Cemeteries run out of space, hospitals drive away patients, and desperate families plead for help on social media for beds and medicine.
India reported 295,041 coronavirus cases and 2,023 deaths on Wednesday, the highest increase in cases and the highest increase in deaths in a single day since the start of the pandemic, according to a CNN number from the Indian Ministry of Health .
“The volume is huge,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior lung consultant at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, who had to turn his lobby into an additional Covid ward. “It’s like a tsunami.”
“Things are getting out of hand,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
“There is no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It is impossible to do a test. You have to wait in a week. And almost any system that could malfunction in the health system has failed,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Tuesday, acknowledging the country’s “great battle” against Covid-19.
He urged states to “use a blockade as a last resort,” even though the capital New Delhi entered the first full day of a week-long blockade.
On Monday, Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, warned that the failure to stop traffic in the city could lead to “tragedy”.
“We do not want to take Delhi to a place where patients sit in the corridors of the hospital and people die on the roads,” Kejriwal said.
On Tuesday, he warned that some hospitals in Delhi were “left with only a few hours of oxygen”, while authorities rushed to turn sports complexes, banquet halls, hotels and schools into much-needed treatment centers, with aim to add 6,000 extra beds in a few days.
“Our healthcare system has reached its limit. It is now in a state of danger. It has not collapsed yet, but it is in danger,” Kejriwal said. “Every health system has its limits. No system can accommodate unlimited patients.”
With reports of shortages across the country, local and state leaders have appealed to the federal government for more oxygen and medicines.
Modi appeared on Tuesday to answer those calls, announcing plans to deliver 100,000 oxygen cylinders nationwide, new oxygen production plants and hospitals dedicated to Covid patients.
But experts fear it is too little, too late, because positive patients compete for limited resources, and mass rallies threaten to spread the virus even further.
Advocating for online help
With few official options available, some families turn to social media for help.
Mumbai resident Anil Tiwari, 34, lost his father to Covid-19 in November last year. Last week, his 58-year-old mother gave positive results. She was hospitalized but needed a bed for the intensive care unit (ICU), Tiwari said.
After several days of efforts, including calling on city officials to get on a waiting list, Tiwari’s mother was finally given an intensive care bed, Tiwari said Tuesday. But now he needs oxygen, which the hospital is short on.
She’s still able to walk, but he has difficulty breathing, Tiwari said.
Concerned families are also turning to social media for the supply of Remdesivir antiviral drugs.
Demand for the drug and its active pharmaceutical ingredients increased during the second wave, prompting the government to temporarily ban the export of medicines in order to increase its domestic supply.
Abhijeet Kumar, a 20-year-old student, went on Twitter to raise money to pay for Remdesivir injections for her 51-year-old uncle.
Kumar said his uncle had been in hospital in Raipur, central India’s Chhattisgarh state since April 9, after testing positive for Covid.
“Injections are very expensive,” Kumar said. “It is said to cost between 12,000 and 15,000 rupees (about $ 160-200). He received two doses of the injection, but he needs a third and we can’t afford … my uncle works as a plumber.”
Seven major manufacturers of Remdesivir reduced prices to 899 rupees and 3,490 rupees (about $ 12-47) due to “government intervention”, according to a government memorandum of April 17.
But several states have acknowledged that high demand and low supply have created a black market for Remdesivir and similar drugs.
Even many doctors and nurses are frantically looking for open beds and treatment options for their loved ones, said Parkar, a lung specialist in Mumbai.
“Everyone is sick,” he said. “There came a time when we didn’t have beds for our colleagues, for our parents, for our own extended family.”
Compassion and public gatherings
The second wave, which far surpassed the first wave in both new cases and the rate of infection, was “a situation created by gratitude,” Laxminarayan said. from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy.
After the first wave ended in the winter, the government and the public relaxed too much, due to a mixture of Covid fatigue and a false sense of security, experts say.
This type of triumphant rhetoric meant that residents relaxed their safe behavior Covid, such as social distancing or wearing masks, experts say. And, despite warnings about the risks of Covid, large rallies continued to take place – sports matches were resumed, elaborate weddings continued, and cinemas were reopened.
The festival officially started on April 1 and ends this month. There are safe instructions for Covid – visitors must register online and provide a negative Covid-19 test to participate in the holy baths, and thousands of officers perform surveillance – but experts fear it will not be enough to contain risk, given in view the large number of participants. Several million are expected to visit on “auspicious” days.
“Kumbh Mela could come down as one of the largest mass events in the world, simply because of the size of the number of people who show up there for ritual bathing in the Ganges,” Laxminarayan said.
For weeks, Modi, who has a significant Hindu base, refrained from commenting on Kumbh Mela and his Covid risks. But earlier this week, he eventually appealed to pilgrims to avoid gathering in Haridwar.
“Now the Kumbh should take place symbolically amid the ongoing crown crisis,” Modi wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
But for some, Modi’s message sounded empty as the prime minister continued to hold massive political rallies before the parliamentary and local council elections in four states and one territory of the union.
Videos from Modi’s rallies, including one in Tamulpur, Assam, on April 3, show him speaking in front of massive crowds, gathered together and cheering.
In the state of West Bengal, an important electoral field, tens of thousands attended the rallies of Modi’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and the ruling Trinamool Congress Party.
In the face of growing cases, the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party, has suspended all rallies in West Bengal.
And on Monday, the BJP said it would hold only “small public gatherings” with a limit of 500 people in the state because of the “difficult phase of the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, Kumbh Mela has not been ordered to stop, nor were new rules imposed. The state of Uttarakhand has issued a number of new restrictions, including a night time and a limit on public gatherings – but the festival is exempt.
Haridwar has seen an increase in the number of infections, with more than 6,500 new cases reported since the inception of Kumbh Mela.
Several religious sub-groups, including Juna Akhara and Niranjani Akhara, have since urged followers outside the state to return home and follow the guidelines. Some states and cities require the return of the festival to be tested and quarantined.
But medical workers fear it’s too late.
“It’s been a few weeks. Now, of course, it’s spreading, but it’s possible they’re taking the virus back to their homes right now,” Laxminarayan said. “It’s really a terrible situation right now.”
CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed to the report.