Graveyards are running out of space, hospitals are sending patients away, and desperate families are begging for help on social media for beds and medicines.
India reported 295,041 coronavirus cases and 2,023 deaths on Wednesday, the highest increase in the number of cases and the highest one-day mortality increase since the start of the pandemic, according to a CNN count of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.
“The volume is massive,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior lung consultant at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, who had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid unit. “It’s like a tsunami.”
“Things are getting out of hand,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
“There is no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It’s impossible to get a test. You have to wait more than a week. And pretty much any system that could collapse in the health care system has broken down,” said he.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Tuesday, acknowledging the country’s “very big fight” against Covid-19.
He appealed to states to “use a lockdown as their last option,” even as the capital, New Delhi, entered its first full day of a week-long lockdown.
On Monday, Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, warned that failure to halt the movement in the city could lead to “tragedy.”
“We don’t want to take Delhi to a place where patients lie in hospital corridors and people die on roads,” Kejriwal said.
On Tuesday, he warned that some Delhi hospitals “had only a few hours of oxygen,” as authorities rushed to convert sports complexes, banquet halls, hotels and schools into much-needed treatment centers, aiming to add 6,000 additional beds. within a few days.
“Our health care system has reached its limit. It is now in a state of emergency. It has not collapsed yet, but it is in need,” said Kejriwal. “Every healthcare system has its limits. No system can receive unrestricted patients.”
As shortages were reported across the country, local and state leaders appealed to the federal government for more oxygen and drugs.
Modi appeared to answer those calls Tuesday, announcing plans to supply 100,000 cylinders of oxygen nationwide, new oxygen production plants and hospitals for Covid patients.
But experts fear it’s too little, too late, as positive patients compete for limited resources and massive gatherings threaten to spread the virus even further.
Beg online for help
With few official options available, some families are turning to social media for help.
Mumbai resident Anil Tiwari, 34, lost his father to Covid-19 last November. Last week, his 58-year-old mother tested positive. She was hospitalized but needed a bed in an intensive care unit (ICU), Tiwari said.
After days of effort, including calling municipal authorities to get on a waiting list, Tiwari’s mother finally got an IC bed, Tiwari said Tuesday. But now she needs oxygen, which the hospital is short of.
She can still walk but has trouble breathing, Tiwari said.
Concerned families are also turning to social media for the delivery of the antiviral medication Remdesivir.
Demand for the drug and its active pharmaceutical ingredients has soared during the second wave, prompting the government to temporarily ban exports of the drug in order to increase supply in the domestic market.
Abhijeet Kumar, a 20-year-old college student, took to Twitter to raise money for Remdesivir injections for his 51-year-old uncle.
Kumar said his uncle had been hospitalized in Raipur, in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, since April 9, after testing positive for Covid.
“The injections are very expensive,” said Kumar. “They say it costs between 12,000 and 15,000 rupees (about $ 160-200). He’s got two doses of the shot, but he needs a third and we can’t afford it … my uncle works as a plumber. “
Seven major producers of Remdesivir have lowered prices to between 899 and 3,490 rupees (about $ 12-47) as a result of “government intervention,” according to a government memorandum dated April 17.
But several states have recognized that high demand and low supply have created a black market for Remdesivir and similar drugs.
Even many doctors and nurses are frantically looking for open beds and treatment options for their own loved ones, said Parkar, the pulmonologist in Mumbai.
“Everyone is sick,” he said. “There has come a time when we don’t have beds for our own colleagues, for our own parents, for our own extended family.”
Complacency and public gatherings
The second wave, which has long surpassed the first wave in both new cases and infection rates, was “a situation created by complacency,” said Laxminarayan, of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy.
After the first wave ended in winter, the government and the public relaxed too much, due to a mix of Covid fatigue and a false sense of security, experts say.
This kind of triumphant rhetoric meant residents relaxed their Covid-safe behaviors, such as social distancing or wearing face masks, experts say. And despite warnings of Covid risks, big gatherings continued – sports games resumed, elaborate weddings continued, and movie theaters reopened.
The festival officially started on April 1 and will end later this month. There are Covid-safe guidelines – visitors must register online and pass a negative Covid-19 test to participate in the sacred baths, and thousands of agents supervise – but experts fear it won’t be enough to mitigate the risk given the large number of visitors. Several million people are expected to visit on “auspicious” days.
“The Kumbh Mela could go down as one of the largest massive super-spreading events ever, simply because of the sheer number of people appearing there for ritual bathing in the Ganges,” said Laxminarayan.
For weeks, Modi, who has a significant Hindu base, has refrained from commenting on the Kumbh Mela and its Covid risks. But earlier this week, he finally appealed to pilgrims not to gather in Haridwar.
“Now Kumbh must be symbolically executed in the midst of the ongoing corona crisis,” Modi tweeted Saturday.
But for some, Modi’s message sounded hollow as the prime minister continued to hold massive political rallies leading up to parliamentary and local councils elections in four states and one union territory.
Videos from Modi’s gatherings, including one in Tamulpur, Assam State on April 3, show him in front of a huge crowd, densely packed and cheering.
In the state of West Bengal, a major electoral field, tens of thousands attended meetings of Modi’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and the ruling Trinamool Congress Party.
In light of the rising cases, the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party, has suspended all public gatherings in West Bengal.
And on Monday, the BJP said it would only hold “small public gatherings” of up to 500 people in the state because of “the difficult phase of the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, the Kumbh Mela has not been ordered to stop, nor have new rules been imposed. The state of Uttarakhand has issued a series of new restrictions, including a curfew and a ceiling for public gatherings – but the festival is exempted.
Haridwar has seen a spike in infections, with more than 6,500 new cases reported since the beginning of the Kumbh Mela.
Several religious subgroups, including Juna Akhara and Niranjani Akhara, have since asked their out-of-state followers to return home and follow the guidelines. Some states and cities require returnees from festivals to be tested and quarantined.
But medical workers fear it is too late.
“It’s been going on for a few weeks. Now of course they are spreading, but they may be bringing the virus back home at this point,” Laxminarayan said. “It’s a really awful situation at this point.”
CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed to this report.