NEW DELHI - India's total coronavirus cases passed 5 million on Wednesday, health ministry data showed, as the pandemic extends its grip on the vast country at an ever-faster rate.
With its latest 1 million cases recorded in just 11 days, a world record, India now has 5.02 million infections. Only the United States has more, with 6.59 million.
India has for some time been recording the world's biggest daily jumps in cases, and on Wednesday, the rise was just over 90,000 with a record 1,290 deaths.
While India took 167 days to reach 1 million cases, the next million came in just 21 days, faster than the US and Brazil, according to the Times of India.
Just 29 days later, India became only the third country after the US and Brazil to post 4 million infections. India passed Brazil earlier this month.
Even so, and with India now testing around a million people daily, many experts say that this is not enough and that the true number of infections may be far higher.
This has been borne out in several studies in recent weeks measuring antibodies against the virus among the cramped populations of megacities New Delhi and Mumbai.
The India Council for Medical Research, the country's lead pandemic agency, said last week that its survey had suggested that already in May, 6.5 million people were infected.
The same goes for deaths — 82,066 as of Wednesday, less than half the US toll of 195,000 — with many deaths not properly recorded by authorities even in normal times.
'WRONG SIGNAL'
India has one of the world's most poorly funded health care systems and the nation of 1.3 billion people is home to some of the most densely populated cities and towns.
The sharp rise in cases is despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government imposing in late March one of the world's strictest lockdowns, leaving tens of millions of people in the informal labor market jobless almost overnight.
The lockdown saw complete travel bans, shutting down of businesses and factories, and the flight of millions of poor migrant workers from big cities to their villages that experts say caused the virus to spread from urban centers to small towns.
India's GDP slumped nearly 24 percent in the first quarter, one of the steepest drops among major economies.
The lockdown has been steadily eased even as infections soar, with schools set to open for some classes on Monday, along with tourist hotspot the Taj Mahal.
"Initially there was a fair amount of rigor in the lockdown but subsequently there was some relaxation before it was completely lifted," K. Srinath Reddy, head of health charity at the Public Health Foundation of India, told AFP.
"It sent a wrong signal to the people that possibly we have got things reasonably under control and now the economy takes precedence. The virus is now infecting more people and penetrating deeper into smaller towns."
Agence France-Presse
MUMBAI/GUWAHATI - India's coronavirus infections surpassed 600,000 on Thursday, with 17,834 deaths, as authorities battled to contain the pandemic while easing lockdown rules, officials and the health ministry said.
Fresh challenges to protect people from the virus emerged for disaster management officials in the northeast state of Assam amid torrential rainfall, where floods and landslides killed 57 people this week and more than 1.5 million were forced to flee their homes.
Assam's health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said the state had started testing aggressively to identify coronavirus cases among villagers forced to take shelter in community halls, schools and government buildings.
"We were isolating new coronavirus hotspots; the situation is very critical," Sarma told Reuters.
The increase in infections presents a severe challenge for India's strained medical capacity and overburdened health system. The fear of being quarantined in poorly maintained government facilities has discouraged people from getting tested, experts say, leading to fresh cases of COVID-19 even after the government imposed the world's longest lockdown.
An easing phase called "Unlock 2" was announced on Monday, allowing more economic activities to resume.
But the western state of Maharashtra reported a record jump of 5,537 coronavirus infections on Wednesday, prompting authorities to again impose a stringent lockdown in areas around the financial capital, Mumbai, forcing people to stop commuting in a city largely dependent on public transport.
The state accounts for more than a fifth of total infections in the country and nearly half of the deaths, has reported total to 180,297 infections including 8,052 deaths so far.
(Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.)
(Writing by Rupam Jain, Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Gerry Doyle)
-reuters-
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI - India reported close to 20,000 fresh novel coronavirus cases for the second day running on Monday, as the financial hub of Mumbai extended its lockdown by a month.
There were 19,459 new cases reported in the previous 24 hours, according to data from India's federal Health Ministry released on Monday. That is down slightly from Sunday's record of 19,906, but still sign cases in the country are yet to subside.
India lags only the United States, Brazil and Russia in total cases. More than 16,000 have now died from the disease caused by the virus since the first case in India in January -- low when compared to countries with similar numbers of cases.
But experts fear its hospitals will be unable to cope with a steep rise in cases.
The western state of Maharashtra, which has reported the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country, extended its lockdown by another month until end of July, as new cases rose in key cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad.
Mumbai witnessed massive traffic jams on key roads connecting suburbs to the southern business district on Monday as authorities erected roadblocks to police new travel restrictions.
Under the new rule, residents can visit markets, salons, and parks within a 2 km radius of their homes, but asked not step out of the house unnecessarily. Office-goers are exempt from the rule.
(Reporting by Alasdair Pal in New Delhi and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Editing by Alison Williams)
-reuters-
India now has more than 500,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to government figures released Saturday that showed a record daily leap of 18,500 new infections.
Authorities said a total of 15,685 people had died after another 385 fatalities were added to the toll in 24 hours.
The pandemic is not expected to peak in India for several more weeks and experts say the number of cases could pass one million before the end of July.
Some state governments are considering imposing new lockdowns. A hard-hitting nationwide lockdown that started March 25 is gradually being eased because of the damage caused to the economy.
The virus has particularly hit India's densely populated cities and there are now major concerns for New Delhi which has overtaken Mumbai with nearly 80,000 cases.
The city's government has predicted it would have 500,000 infections by the end of July. It is already using railway carriages to house patients and has taken over hotels and banquet halls to relieve the pressure on hard-pressed hospitals.
The government has been criticized over a lack of testing that experts say has hidden the true number of cases in India, which now stands at 509,000.
The country is currently fourth in the world for the number of infections, behind the United States, Brazil and Russia, though it has a much lower death toll.
In a bid to boost tracing efforts, Delhi authorities have called in 33,000 health workers to screen about 2 million people in sealed off zones across the city of 20 million people.
But cities across the nation of 1.3 billion people are braced for a huge wave of new cases in coming weeks.
"It is likely that we're going into a state, unless we are able to reinforce a strict physical distancing mechanism or a hard lockdown, where the rate of infection will continue to increase," said Anant Bhan, a leading public health expert.
"Unlike China, where the pandemic was relatively more concentrated around Wuhan and a few other cities, India has a more diffused spread that makes it a bit more challenging for the healthcare system," he told AFP.
Bhan said India might see several peaks in coming months because the spread of the virus "is variable across the country."
Agence France-Presse
MUMBAI - Indian states witnessing millions of migrant laborers returning from the big cities are recording rising coronavirus infections, officials said on Tuesday, fearing that the pandemic could spread through villages where medical care is basic at best.
Officials from the home and railway ministries said at least 4.5 million workers had migrated home from economic hubs in the two months since Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a lockdown.
On Tuesday, India had recorded a total 145,380 infections and a death toll of 4,167, low figures for the world's second-most populous country when compared with some countries in Europe.
But the eastern state of Bihar registered more than 160 infections on Monday, its highest one-day rise, taking its tally to more than 2,700 cases. In the past 36 hours, more than 75 people tested positive in Odisha and 35 in three isolation homes in the desert state of Rajasthan.
The latest cases have forced authorities to stretch limited testing resources.
"Dozens of laborers who traveled from New Delhi have tested positive. We are ensuring that no one enters their village with this infection," said Gaurav Sinha, a senior health official in Bihar's capital, Patna.
Economists studying reverse migration patterns said India's poorest migrant laborers have been the worst hit by the lockdown. TV footage early in the crisis showed police beating migrant workers as they tried to board city buses to reach their villages, making a mockery of social distancing.
On May 1, the government responded to rising public opposition to the migrant crisis by allowing special trains to take workers back to their home states.
But millions of workers without jobs or money are still waiting to reach home.
"The migrant crisis exposes the spatial fault-lines of India's development," wrote Sai Balakrishnan, an assistant professor at Harvard University, in the Mint newspaper.
-reuters-
Coronavirus cases in India reached 100,000 on Tuesday, matching its number of intensive care beds, and the rate of increase of new infections showed little sign of slowing.
India reported 4,970 new cases over the previous 24 hours, taking its total to 101,139. Deaths rose by 134 to 3,163.
India's number of cases has easily outstripped that of China, where the virus emerged late last year and which has been one of Asia's infection hot spots.
China has reported nearly 83,000 cases but has kept its daily rise in new infections to single digits for the past week.
In contrast, new cases in India have risen by an average of more than 4,000 a day over the past week, according to a Reuters tally based on official data, despite a severe weeks-long lockdown.
India officially extended the lockdown on Sunday to May 31, although several states indicated they would allow businesses to reopen.
Health experts and officials are worried about the strain the epidemic is placing on India's over-stretched and under-funded hospital system.
Dhruva Chaudhry, president of the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine, told Reuters last month that India probably had only about 100,000 intensive care unit (ICU) beds and 40,000 ventilators.
Chaudhry warned there was not sufficient infrastructure or staff in the country of 1.35 billion people to handle a sharp spike in the number of critical patients.
While not every coronavirus patient needs an ICU bed, health experts worry about surging cases in India, particularly as many believe the official tally falls short of the reality.
India has not provided a detailed breakdown on the condition of people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, although authorities have reported that about 37,000 people have recovered.
India's death rate is less than that of some other big countries, at 3%, compared with about 6% for the United States, where some 89,000 people have died, and 14% for Britain. (Editing by Richard Pullin and Jacqueline Wong)
-reuters-
NEW DELHI/DHAKA - The chief minister of Delhi state said on Saturday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to extend a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, but the federal government did not confirm this decision.
Modi's government said only that it was still considering states' requests and that they mostly wanted a two-week extension to the 21-day lockdown, which is due to end on Tuesday.
Modi earlier held a video conference call with several state chief ministers to decide on the future course.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who attended the meeting, said Modi had decided to extend the lockdown.
"PM has taken (a) correct decision to extend (the) lockdown. Today, India’s position is better than many developed countries because we started lockdown early. If it is stopped now, all gains would be lost," Kejriwal said on Twitter, without giving a time frame.
In a statement later, the federal government said Modi had emphasized in the meeting that the coming weeks were critical to determine the impact of the steps taken until now to contain the virus.
The government has not said when it would make a final decision on any lockdown extension.
The number of coronavirus infections in India rose to 7,529 on Saturday, with the capital city New Delhi and financial hub Mumbai fast emerging as hotspots. There have been 242 deaths.
Some states like the western state of Maharashtra - the worst hit by the virus and home to Mumbai - and West Bengal in east where the city of Kolkata is located extended the lockdown until the end of the month following the meeting with Modi.
At least two other states had already independently extended the lockdown by Friday.
Indian officials have said widespread virus infections could be disastrous in a country where millions live in slums and the health system is already overburdened.
BROADER CONCERNS
Although several states back a nationwide lockdown extension, concerns have risen that the restrictions have put millions of poor people out of work and forced an exodus of migrant workers from cities to villages.
The government said on Saturday said that operations of the marine fishing and the aquaculture industry will be exempted from the lockdown restrictions.
Some 81 migrant workers were arrested in the western city of Surat after they started fires and threw stones in protests late on Friday evening, demanding to be allowed to go back to their home areas, police said.
"The workers are without work because of the lockdown, and are struggling to sustain themselves," one police official said.
In neighboring Bangladesh, where the army has been deployed across the country to enforce social distancing measures, the government on Friday extended its nationwide lockdown by 11 days to April 25. The number of confirmed cases there rose to 482, with 30 deaths.
Bangladesh's Ministry of Public Administration said on Saturday that nobody would be allowed out of their homes from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., adding that legal action will be taken against those who fail to comply with the orders.
The government has also ordered all shops except drugstores to be shut by 6 p.m.
-Reuters-
