As cases rise, India fearing another COVID catastrophe

As cases rise, India fearing another COVID catastrophe

NEW DELHI: Haunted by the specter of last year’s crisis, India is bracing for a deluge of COVID-19 cases, with authorities of various megacities bringing in restrictions in a bid to keep infections in check. Case numbers have yet to match the enormous figures seen last spring, when thousands died each day and the Hindu holy city of Varanasi maintained round-the-clock funeral pyres for the mass cremation of virus victims.

New cases passed 100,000 on Friday, a surge driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant that some experts worry could again see the country’s hospitals overwhelmed. An overnight curfew has been imposed in the Delhi area that includes the capital, where weekend movement restrictions began on Friday evening, with all non-essential workers asked to stay home.

Tech hub Bangalore has also declared a weekend curfew, while sprawling financial center Mumbai introduced a night curfew. “Even a small percentage of a large number of cases translates to a large number in absolute terms,” Gautam Menon, a professor at India’s Ashoka University who has worked on COVID infection modelling, told AFP. “This could potentially stress out healthcare systems to levels comparable to or worse than the second wave.”

Doctors and nurses who spoke to AFP