Coronavirus: outbreaks of major cities in India lead to record increase in cases.

The India it overtook Russia and claimed the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after recording nearly 25,000 new infections a day, mostly clustered in the megacities of Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

The total number of Covid-19 cases in India rose to 697,413 on Monday after three consecutive days of record increases in infections. Only Brazil, with 1.6 million, and the US, with 2.88 million, have more cases and experts say the country is still months away from reaching its peak.

The death rate in the country of 1.3 billion people remains relatively low, with 19,693 deaths, ranking eighth in the world and at 2.8%, below the global average of 4.7%.

“With the surge in cases that has taken place over the last week, we are definitely entering a worrying phase of the epidemic,” said Preeti Kumar, vice president of the Public Health Foundation of India.

“In India, it is a concentrated epidemic, it is very centralized in the city. While rural areas seem to have it more under control, the way the virus is hitting our densely populated large cities indicates that the epidemic will continue here for some time. ”

The megacities of Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai collectively account for around two-thirds of India's cases.

In Delhi, which reached 100,000 cases on Monday, the city's chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said there was "no need to panic". He said that the number of available ICU beds in the capital has increased by 169%. A new medical facility in Delhi, the size of 20 football fields, built into a spiritual center, opened its doors this week with a capacity for 10,000 mildly symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research predicted that India would not reach its peak until mid-November. However, Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Science, was more optimistic about Delhi's prospects. “If the number of cases in Delhi remains static or declines in the coming weeks, and the decline is at a sustained pace, we can say that we can surpass the peak in August,” he said.

However, even as new facilities are being built, the shortage of doctors and healthcare workers is proving to be problematic across the country, as many are getting infected on the front lines or increasingly reluctant to put themselves at risk.

Last week, testing of Covid-19 samples at three major health institutes in Patna, the capital of Bihar state, had to be closed for three days after 15 doctors, lab technicians and other health workers tested positive. for the virus. Patna medical college and hospital laboratories, Rajendra Memorial Institute of Medical Sciences and All India Institute of Medical Sciences were all closed for fumigation.

Dr. Taha Mateen, managing director of HBS hospital in Bangalore, said in a video that went viral over the weekend that "it had been a virtual bloodbath" on the ward, with only him and one other doctor willing to work on coronavirus cases.

“I have beds, I have oxygen beds, I have ventilators, I have all the equipment. I have 30 more beds like this one, but I don't have any doctors working here,” Mateen said, calling on other doctors to volunteer their services.

India began loosening its strict coronavirus lockdown in early June, allowing domestic travel and shops and restaurants. However, in states like Bihar, which have seen the return of millions of migrant workers, there has been a 25-fold increase in Covid-19 cases. As more than 3 million migrant workers have returned this month, cases in Bihar have risen from 485 to 12,140.

The southern state of Kerala, celebrated worldwide for its success in containing the virus, also appeared to be experiencing a new peak, with 193 new cases reported on Monday. The Kerala government has ordered a triple lockdown in the state's biggest city of Thiruvananthapuram, following a new state law that made face masks and social distancing mandatory in public spaces for one year until at least 2021.

Plans to reopen India's most revered and visited monument, the Taj Mahal in the city of Agra, have also been put on hold indefinitely. Agra, one of India's first major virus clusters, remains the worst affected city in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state.

However, amidst the tragedy, there were small glimmers of hope. In Delhi, a 106-year-old man, who survived the Spanish flu epidemic aged four, was discharged this week from Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital after fully recovering from the coronavirus. “Not only did he recover from Covid-19, he also recovered faster than his son, who is also very old,” a senior doctor told local media.