NEW DELHI – India crossed 1 million cases of coronavirus on Friday, third only to the United States and Brazil, raising concerns about its readiness to face an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test the country’s weak health system.
An increase of 34,956 new cases in the last 24 hours brought the national total to 1,003,832.
The Ministry of Health also reported a record number of 687 deaths for a total of 25,602. He said 635,757 people have recovered and the recovery rate continues to improve to 63%.
The grim milestone comes at a time when several Indian states are imposing specific blockades to stop the outbreak amid frenzied efforts by local governments to protect the economy.
So far, three states, Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, have accounted for more than half of all cases. But in the vast countryside of India, which is much less prepared and with weaker medical care, the pandemic is clearly growing.
“Acceleration in cases remains the main challenge for India in the coming days,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Institute of Global Health, adding that the vast majority of cases were still being lost.
The continued increase has forced authorities to reestablish blockades in some cities and states.
In Bangalore, a city that prides itself on being India’s hub of technological innovation, the government ordered a week-long shutdown that started Tuesday night after cases increased exponentially.
In Bihar, an eastern state with a population of 128 million and a fragile health system, a two-week shutdown was announced on Thursday.
In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state with more than 200 million people, authorities have begun placing residents under strict weekend curfews, which will remain in effect until the end of the month.
Other local governments are increasingly focusing on smaller locks that protect the economy. Nearly a dozen states have imposed restrictions on “buffer zones,” areas that can be as small as a few houses or a street.
Dr. Anant Bhan, a global health researcher, said India would likely see “a series of spikes” as the infection spread in rural areas. He noted that the capital of New Delhi and the financial capital, Mumbai, had already seen waves, while infections have now moved to smaller cities.
India’s response to the virus was initially slow and then bought time by locking up its entire population of 1.4 billion people when Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a three-week national blockade on March 24.
“If (the) situation is not managed in these 21 days, the country and his family could go back 21 years,” Modi said in a televised speech to the Indians, many of whom still did not know the magnitude of the crisis in the country. . country.
The national blockade, then extended for an additional five weeks, came at a huge economic cost amid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis when millions of impoverished migrant workers were forced to return to the countryside due to job losses and hunger.
Aiming to increase the capacity of the healthcare system, the crash slowed the virus, but it was not enough. Cases continued to rise as evidence remained abysmally low and the virus shot through the vast landscape of India, from the high Kashmir Himalayas to the expansive beaches of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.
“The slowdown is not eradication,” said Jayaprakash Muliyil, an epidemiologist at Christian Medical College in Vellore.
Muliyil said India had to try to curb the virus because it did not have enough beds, but was only partially successful, as the “requirement was quite large.”
India’s public health care system is one of the least chronically funded in the world, and access to hospitals in rural areas is very low. Experts say the challenge for India will be to slow the opening of the economy by trying to restrict the increase in cases to manageable levels that do not overwhelm hospitals.
“India’s strategy for the future will revolve around containment areas,” said Rajesh Bhushan of the Indian Federal Ministry of Health. Once more zones are mapped, health workers will go from house to house and evaluate those with symptoms, he said.
Experts say low testing remains a concern.
Dr. Ujjwal Parakh, a senior consultant in the department of respiratory medicine at Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi, said authorities could have been more transparent about the testing guidelines.
Initially, India had some of the strictest testing criteria in the world and used only a third of its testing capacity. After months of slowness, testing has now increased, from a single lab in January to more than 1,200.
More than 300,000 samples are analyzed every day. In some cities, it has also allowed over-the-counter testing. “The battle plan is to do everything we know works. Open the economy, as much as it is safe. Follow things very closely, ”said Jha. “But don’t let the virus establish itself.”
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