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As bodies pile up, India's leaders face rising public anger over second Covid-19 wave

24 April 2021 10:11 (UTC +04:00)

Just six weeks ago, India's Health Minister declared that the country was "in the endgame" of the Covid-19 pandemic. On Friday, India reported the world's highest single-day number of new cases since the pandemic began, for the second day in a row,APA reports citing CNN.

India's second wave, which began in mid-March, has devastated communities and hospitals across the country. Everything is in short supply -- intensive care unit beds, medicine, oxygen and ventilators. Bodies are piling up in morgues and crematoriums.

India reported 332,730 new cases on Friday, marking the highest daily case count globally. The United States is second, having recorded a high of 300,310 cases on January 2.

India's population is roughly four times that of the US, and its daily cases still fall behind the US when adjusted for population size (in cases per million people).

But the fact remains, India's total now stands at more than 16 million confirmed cases and nearly 187,000 related deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

"We're going through pretty much the worst possible phase of the pandemic here," said Chandrika Bahadur, chair of the Lancet Commission on Covid-19 India Taskforce, on Wednesday. "It has been bad for a couple of weeks, but now it's reached a peak."