India’s Coronavirus Cases Continue to Surge out of Control Causing Widespread Panic

Two and a half months of nationwide lockdown in India kept numbers of infections relatively low but with restrictions easing in recent weeks, cases have shot up, raising questions about whether authorities have done enough to avert catastrophe and chaos.

THE country has reported a record of nearly 10,000 new cases with health services in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai swamped by the rising infections with medical services struggling to cope.

India’s tally of positive cases has reached 286,579 so far, the fifth-highest in the world, and 8,102 deaths, including 357 in the past 24 hours. Emily Schmall reports from New Delhi, where half of the city’s hospital beds are already taken up by Covid-19 patients. One doctor has described the situation in the capital as a “ticking time-bomb.”

The high infection numbers also makes India the worst-affected Asian country. Russia, which has the third-highest number of cases in the world, is technically part of both Europe and Asia, but most of its major cities are in the European part.