India’s Covid-19 daily death toll hits world’s high

Country reports 4529 deaths in a 24-hour period, topping previous high set by the US in January.

A woman gets inoculated with AstraZeneca-Oxford's vaccine at a public health centre in Mysuru, Karnataka, India. Picture: Getty Images

India has recorded the world’s highest number of deaths from COVID-19 in a single day, as the country suffers through one of the most ferocious surges of the pandemic.

On Wednesday, the country reported 4,529 deaths in the past 24 hours, topping the previous high set by the US on January 12, when it recorded 4,475 deaths. It was the ninth time this month that India has recorded more than 4,000 deaths in a single day.

The rising death toll comes following a surge in cases that rose faster than any the world had previously seen, overwhelming the country’s healthcare system, with hospitals turning patients away and running short of beds, oxygen and Covid-19 medications.

Crematoriums too were running short of space and wood. At one of the largest cremation grounds in New Delhi, the Nigam Bodh Ghat, its 120 wooden platforms where bodies are cremated weren’t enough. It had to add 32 more, said Vishal Mishra, who helps run the crematorium.

On the banks of the Ganges River in the city of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, the Bhairav Ghat cremation ground has received more than 1,000 people who died of Covid-19 since mid-April, said Dhaniram Panther, a 55-year-old social worker helping to cremate bodies.

“Families can’t even touch the bodies even if they want to see their loved ones for the last time,” he said. “It’s so painful to see such suffering. This is a very difficult time to live.”

Last week, more than 100 bodies were found floating in the Ganges River between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Authorities said people living in nearby villages, who were likely unable to find space in crematoriums or relatives to carry the bodies, turned to the Hindu practice of water burials. The practice, known as Jal Samadhi, is against the law.

“In this current scenario of the pandemic, death has been demeaned, death has been derogatory. It has become ugly,” said Ashok Kumar Kaul, a retired professor of sociology at the Banaras Hindu University in Uttar Pradesh.

The only silver lining for the country is that the surge of new coronavirus cases appears to have crested for now. The numbers of new daily cases have been dropping, falling below 300,000 on several recent days after hitting record highs above 400,000 in late April and early May.

“The daily infections count peaked 12 days back. The cases have been falling since then. It is likely that the death count will start dropping since the death curve normally has a two-week lag,” said T. Jacob John, a retired professor of virology at the Christian Medical College in the southern city of Vellore.

For now, the worst appears to have passed in hard-hit New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Both have shown a decline in case and death numbers in the past week. The major contributors to the rising death toll are the states of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. A few smaller states like Uttarakhand in the north and Goa in the south also have started reporting an increase in new deaths.

In a meeting with officials from around the country on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government needed to focus on the spread of the virus to rural and inaccessible areas. “At this time, the number of corona infections is decreasing in many states, increasing in several states. There is a need to be more vigilant in the face of decreasing infections,” he said.

Mr Modi’s approval ratings stood at 63% last week, according to data intelligence company Morning Consult, the lowest ratings for the leader since the U.S. firm began tracking his popularity in August 2019.

The Nigam Bodh Ghat crematorium in New Delhi is getting fewer bodies on most days now. On Tuesday, there were only 78, said Mr Mishra. In April, there were days when the crematorium would get more than 200.

At the Bhairav Ghat crematorium in Kanpur, the number of bodies has also dropped, said Madan Babu, who serves on a state committee that oversees the cremation and burial of Covid-19 victims. He said the state is now providing free wood for Covid-19 deaths. “The situation is getting better now,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal