The death toll from coronavirus in India surpassed 200,000 on Wednesday, with more than 3,000 deaths reported in 24 hours for the first time, according to official data.
A total of 201,187 people had died from the outbreak in the country as of Tuesday, the health ministry said, although many experts believe the true figure is higher.
India recorded a total of 18 million infections, with 360,000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. Nearly six million new cases are from April alone.
The country currently has the fourth-highest death toll in the world, behind only the US, Brazil and Mexico.
Crematoriums across India are struggling to keep up with the task of accommodating the pile-up of bodies.
West Bengal is Covid hotspot, says expert
April 28, 2021
Almost all variants are present in the State, says top virologist
West Bengal is the State that virologists should be looking to if they want to know where this pandemic is going as all major variants of concern are present in the State, said a top virologist. Bengal recently witnessed a cut-throat campaign for its eight-phase Assembly elections .
“West Bengal, which is a scene of action in more sense than one, has pretty much all the variants of concern around. It has UK variant, Indian variant, South African variant, and Brazilian variant. As a virologist I really believe that West Bengal is something to look to because I think with the type of crowds assembling there, the future of the pandemic doesn’t look to be a happy one,” said Shahid Jameel, a noted virologist and Director of Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University.
COVID-19 is out of control in India, where most vaccines are made How did that happen? pbs.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pbs.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
India COVID-19 death toll climbs amid oxygen shortages The true numbers are being suppressed
India s relatively low fatality rate doesn t tell the whole story and suspicions abound that there s substantial undercounting in several states.
Suspected cases are not being added to the final count and deaths from the infection are being credited to underlying health conditions, point out observers. There appears to be a wide discrepancy between official records of deaths attributed to COVID-19 and reports of cremations and burials that are many multiples of what might normally have been expected, Gautam Menon, a professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University, told DW.
How did this happen?
According to Jameel, there are three key factors driving the latest surge: complacency, variants and large spreader events .
Complacency exists at the individual, government and public policy levels, he said, while the development of more infectious variants pose further danger as they could potentially break through existing immunity .
Variants currently of concern include Kent B117, which has spread rapidly across the UK and dozens of other countries, as well as the B.1.617 variant, which was first detected in India. It is not currently known whether the latter is more or less contagious, or how it will respond to vaccination.