The India is immersed in a second massive wave of infections by covid-19, surpassing even USA Y Brazil in terms of daily new infections.
The current peak came after a brief hiatus: daily new cases had dropped from 97,000 a day in September 2020 to around 10,000 in January 2021.
However, starting in late February, new daily cases started to rise again, exceeding 100,000 per day. Now, they rise above 200,000.
Night curfews and weekend closures have been reinstated in some states, such as Maharasthra (including the financial capital, Bombay). The services health and crematoria They are overwhelmed, covid-19 test kits are in short supply, and wait times for results are increasing.
How has the pandemic spread?
Shantytown residents and those without their own domestic toilets have been the hardest hit, implying that poor sanitation and density have contributed to the spread.
A word that has dominated debates on why cases have increased again is laaparavaahee (negligence in Hindi). Citizens are blamed for not wearing face masks or following social distancing, but that’s only part of the story.
Covid-19 patients are being treated in an isolation ward near a hospital in New Delhi, India. Photo: EFE
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The negligence it can be seen in the almost total lack of regulation and its application where regulations existed, in workplaces and other public spaces. Religious, social and political groups contributed directly through the over-broadcast events, but this still does not explain the huge increase in cases.
The second wave in India also coincides with the spread of the British variant. A recent report found that 81% of the last 401 samples submitted by the state of Punjab for genome sequencing were of the british variant.
Several studies have found that this variant could better evade our immune systems. This means that there is a greater chance that previously infected people will be re-infected and that immunized people will become infected.
Furthermore, a new double mutation is circulating in India, and this could also be contributing to the increase in cases.
Low mortality rate?
In the first phase of the pandemic, India was lauded for its low death rate from covid-19, about 1.5%. However, The Lancet warned of the “dangers of false optimism” in its September 26 editorial on the Indian situation.
In a context of pandemic, the public health approach is usually to attribute a death from complex causes to the disease in question. In April 2020, the World Health Organization clarified how deaths from covid-19 should be counted: “a death due to covid-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible disease, in a probable or confirmed case of covid-19, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to covid-19 (eg trauma). “
It is not clear to what extent the health authorities of the Indian states complied with this.
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