(NEW DELHI) – India spent on Friday 1 million cases of coronavirus, the third in the United States and Brazil, raising considerations about its willingness to deal with an inevitable increase that can overwhelm hospitals and control the country’s weak physical care system.
An accumulation of 34,956 new instances in the last 24 hours led the national total to 1,003,832.
The Ministry of Health also reported a record 687 deaths for a total of 25,602. He said 635,757 other people recovered and the recovery rate continued at 63%.
The bleak pace comes at a time when several Indian states are implementing specific blockades to stop the epidemic amid frantic efforts through local governments towards the economy.
So far, 3 states, Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, have accounted for more than a portion of the total number of cases. But in the vast field of India, which is much less prepared and with weaker physical attention, the pandemic is obviously growing.
“Accelerating the number of instances will be India’s biggest challenge in the coming days,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, adding that most instances were still omitted.
The ongoing outbreak has forced the government to reinstate blockades in some cities and states.
In Bangalore, a city that prides itself on being the center of Indian technological innovation, the government ordered a week-long closure that began Tuesday night after instances increased exponentially.
In Bihar, an eastern state with a population of 128 million and a fragile fitness system, a two-week closure was announced on Thursday.
In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state with more than two hundred million people, the government began attacking citizens under strict curfews, which will remain in force until the end of the month.
Other local governments are focusing on smaller locks that protect the economy. Nearly a dozen states have imposed restrictions on “containment zones,” spaces that can be as small as a few houses or a street.
Dr. Anant Bhan, a global fitness researcher, said India is likely to delight in “a series of spikes” as the infection spreads to rural areas. He noted that the capital of New Delhi and the monetary capital, Mumbai, had already reveled in outbreaks, while infections have now moved to small towns.
India’s reaction to the virus was first slow, then time-ups and blocks its entire population of 1.4 billion people when Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a three-week national closure on March 24.
“If (the) scenario is not controlled in those 21 days, the country and its circle of relatives could go back 21 years,” Modi said in a televised confrontation with the Indians, many of whom were still unaware of the magnitude of the situation. crisis in the country. Country.
The five-week national blockade came here with a massive economic burden amid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis when millions of impoverished migrant workers were forced to return to the countryside due to loss of tasks and hunger.
In order to expand the capacity of the physical care system, the blocking slowed down the virus, but not enough. Cases continued to increase as evidence remained incredibly low and the virus exploded in India’s vast landscape, from the Himalayan heights of Kashmir to the vast beaches of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.
“The slowdown is eradication,” said Jayaprakash Muliyil, an epidemiologist at Christian Medical College in Vellore.
Muliyil said India had to withdraw to stop the virus because it didn’t have enough beds, but only partially succeeded because “the desires were high.”
India’s public fitness formula is one of the most underfunded in the world and for hospitals in rural areas it is very restricted. Experts say the challenge for India will be to overcome the opening of the economy while seeking to restrict construction in instances to manageable degrees that do not overwhelm hospitals.
“India’s long-term strategy will revolve around containment zones,” said Rajesh Bhushan of the Indian Federal Ministry of Health. Once new spaces are assigned, fitness staff will move from one space to another and check for those with symptoms, he said.
Experts say weak evidence is a concern.
Dr. Ujjwal Parakh, a senior representative in the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, said the government could have been more transparent about verification guidelines.
Initially, India had some of the strict verification criteria in the world and used only a third of its verification capability. After months of slowness, it has now accelerated verification of an unmarried lab in January to more than 1,200. More than 300,000 samples are reviewed each day. In some cities, it has also allowed over-the-counter checks. “The plan of war is to do everything we know works. Open up the economy as much as it is safe. Follow things very closely,” Jha said. “But don’t let the virus settle.”
——
Associated Press journalist Rishabh R. Jain contributed to the report.