India Passes Brazil As Country 2nd-worst-hit By Virus

NEW DELHI: India’s increasing coronavirus caseload made the Asian giant the world’s second-worst-hit country behind the United States on Monday, as its efforts to head off economic disaster from the pandemic gain urgency.

The 90,802 cases added in the past 24 hours pushed Indias total past Brazil with more than 4.2 million cases. India is now behind only the United States, where more than 6.2 million people have been infected, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Indias Health Ministry on Monday also reported 1,016 new deaths for a total of 71,642, the third-highest national toll.

The world’s second-most populous country with 1.4 billion people, India has been recording the worlds largest daily increases in coronavirus cases for almost a month. Despite over 2 million new cases in the past month and the virus spreading through the countrys smaller towns and villages, the Indian government has continued relaxing restrictions to try and resuscitate the economy.

On Monday, the Delhi Metro a rapid transit system that serves Indias sprawling capital, New Delhi, and adjoining areas resumed operations after five months.

Only asymptomatic people were allowed to board the trains, with masks, social distancing and temperature checks mandatory.

The capitals metro train network is Indias largest rapid transport system. Before closing down in March, the packed trains carried an average of 2.6 million passengers a day.

New Delhi will also reopen bars on Wednesday.

The reopenings come after India’s economy shrank faster than any other major nations, nearly 24% in the last quarter.

India’s economic pain dates to the demonetization of the nation’s currency in 2016 and a hasty rollout of a goods and services tax the next year. But the strict virus lockdown that started on March 24 further exacerbated the economic woes.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered everyone in the country to stay indoors, the whole economy shut down within four hours. Millions lost their jobs instantly and tens of thousands of migrant workers, out of money and fearing starvation, poured out of cities and headed back to villages. The unprecedented migration not only hollowed out India’s economy but also spread the virus to the far reaches of the country.

Now, as cases surge, most of the country, except in high-risk areas, has already opened up, with authorities saying they have little choice.

While lives are important, livelihoods are equally important, Rajesh Bhushan, the top official of Indias federal health ministry, said at a news briefing last week.

Almost 60% of Indias virus cases are now coming from the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, the nation’s most populous state. But infections are also returning to areas that had managed to slow the spread of the virus, offsetting marginal gains.

Initially hit hard by the virus, New Delhi had seemed to turn the tide through its aggressive screening for patients. But after reopening steadily, the state has reported a recent surge in cases and fatalities. The reopening of the metro is expected to further worsen the situation, experts fear.

The recent surge in cases also highlights the risks of Indias strategy on relying too heavily on rapid tests that screen for antigens or viral proteins. These tests are cheap, yield results in minutes and have allowed India to test over a million people a day.

But they are also less precise and likely to miss infected people, said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, an infectious diseases expert of Christian Medical College at Vellore in southern India.

India also says its recovery rate is 77.3% and that the fatality rate has declined to around 1.72%.

But the economic crisis means that people in India, especially the poor who were inordinately impacted by the harsh lockdown, have to go out and work. They are also less likely to have access to good healthcare.

The virus has already deepened misery in the countrys vast hinterlands and poorer states, where surges have crippled the underfunded healthcare system and stretched resources.

S.P. Kalantri, a public health specialist, said Indias poor face a desperate choice between an immediate death versus a death that could come any time.

The disease is already there in the villages, he said.

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