MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s largest cities braced for tougher lockdowns and other COVID-19 curbs on Saturday as infections hit a six-month high, while a month-long wave continued in the third worst hit country by the pandemic.
India’s richest state, Maharashtra, accounted for more than half of the 89,129 new cases reported by the national health ministry in the past 24 hours, with a record 47,827 infections.
The state’s prime minister warned citizens of a lockdown if cases continue to increase at the current rate, saying medical infrastructure would be inadequate within a few weeks.
In the southern state of Karnataka, home to the Indian tech capital of Bengaluru, authorities ordered the closure of gyms, banned functions in religious sites and told cinemas, bars, pubs and restaurants to limit the number of people allowed.
India’s capital, New Delhi, registered more than 3,500 cases, the highest number this year, but the prime minister ruled out another lockdown for the time being.
The number of daily coronavirus cases has increased from about 15,000 in the beginning of March to about 88,000 in the beginning of April.
The South Asian nation registered 89,129 new infections and 714 deaths, the ministry said. That was the largest daily increase since September 20 and the most deaths since October 21, according to a Reuters count.
India is only tracking the United States and Brazil in terms of infections, with more than 12 million infections registered since the outbreak began.
The government has intensified the vaccination campaign in recent weeks, but the shots are slow to reach the 1.3 billion people in India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticized for exporting vaccines produced in India, while most Indians have yet to get them.
(Global Vaccination Tracker: Here)
(Interactive graphical tracking of global coronavirus spread: here)
Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Edited by Clarence Fernandez and William Mallard