How Mumbai beat the odds, and the virus

How Mumbai beat the odds, and the virus

MUMBAI: When COVID-19 arrived in India, few places looked as vulnerable as Mumbai. But a year on, South Asia's most crowded city has surprised many by tackling a vicious second wave with considerable success. Gaurav Awasthi even travelled hundreds of kilometers from his home on the outskirts of Delhi to get his ailing wife a hospital bed there, paying an ambulance more than a thousand dollars to drive 24 hours straight.

"I cannot ever repay my debt to this city,“ the 29-year-old told AFP, recounting an ordeal that saw him spend five days fruitlessly searching for a bed across several cities, including Delhi. "I don't know if my wife would be alive today if it weren't for Mumbai's health facilities.“

The bodies began turning up early in India's financial capital during the first wave of infections last year - a man collapsing on a busy road, a rickshaw driver slumped over the wheel, a corpse lying in the street - in a grim echo of the 1918 flu pandemic. By May 2020, Abhignya Patra was working 18-hour days at the massive Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, better known as Sion. "It was non-stop,“ the 27-year-old anesthesiologist told AFP.

Patients' relatives described distressing scenes