400 Jai Prakash Narain Former Director, Communicable Diseases, whoâs regional office The rapidity and scale of the spread of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has caught India by surprise. It has overwhelmed the nation’s overstretched health infrastructure. The hospitals are overflowing with patients, with many more struggling to get admission. Health facilities such as medical oxygen and medicines are running out of supply. Patients are dying in large numbers and the suffering — physical and mental — inflicted on families and society at large is beyond words. How did we get to this situation? Multiple factors are responsible for the current wave. One is the emergence of new strains of the virus, which are at least 50 per cent more transmissible and could, at times, be more deadly than the virus seen in 2020. Besides those originating overseas, we have some homegrown ones, all of which are of great concern.