New Delhi (AP) – India’s confirmed coronavirus toll has crossed one million on Sunday, with many new cases sinking in recent weeks, health experts warn.
The health ministry has registered another 74,383 infections in the last 24 hours. India is expected to become the worst-affected country in the coming weeks, surpassing the US, where more than 7.7 million infections have been reported.
The ministry also registered 918 additional deaths, bringing the total death toll to 108,334.
The number of people in South and Southeast Asia – from India to Vietnam and Taiwan – has been relatively low compared to European countries and the United States, said government health expert Dr. Randeep Guleria said.
“We have been able to keep the growth of the turn slow, but I agree that we are not able to move it down aggressively. It has to do with the density of our population, the diversity of our country and the socio-economic challenges in our country, ”Guleria said, referring to India’s population of about 1.4 billion.
Some experts say India’s death toll is unreliable due to poor reporting and health infrastructure and improper testing.
India aims to vaccinate 250 million people by July 2021, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said last week. He said the government was considering taking 450 million to 500 million vaccine doses and would ensure “equal consumption”.
India saw a sharp rise in cases in July, with more than 2 million in August and more than 3 million in September. But it has been seeing a slowdown in coronavirus since mid-September, when daily infections have hit record highs of 97,894.
That’s an average of more than 1,000,000 cases a day this month. According to the Ministry of Health, India has a high recovery rate of 85% with less than 1 million active cases.
Health officials have warned of the possibility of the virus spreading during the upcoming religious festival season, marked by huge gatherings in temples and shopping districts.
The decisive factor will be people who wear masks and can maintain a safe distance.
Dr SP Kalantri, a hospital director in Sevagram village in India’s worst-affected western Maharashtra state, said people in his village had stopped wearing masks, maintaining distance or washing their hands regularly. He added that the patient was still being brought to his hospital.
India’s poor health resources are poorly distributed across the country. With nearly 100,000 million Indians living in rural areas, and the virus plaguing vast inland parts of India, experts worry that hospitals will overflow.
“If we are to be able to behave well in terms of physical distance and masks, we should be able to come to a new normal area early next year. The Secret-19 will not end but travel and other things will become easier and people will be relatively safe it will be under reasonable control.
Retired virologist Dr. T. Jacob John said there is a growing trend among Indians not to wear masks or to maintain distance.
Social media has compensated for the problem by spreading misinformation and fake therapies. “And the result is that people get bored and start making their own conclusions,” John said.
Across the country, India is testing more than 10 million samples every day, which is 140 tests per 1 million people, the World Health Organization’s benchmark. But many of these are antigen tests, which detect virus proteins and are faster but less accurate than RT-PCR, which confirms the coronavirus by its genetic code.
With a record 23.9% contraction in the economy in the April-June quarter, leaving millions unemployed, the Indian government continues to ease the lockdown sanctions imposed in late March. The government announced a 6 266 billion stimulus package in May, but consumer demand and production have not improved.
A large number of office fees, shops, businesses, liquor stores, bars and rest restaurants have reopened. Restricted domestic and international displacement flights are being operated with train services.
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The report was contributed by AP Science Writer Aniruddha Ghosal.
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