India’s New Delhi locks down as Covid-19 stretches the healthcare system to its limits

“I’m not saying the system has collapsed, but it has reached its limits,” he said.

The latest wave of cases has risen much faster than the country’s month-long surge last year, propelling the country at the center of a pandemic that killed at least three million people worldwide. India has reported more than 200,000 new daily infections for five days, with a number exceeding 270,000 on Monday.

On Monday, Delhi reported 25,463 infections in the past 24 hours, nearly three times the highest daily number of 8,500 cases at a peak in November.

From 10 p.m. local time, shops and businesses were forced to close and people’s movements were restricted from accessing and providing essential services. Some states, including Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, have already imposed curfews and restricted meetings for no more than four people. Shopping malls, restaurants, bars and places of worship have closed in some places, but New Delhi is the first to re-apply sweeping measures like those implemented last spring.

The rapidly increasing numbers have also added to the urgency of one of the world’s largest vaccination campaigns. India has administered 120 million doses to its population of nearly 1.4 billion. On Monday, the government said it would expand vaccinations to everyone 18 and older from May 1. Doses were previously limited to people 45 years of age and older.

Public health experts pointed to a combination of factors fueling the surge, including the circulation of new variants that appear to be more contagious than the original virus and the relaxation of precautions such as wearing masks and social aloofness as the number of cases has declined in recent months . .

“We just dropped our guard,” said Dr. Amir Ullah Khan, research director at the Center for Development Policy and Practice, a Hyderabad think tank.

Dr. Khan pointed to potential superspread events, such as the recent political rallies ahead of the West Bengal state elections, which have attracted tens of thousands of mostly exposed people. Hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus thronged the Ganges this month for the Kumbh Mela festival, where people prayed in the river to wash away their sins.

“No political leader ever wore or even spoke about a mask,” said Dr. Khan. “The signal that went was: ‘Everything is over. We have recovered. ‘

A number of highly contagious variants of the original coronavirus are also circulating across the country. Last month, the Indian Ministry of Health said the variants in the UK, South Africa and Brazil had all been found in collected samples, along with a new “double-mutant variant” that may have originated in India.

By mid-April, the British variety had become the dominant variety in the northern state of Punjab, public health experts said. The double mutant variety had taken over as the most common variety in the state of Maharashtra.

Little is known so far about the double-mutant variant, which gets its name from the fact that it has two mutations that are seen separately in other variants, but not in the same variant. The variant has been detected in 21 countries, according to researchers from four universities tracking viral lines. Genetic sequencing has revealed cases in the US, Germany, Turkey and Nigeria, among others.

Doctors in India say they are seeing differences in both the rate at which the infections spread across the population and the age of people showing up in hospitals, and this time more young people are affected.

“This wave is huge,” said Dr. Parv Mittal, a physician at a private hospital in Delhi. “Older people were previously infected. This time it is the younger population who are at risk. “

At Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, Delhi’s largest government hospital, young adults and children arrive with high fevers and severe physical pain, and with varying levels of consciousness, said Dr. Suresh Kumar, the hospital’s medical superintendent.

Indian doctors and public health experts say they work with huge gaps in their knowledge because the government is not doing enough to detect or research new variants.

“Clinically we think the virus has become more contagious,” said Dr. Sunil Arora, who works in a government hospital and serves as the general secretary of the Federation of Resident Doctors Association. “But we don’t have enough data or evidence to determine the exact reasons for the current increase.”

Most hospitals in Delhi are under pressure from a wave of Covid-19 patients. More than 80% of the city’s 19,322 Covid-19 beds are occupied.

Delhi Prime Minister Mr Kejriwal said the blockage of the city is to suppress transmission speed and give time to provide more oxygen, medicines and fans.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson canceled a planned visit to India scheduled for later this month due to the deteriorating situation there. The UK said it will refuse entry to anyone coming from India starting Friday, with exemptions for British and Irish citizens and long-term residents of any nationality.

On Monday, in Delhi’s Defense Colony neighborhood, cars were stuck in the parking lot of a local market as people rushed to pick up supplies to squat at home. Lines formed outside of a local pharmacy and mom-and-pop grocery stores. Cars hid the exits to the parking lots, while drivers sounded their horns.

After a nationwide lockdown hit the Indian economy last year, the government has shown little interest in repeating such sweeping measures. Instead, each state must find its own way of dealing with outbreaks. After this new lockdown in Delhi, experts said a cascade of other Indian states could follow.

“It will encourage other chief ministers to do the same,” said Dr. Khan.

—Jason Douglas in London contributed to this article.

Write to Vibhuti Agarwal at [email protected] and Shan Li at [email protected]