India Battles A Catastrophic Wave Of Covid-19 Infections

As India battles a catastrophic wave of Covid-19 infections, countries across the world are stepping in to help

- Kim Abrahams

PEOPLE begging in the street for oxygen, collapsing and dying on hospital doorsteps because there simply are no beds available. Parking lots being turned into makeshift hospitals to cope with the influx of patients and bodies being burnt in pyres outside crematoriums because facilities are too full of the dead.

The situation in India can be likened to hell on Earth and the world is looking on in horror. The country broke global records by recording daily increases of more than 400 000 Covid-19 infections. Daily deaths are exceeding 3 600 but the official toll is believed to be far higher.

Mutations and variants are adding to the agony, ripping through communities and leaving hundreds of thousands of people gasping for breath.

“The sick can’t get into hospitals, the dead can’t get into crematoria,” says Aatish Taseer, an Indian journalist and novelist. “The atmosphere in my hometown of New Delhi is bordering on apocalyptic.”

Nurses and doctors are working back-to-back shifts. Some have relatives in the same hospital but the pressure is so intense they don’t have time to visit them.

India is now the second-most affected country in the world after the US in terms of active cases, tracking upwards of three million.

“The situation is critical,” says a doctor at New Delhi’s Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital. “The next two weeks are going to be hell.”

Trauma and anguish reign in the vast country of more than 1,3 billion people. There’s fear lurking in every corner and hospital halls are horror shows.