The city known for its bustling traffic has now become silent, with the occasional sound of an ambulance.
Normally, driving or traveling on the tram around the capital city of Delhi, India, everyone has to pay attention to the complicated and noisy traffic.
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)
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