious Covid-19 wave sparking a health crisis and human tragedy in India that is far surpassing anything seen last year.Patients are dying while their families search in vain for hospital beds. Supplies of oxygen and medicines are running low, leading to robberies of drugs from hospitals. Crematoriums and burial grounds cannot cope with the sheer number of corpses.
The devastation has sparked outrage at the lack of preparation among officials who believed that the worst of the pandemic was over. Only two months ago, India was revelling in its success of reining in the spread of the virus. Now it is reporting about 294,000 infections and 2,000 deaths a day. deaths are soaring in India, already far above the previous peak
Narendra Modi, prime minister, and his Bharatiya Janata party have been accused of prioritising domestic politics over public health by holding mass political rallies with thousands of people and allowing the Kumbh Mela, a vast religious festival attended by millions, to take place during the second wave.
With a new variant suspected of stoking the surge, experts fear that India is on the same trajectory as Brazil, where a more contagious strain of the virus has hammered the country’s healthcare system and economy.