India’s COVID ‘inferno’: Why is the second surge happening now? | Times of Oman

India’s COVID ‘inferno’: Why is the second surge happening now? | Times of Oman

New Delhi [India]: Hospitals scrambling for oxygen, people waiting for ambulances that never arrive, crematoriums running out of space. "It's like an inferno. It will burn anything that it's touching," Dr. Shuchin Bajaj, founder & director of Ujala Cygnus Hospitals, said about the massive new wave. Variants could speed up infections Despite being one of the world's biggest vaccine producers, India does not have enough stock to inoculate its own eligible population. The government has been criticized for its sluggish vaccine rollout, as variants believed to be more transmissible spread throughout the country. Besides the variants first seen in Brazil, South Africa and the UK, the country has also found another mutation of its own. "It seems that this variant has the potential to attach to human cells more easily. Obviously that would lead to more people being infected and more hospitalizations," said Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman for the World Health Organization. 'Complacency has backfired' But many people in India had also started to grow complacent, especially as the country kept infection numbers low for several months. "What we have seen in India is clearly the result of many people letting their guard down," said Udaya Regmi, the South Asia head