India's 2nd wave of Coronavirus infections appears to be out of control.

 

Indian mass cremation site. Reuters. 

India's 2nd wave of Coronavirus infections appears to be out of control, with hundreds of thousands of new cases and thousands of deaths each day. Reuters. Hospitals and morgues are being overran and supplies are running out. Oxygen containers are in short supply though India claims that they will be able to have that sorted out by mid-May. India has begun vaccinations but only 9% of India's population have gotten their first dose, with many people reporting difficulties even getting an appointment as the website for signing up crashes regularly. It is unclear how reliable India's numbers are as there are fears that the case numbers and deaths have been underreported. Experts believe that India's large festivals and political rallies have contributed to the spread of the virus. Other countries, including the United States, are sending supplies and aid to India. 

My Comment:

I don't think that it is any surprise that India is having a difficult time handling the Coronavirus outbreak. The country is crowded and has a primitive medical system so it is no surprise that they are having problems. The real question is why they are having problems now. 

Indeed, as cases and infections raged in Europe and America India had very few cases in comparison. You would have been forgiven for thinking that India was a model example of how to handle the virus until the last few weeks. But now? It's clear that things have changed.

So why has this happened? I think it probably has to do with the fact that there were some absolutely massive gatherings recently. It's election season and the crowd size of some of these rallies was huge. There were also some major religious festivals that had millions of people attending. And it's pretty clear that nobody was social distancing. 

But that is also true to parts of the United States. Florida hasn't had mask mandates for a long time and has allowed smaller gatherings. There was never a major 2nd wave there and the virus is generally an afterthought now in most of America. 

I think the real problem is how crowded India is. In America it's pretty easy to avoid close contact with strangers. I went to the store today and I never even came close to coming closer than six feet to someone, and I was not even trying to avoid them. In India you can't swing a dead cat around without hitting 50 people. That's the perfect environment for a disease like Coronavirus to spread. 

The other problem is that India's medical system has been overwhelmed. That never happened in the United States. The closest we ever got was in New York and even that wasn't that bad. But in India? They hardly had the medical infrastructure to deal with normal day to day medical care. They had no chance to deal with the problem once it got out of control.

I also don't think that India's population is that healthy in the first place. They have problems with nutrition, obesity and other infectious diseases. They also have major problems with pollution. Since Covid mostly kills people that have other diseases this is not a good thing.  

It also seems that the vaccine rollout has been bad for India as well. Unlike the United States who have vaccinated 43% of the population having one does and 30% with at least one dose, India only has 9% who have gotten at least one dose. They have been focusing on medical people and health care workers which is useful but it leaves a lot of vulnerable people exposed. 

Is there a way out for India? Not for awhile. Without a major vaccination rate and with few people having been exposed the virus will continue to spread like wildfire. It's going to be a tough time for them and a lot of people will die. Are things as bad as they say? It's very hard to tell, but it is clear that at the very least the virus is spreading fairly well. 

It's strange to think about it though as the outbreak is basically over here in Wisconsin. New cases are down to double digits and a ton of people are vaccinated (60% at my place of employment). The idea that people are still dealing with this disease is so weird as it just isn't the case here in Wisconsin.