NEW DELHI (AP) – India reported more than 200,000 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, raising a total of more than 14 million overall as an intensified outbreak puts a grim burden on its fragile health care system.
In the capital, New Delhi, more than a dozen hotels and banquet halls for weddings have been ordered to be transformed into COVID-19 centers attached to hospitals.
“The growth is alarming,” said SK Sarin, a government health expert in New Delhi.
Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s highest-ranking official, announced weekend extinctions to break the chain of infections in the capital, which added 17,282 new cases and 104 deaths in the past 24 hours.
Travel to train stations, hospitals and airports will be allowed as essential services, but shopping malls, gyms, spas and auditoriums must be closed, he said in a statement. He also said that 5,000 hospital beds are available and a larger capacity is being added, so there was no shortage of beds in the capital.
The hustle and bustle of India’s largest city and financial capital, Mumbai, has fallen below blockade-like curbs to stop the virus from spreading. The worst-hit action in Maharashtra on Wednesday night shut down most industries, businesses and public places and restricted human movement for 15 days, but did not stop train and air services.
In recent days, migrant workers carrying backpacks have piled up overcrowded trains leaving Mumbai, an exodus of panic-stricken day laborers.
In addition to the 200,739 new cases of infection, the Ministry of Health also reported 1,038 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 173,123 since the pandemic began last year.
The total number of cases in India is second behind the United States, and its deaths are fourth behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico. The actual number may be much higher, with limited testing among India’s nearly 1.4 billion people.
Shahid Jamil, a virologist, said the recent local and state elections, with massive political rallies and a major Hindu festival with hundreds of thousands of followers bathing in the Ganges River, north of Haridwar, are widespread events.
India is stepping up its vaccination efforts. The Ministry of Health said that total vaccinations crossed 114 million, with over 3 million doses administered on Wednesday.
Hospitals in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and several other states have been overwhelmed by patients with several hospitals who have reported a lack of oxygen cylinders.
Cremation and cemeteries in the worst-hit area have also struggled to cope with the growing number of bodies arriving for the latest rites, Indian media reports said.
Imran Sheikh, a resident of Pune in the west, said hospital officials had asked him to arrange an oxygen cylinder for his relative undergoing COVID-19 treatment.
New Delhi and dozens of other cities and towns imposed night extinguishments as they battled an infection rate that nearly doubled within 11 days.
When infections began to subside in India in September, many concluded that the worst were over. Masks and social distancing were abandoned. When cases began to rise again in February, the authorities were allowed to fight.