India is suffering the world's worst Covid-19 crisis. The daily infection rate is more than 300,000; the daily death toll, in excess of 2,000, is very likely an undercount.
The biggest Covid challenge now for India & what world must learn from its experience
Virologist Shahid Jameel answers questions on the causes of India s devastating second wave, misconceptions about the virus, and how the country can get out of its Covid nightmare.
Bobby Ghosh 3 May, 2021 9:00 am IST Text Size:
A+
India is suffering the world’s worst Covid-19 crisis. The daily infection rate is more than 300,000; the daily death toll, in excess of 2,000, is very likely an undercount. The health system has broken down, with scarcities in everything from hospital beds to oxygen. The Indian government has restricted vaccine exports and is instead trying to secure supplies from abroad.
The big question: Can India find a way out of its Covid nightmare?
SECTIONS
The big question: Can India find a way out of its Covid nightmare?By Bobby Ghosh, Bloomberg
Last Updated: May 03, 2021, 02:20 PM IST
Share
Synopsis To bring things under control, you want to vaccinate more people on a daily basis than the number of new infections. Remember that a person who gets the first shot today will get the second shot in four to six weeks, and will need two more weeks to develop full immunity. So somebody who starts vaccination today will take two months to develop protective immunity.
Bobby Ghosh: India is suffering the world’s worst Covid-19 crisis. The daily infection rate is more than 300,000; the daily death toll, in excess of 2,000, is very likely an undercount. The health system has broken down, with scarcities in everything from hospital beds to oxygen. The Indian government has restricted vaccine exports and is instead trying to secure supplies from abroad. You’ve experienced this disaster firsthand as the head of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at the Ashoka University, near New Delhi. Last fall and winter, it looked like India was doing very well in managing its Covid outbreak. Looking back now, what did we miss?
India Covid crisis: Virologist decodes lethal virus scourge
Joydeep Sen Gupta/New Delhi Filed on May 3, 2021
(Reuters file)
Dr. Shahid Jameel explains how the fresh contagion challenge can be won over.
An explosion of new Covid-19 cases has been overwhelming India for the past three weeks. The fresh surge of the lethal contagion has infected millions of people in the world’s second-most populous country with an estimated population of over 1.3 billion (b) and has exposed like never before the nation’s broken health care system.
India is a bereaved nation.
Official data showed that by the end of April, more than 17.9 million (m) people were infected by SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, and over 200,000 people were dead, but experts maintained that the actual figures were likely to be alarmingly higher.