But these days, traffic is sparse, with only occasional trucks or motorbikes passing by. The once noisy atmosphere no longer appeared. Unpleasant silence crept across India as the COVID-19 crisis erupted, partly due to local closures of factories, and partly because many people here fear infection. Contrary to that quiet, fighting activities are increasingly explosive: ambulances race to the next patient, ordinary people frantically criss-crossing the city in search of medicine, oxygen, and beds sick. After a year of relative calm, the country of nearly 1.4 billion people is grappling with a powerful last-minute storm. With the number of new cases still exceeding 300,000 per day, India regularly accounts for around 50% of all new cases worldwide. Vijayawada International Airport was bustling with only a handful of passengers, and flights were also few. (Photo: ST) Problems from tests At the end of April, in the corner of the Artemis hospital compound in Gurgaon, a man repeatedly fell and had to be helped by those around him as he stood in line waiting for an RT-PCR test. The man was seated in a chair but collapsed. He was brought to the front of the queue but was too weak to last long. As hospital staff led the man toward the main building, he resisted, pointing to an elderly man sitting in the corner. Turns out this person came here not to do an RT-PCR test for himself but for his father. Meanwhile, at the front, the doctor in charge, overwhelmed by the number of samples to be taken, shouted at a patient for breaking in. Most people in line will wait at least two hours to be checked in. And it takes at least 48 hours to get results. Crowds of testing people create congestion at facilities. (Photo: ST) Unlike the first wave that affected the elderly, the second wave made many young people sick. Middle-aged parents have to bring children with coughs and fevers to testing centers. Prolonged delays have unfortunate consequences. Without quick and reliable test results, people won’t be able to get the care they need and could end up passing the virus on to many others. Mr. Claudien Jacob understood the situation all too well. He lost his 71-year-old mother on April 29 at home in Bangalore, when she was bedridden. She was hot with fever and her oxygen saturation level gradually decreased. By the time they were able to have a lab technician come to their home to collect an RT-PCR sample, other household members had also developed typical symptoms of COVID-19. But without the test, she wouldn’t have a hospital bed. On April 29, at 7 a.m., she took her last breath. At 7:30 a.m., Mr. Jacob’s phone beeped with her test result: positive. He has yet to receive his test results. “I’m dead tired, but no one else is doing this, so I went to the cemetery. I still haven’t had time to feel that my mother is dead.” A grieving family sends off a loved one who died of COVID-19 while keeping their distance. (Photo: ST) In March 2020, during the first pandemic outbreak, India instituted a strict 21-day lockdown. While bad for the economy, this also helps expand infrastructure from hospital beds to testing facilities. The number of tests has been increased from less than 100 to more than 1.4 million per day. The number of labs doing testing has also increased from 14 at the beginning of last year to more than 2,400 this year. But that’s still not enough. Survival battle Now, it’s common for Indians to see people rushing to find the basic necessities that were always assumed hospitals would have. Never before have citizens had to hunt for oxygen as often as they do now. Looking out the window, it’s not difficult to see someone rushing with an oxygen tank on the car to bring to the patient. Hospitalization – is a matter of will, wealth, relationships and of course luck. Indians now joke that before the pandemic, people panicked when a loved one was taken to the hospital’s intensive care unit, but now they’re happy. The journey to getting a bed is like a competitive sport. Common scene on Indian streets. (Photo: ST) Survival is not easy either. People safe from COVID-19 and their families talk about loneliness and stress. Families are not allowed to see patients in COVID-19 wards or intensive care units. In absolute isolation, all one could hear was the single, heavy breathing. But anyway, they are still considered “lucky” people. Coping with trauma Outside the Old Seemapuri crematorium in Delhi, Jitender Singh Shunty, founder of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal – a non-profit organization – drinks his first tea at 2pm. He said he felt like fainting and had to rest despite having very little time. Mr. Shunty helped cremate unclaimed bodies and dispose of the ashes in the Hindu tradition, receiving many calls. “Yes, we will come and prepare for the funeral. Don’t worry”, he told a desperate person on the phone. He received more than 400 calls a day, and lived in the car for days. He has a fleet of 18 ambulances and has lost one driver, Arif Khan, to the pandemic. These two were rejected by 4 hospitals in one day. (Photo: ST) Ordinary men and women have become superheroes during the pandemic. A driver in Bhopal sells his wife’s jewelry to convert the car into a makeshift ambulance. Another person in Mumbai sells his SUV for 2.2 million rupees to buy oxygen tanks for everyone. In Kerala, an elderly man donated almost all of his savings of Rs 200,000 to COVID-19 relief efforts. A nursing mother in Bangalore donates breast milk to a premature baby whose mother has died from the epidemic. And it is these moments that are a temporary respite from the horror that is unfolding. A nurse cares for a child who has recently recovered from COVID-19. (Photo: ST)

The relative of a Covid-19 patient died in a collapse in a graveyard in Jammu, India. Photo: AP Pictures spread dizzying on social networks and television showed relatives of patients desperately asking for oxygen outside hospitals, or crying on the streets because a loved one with Covid-19 died while waiting. treated. ABC News cites a woman who fell in love with her brother’s death at the age of 50 after being rejected by two hospitals and died of oxygen without a replacement vessel. The woman mourns the death of a member of her family from Covid-19 outside a crematory in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters India has just set a global record for the fifth consecutive day of new infections, mainly due to a new variant of SARS ‑ CoV ‑ 2. The shock wave denied any early claims about the pandemic victory that the officials of this country had made. According to Worldometers website, the number of corona virus infections in India in the past 24 hours was 354,531 people, bringing the total number of cases nationwide to more than 17.3 million. The number of deaths due to the epidemic rose to 195,116, an increase of 2,806 from a day earlier. The number of deaths can be very large, as the above statistics do not include suspected fatal cases. Medical staff taking care of a Covid-19 patient in Virar, near Mumbai. Photo: AP The current health crisis in India is most evident in overcrowded graveyards and crematoria, and in images of patients dying on the road from lack of oxygen. Burial sites in the capital New Delhi are full. The crematoriums in many cities burned nonstop day and night. In the central city of Bhopal, some crematoriums have to increase their capacity, but the list of corpses waiting for is growing longer. At the Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematory in a city of 1.8 million people, workers said they cremated more than 110 people on April 24. A Covid-19 patient cremation ground in New Delhi. Photo: AP “The virus is devouring the people of our city like a monster” – ABC News quoted an official named Mamtesh Sharma with sorrow. The influx of bodies brought in has caused cremators to bypass procedures and rituals for Hindu devotees. “We just cremated the bodies, as if we were in a war,” said Mr. Sharma. And in New Delhi’s largest Muslim cemetery, the body was so overfilled that the curator’s manager, Mohammad Shameem, was concerned that “we would run out of burial sites soon.” A Covid-19 patient cremation ground in New Delhi. Photo: AP The situation in hospitals was no less grim. The patients were so desperate to wait for treatment that they were lying on the street, looking forward to seeing a doctor. Indian health officials are trying to expand emergency spots and provide more oxygen but supplies are running out, while they are struggling to buy already scarce medical equipment. What’s happening in India right now is a huge setback for a country, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi just declared a pandemic victory in January, and is proud to be “the pharmacy of the world.” world “, the global producer of the vaccine, and is seen as a model for other developing countries in the prevention of Covid-19. People wait for the Covid-19 vaccine in Mumbai. Photo: AP Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina, said the Indian government should have used the past year, when the disease was well controlled, to store medicine and developing systems to cope with the risk of a new pandemic. “Most importantly they should observe what is going on in many other parts of the world and understand that it is only a matter of time before they fall into a similar situation,” Kuppalli said. Instead, the Indian government’s early victory statements encouraged people to relax while they should have continued to strictly adhere to anti-epidemic measures such as wearing masks and not crowding. Thanh Hao

Meanwhile, health officials are looking to increase special-care beds and oxygen reserves. Not only relatives of patients, but also hospitals find all kinds of ways to buy medical equipment, even on the black market. Social media sites and television news are filled with images of relatives of Covid-19 patients struggling to find oxygen sources outside hospitals or crying on the streets when their loved ones die. while waiting for treatment. Family members mourning when patient Covid-19’s death is taken to the crematorium in Jammu, India. Photo: AP “It’s like we’re in the middle of a war.” Video recorded by The Caravan Magazine shows a woman crying after the death of her 50-year-old brother. This man was rejected by 2 hospitals [do đã quá tải và không còn chỗ] and died waiting to be taken to the 3rd hospital. The patient’s oxygen tank was exhausted and had no reserves. April 25 is the fourth consecutive day that India has broken a global record for the number of Covid-19 cases recorded per day, mainly due to a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As of the morning of April 26, India recorded 17,306,300 cases of Covid-19, of which 195,116 died and is currently the second largest epidemic area in the world, after the United States. Besides the heartbreaking image of exhausted patients on the way to the hospital due to lack of oxygen is a terrible picture in cemeteries and crematoria. The funeral homes in New Delhi are full of seats. The fire that cremated the victim of Covid-19 turned red in the night sky in the most affected cities. In the central Indian city of Bhopal, some funeral homes have increased their capacity to more than 50 crematoriums, but many bodies still have to wait hours and hours for their turn. Social networking sites and television news were filled with images of families crying when their loved ones died. Photo: AP At the Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat city crematory, workers said that on April 24 alone, they cremated more than 110 people. “The virus is devouring the people of our city like a monster. We cremated the bodies as soon as they arrived. It was as if we were in the middle of a war, ”said Mamtesh Sharma, a Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat city official. Refugees in the largest Muslim cemetery in New Delhi, where 1,000 people are buried during the Covid-19 pandemic, say more people have been brought there than last year. “I’m afraid we will run out of space very quickly,” said Mohammad Shameem. Crisis has been predicted The federal government has demanded that the industry increase oxygen production and other medications are scarce. Health experts say India had a year to prepare for this inevitable scenario, but they did not. Dr Krutika Kuppalli, an assistant professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of South Carolina Medical, said that the Indian government should have taken advantage of 2020, when the epidemic was still under control, to anticipate storage of medicines and the development of new wave risk coping systems. The source of medical oxygen in India is running out. Photo: AP Instead, early declarations of victory over the Covid-19 pandemic left citizens letting go of precaution at a time when they should have continued to practice social distance, wear masks and avoid them. crowded people. Indian officials are facing criticism for allowing Hindu festivals as well as large-scale election campaigns to be held while experts have warned such activities will cause translation. The disease spreads rapidly. “They should have looked at what was happening in some parts of the world and understood that sooner or later they would be in a similar situation,” said Kuppalli. Currently, countries around the world are actively sending aid to India to help this country cope with the “Covid-19 tsunami”. The US says it will soon send stockpiling oxygen, test kits, medications, personal protective equipment and raw materials to India for the Covid-19 vaccine production. He also decided to send to India the necessary medical supplies and equipment, along with 600 ventilators and mobile oxygen generators. The first shipment departed from the UK on April 25 and will arrive in India on April 27.

New York Times sent reporters to cremations across India and found that the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 was higher than official figures. According to experts, Indian politicians and health officials missed many cases, both unintentional and intentional. The victim’s family also contributes to conceal the disease status of the deceased, making the situation even more complicated. “This is a data disaster,” says epidemiologist Bhramar Mukherjee from the University of Michigan. “From all modeling calculations done, we believe that the actual number of deaths is 2 to 5 times higher than reported”. The actual situation of the cremation ground In a cremation ground in the city of Ahmedabad, capital of the state of Gujarat, western India, fire was lit night and day to serve the cremation of the dead. Mr. Suresh Bhai, an employee here, said he had never seen so many deaths. However, in the section of cause of death on the file, he did not enter Covid-19. “Oops, sick, sick, sick …”, Mr. Suresh said. “That’s what we write.” Indian people pray after the death of a loved one caused by Covid-19. Photo: The New York Times. Mr. Suresh said that this order was issued by his superiors. These people declined to comment on the incident. Cremation is an important part of Hindu farewell rituals. This is considered an act to help the soul be released from the body. The staff at the cremation site said they felt exhausted. These employees also shared that they have never seen so many deaths at the same time today. In the industrial city of Surat, Gujarat state, some of the iron frames used for cremation have melted due to overuse. In the city of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh state, the authorities had to make use of the park to cremate the body. The price of subjectivity Not long ago, India seemed to be on the right track in the prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic, when cases and deaths were under control. Facing this achievement, both Indian officials and people proved subjective and did not continue to take measures to prevent epidemics. But the worst has only just begun. The number of more than 300,000 new infections a day exceeds the capacity of the Indian health sector. The beds are seriously overloaded. A hospital bed with dozens of people lined up for use. There was a time when hospitals in the capital New Delhi only had enough oxygen for a few hours. Cremation of the dead in India. Photo: The New York TImes. Countless Indians are on social media pleading for beds, medicine and oxygen to breathe. The cremations were red and red regardless of day and night. There were times when dozens of bodies were cremated at once. Meanwhile, India’s vaccination campaign is having problems. Only 10% of people in this country get at least one vaccine, even though India is the leading manufacturer of vaccines in the world. According to the Washington Post , the rate of people who have had two injections in India is only 1.4%. Medical experts believe that part of the cause comes from the mutant virus strain B.1.617. This is called a “double mutation” strain, which carries the mutation of two other mutant viruses. This makes B.1.617 both more contagious and more difficult to control than conventional viruses. “Cremation sites have never been so crowded” Residents of Bhopal city, Madhya Pradesh state, say cremations have never been so crowded. Bhopal officials recorded 41 deaths related to the Covid-19 outbreak in mid-April 13 days. New York Times At the city’s crematorium and cemetery for victims of Covid-19, the death toll amounted to more than 1,000 during that same period. “Many deaths have not been recorded. This number is increasing, ”said Dr. GCGautam, a cardiologist in Bhopal. According to him, the government did so because it did not want to create a wave of panic among the people. A similar situation was observed in Lucknow and Mirzapur, the main cities of Uttar Pradesh state. In the state of Gujarat, the local Sandesh newspaper pointed out that the number of deaths per day is about 610, many times higher than the 73-121 number announced by the government. The rapid increase in the number of deaths caused the cremation grounds to become crowded. Photo: The New York TImes. There are many reasons leading to this situation. Subjectively, according to epidemiologist Bhramar Mukherjee from the University of Michigan, some families do not want to have to bury their loved ones with the strict process of handling the bodies of Covid-19 patients. Objectively, some states are said to have received requests from the central government, where they have to slightly reduce the numbers from reality. In addition, even in the pre-pandemic years, only about a fifth of deaths have been forensically examined. This means that the cause of death of the majority of Indians is not recorded in official records. For his part, Mr. Suresh Bhai continued to work diligently. “Every day, my cemetery has to deal with 15-20 patients of Covid-19 who have died,” he said amid the flare of the flames. India ‘broke the game’ in the second wave of Covid-19 India is being devastated by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. In just 24 hours, the number of deaths due to the country’s pandemic reached 2,000 people and more than 300,000 new cases.

Actual casualties are 2-5 times higher The second wave of Covid-19 in India quickly pushed the country into a total crisis, overloading hospitals, depleting oxygen supplies, desperate lines of people not being treated by doctors and there is evidence that the actual death toll is much higher than officially reported, according to the New York Times. Every day the Government of India records more than tens of thousands of new infections – a world record high – more new cases than any other country to date. However, experts say those numbers, no matter how staggering, represent only a small fraction of the true spread of the pandemic that puts the country in a state of emergency. Millions of people dare not even step out the door for fear of spreading the disease. Indian people mourn in front of a cremation site. Photo: NYT The sudden increase in new infections in recent weeks, with a newer variant, is raising suspicions about the actual number of deaths from India’s Covid-19 – currently reported to be 200,000. , with more than 2,000 people dying every day. Investigations from cremation facilities across the country revealed a large number of deaths from Covid-19 far exceeding the official figure. According to analysts, politicians and hospital managers can reduce this number. “It was a complete data massacre,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has followed India closely. “From all the models we have done, we believe that the actual death toll is 2 to 5 times what is reported.” At one of the major cremation sites in Ahmedabad, a city in the state of Gujarat, western India, flames blazed through the night sky, burning 24 hours a day, like an industrial factory never. Turn off. On April 24, Indian officials reported nearly 350,000 new infections, while the number of deaths continued to increase. At a hospital in New Delhi, doctors said 20 patients in critical condition died after oxygen pressure dropped. Doctors claim that severe oxygen scarcity is the cause of the soaring death toll. In Bhopal, a large city in central India, where the disaster of gas leaks in the 1980s caused thousands of deaths, residents said this was the “busiest” time in cremation zones. since that disaster. Over the course of 13 days in mid-April, Bhopal officials reported 41 deaths related to Covid-19. But a survey by the New York Times found the number of deaths at the same time to more than 1,000. A similar phenomenon took place in Lucknow and Mirzapur – major cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh – and across Gujarat, during the same time period, authorities reported between 73 and 121 Covid-related deaths. -19 per day. But detailed figures compiled by one of Gujarat’s leading newspapers – Sandesh – indicate that the number is many times higher, around 610 people per day. What’s happening in India? Months ago, India appeared to have effective epidemic control. After the stern blockade orders that prevented the first outbreak from being eased, India no longer recorded a large number of cases. Officials and citizens have begun to be subjective and act as if the worst days are over. Now, countless Indians have been forced to go to social media to send an emergency (SOS) calling to give them bed, medicine or “some oxygen to breathe”. At the same time, India’s Covid-19 vaccine campaign is also facing difficulties. Less than 10% of Indians have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, even though the country is the world’s leading producer of the vaccine. Severe Indian needs have had a ripple effect around the world, especially in poorer countries. The country had planned to export millions of doses of vaccine but so far this has stopped completely due to severe shortage of vaccines in the country. This also affects when some countries have to divert imports from other countries Doctors are concerned, this terrible wave originated from the emergence of a virus variant “double mutation” – B.1.617. This variant contains genetic mutations found in two other uncontrolled versions of the SARS-CoV2 virus. One of the mutations included in the highly contagious variant was the cause of California (USA) struggles earlier this year. The other mutation is similar to the one found in South Africa and is thought to make the virus more resistant to the vaccine. However, scientists warn that it is too early to know for certain how dangerous the new variant emerging in India is. The results can be worst when combined with the ability to spread faster and more difficult to control. This is worrying scientists across the globe as high-rate vaccinated countries are easing and starting to be subjective. Because of the failures in India, Brazil and elsewhere that there is a risk that the virus could mutate to “beat” existing vaccines.

“We have to race against time, work at 100% capacity to cremate bodies in time,” said Kamlesh Sailor, president of the organization that operates a cremation facility in Surat City, Gujarat state. Data from cremation facilities, media to the government show that the number of people buried or cremated by major cities is much greater than the number of Covid-19 deaths recorded by the authorities. official health announcement, according to Reuters . The difference in the number of deaths Reliable data is central to every nation’s anti-pandemic efforts, experts say. Without reliable data, such as vaccine preparation and medical essentials supply are extremely difficult. On April 19, India recorded 273,810 new infections, along with 1,619 deaths. The total number of Covid-19 cases in India is now more than 15 million, ranking second only to the United States. But it is more likely that the above statistic is much lower than what is actually happening. The bodies are cremated according to Covid-19 defense regulations in India. Photo: Sentinel. Indian authorities say the discrepancy in death data could be caused by a variety of reasons. Many corpses are cremated according to the Covid-19 prevention “even if there is only a 0.1% chance that the person is positive for the virus,” said a health official. “There are many cases where patients are hospitalized in a very critical condition and die before being tested. There are cases where patients died prior to admission, we don’t know if they have Covid-19 or not”, the official said to be anonymous. There are many areas in India where reliable data cannot be collected, said Bhramar Mukherjee, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Michigan. “Things are messed up, I feel like no one understood the situation,” Mr. Mukherjee said. Surat is the second largest city in the state of Gujarat. At the cremation facilities Kurukshetra and Umra, more than 100 bodies are cremated every day according to Covid-19 regulations. This figure is four times higher than the official statistics of the number of people dying from Covid-19. Prashant Kabrawala, representative of the Narayan Trust, which runs the Ashwinikumar cremation facility, refused to provide the number of bodies cremated under anti-epidemic regulations. However, he says the number of cremations has tripled in recent weeks. “I’ve never seen so many cremated bodies over the years,” Kabrawala said. An Indian government spokesman in Gujarat declined to comment ahead of the difference in the number of deaths and cremations associated with the epidemic. India is not the only country where corona virus statistics have been questioned. But scientific literature and cremation staff testimony show that the disparity in officially reported deaths in India is much higher than in other countries. Professor Mukherjee’s study against the first wave of epidemics in India showed that the number of viral infections is 11 times more than officially reported, which is similar to research in other countries. However, the difference in officially reported deaths ranges from 2-5 times, much higher than the global average. The incinerator burned non-stop In Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, data from the largest cremation facility called Baikunthdham, which only processed the bodies of Covid-19 patients, showed that the number of bodies brought in was twice as high. The death of corona virus is reported by the government. That’s not to mention data from other cremation facilities, or cases of the Muslim customary burial – the community that makes up a quarter of Lucknow’s population. Azad, the Baikunthdham facility manager, said the number of bodies cremated under anti-epidemic regulations has increased fivefold in recent weeks. “We work day and night. The furnace is burning red continuously, but many bodies still have to line up,” Azad said. The state government of Uttar Pradesh declined to respond to a request for comment on Covid-19 death data. Cremations many times greater than the number of Covid-19 deaths have also been reported in many other parts of India. Cremation facility staff in New Delhi are exhausted from a work shift. Photo: QZ. In Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh, it was recorded during 4 days of April that 187 bodies had been cremated according to anti-epidemic regulations. However, the number of corona virus deaths officially announced by the authorities is only 5. Last week, the sheet Sandesh 63 bodies were reported to a hospital for Covid-19 patients only in the city of Ahmedabad. However, that same day, the city authorities only counted 20 people died from the corona virus. Medical Journal Lancet says less than 25% of all deaths in India are confirmed medically, meaning that the exact number of deaths from Covid-19 in many regions cannot be determined. “Most of the deaths are not reported, so it is impossible to have a reliable calculation,” said Professor Mukherjee.