India has topped 18.3 million COVID-19 cases, after adding 1 million cases in just the past three days amid shortages in vital supplies and overwhelmed hospitals across the country. Makeshift mass cremation facilities have been set up in parks and parking lots, with rows of bodies being burned on funeral pyres. With hospitals overflowing, some patients have been turned away and left to deal with their infections on their own. “This is where Modi has led India,” says Indian journalist Rana Ayyub, who says the prime minister “clearly has no plan” for dealing with the crisis ravaging the country’s healthcare systems, particularly outside the major cities. “There has always been a crisis of healthcare in rural India, but never has it been so acutely defined as it is now,” says Ayyub.
It is just devastating, the images that you witness outside hospitals, outside crematoriums. I mean, I can give you an example. There was a news report today that the wood that is being used to burn the funeral pyres is exhausting. There are more bodies than wood in crematoriums. I just got a video from a journalist with whom I’ve been interacting. He has sent me a video of 70 bodies just lying outside one single crematorium. And the feeling that I’m getting from speaking to a lot of people, a lot of journalists, local journalists, health officials, is that the death toll in India is anywhere between 15,000 to 10,000. That is at least 10 times higher than what the Indian government officials are saying.
Last evening, my family, which is in rural India, my maternal family in Azamgarh, seven members of my family tested positive. The doctors have told them they’re not COVID-positive. My uncle was critical last evening, as his oxygen went to 70. And we, me with my privilege and my contacts and my access, had to put out a tweet on social media to get him a bed. Now, I did manage a bed for my uncle, but that’s not — but others in the country, especially in rural India, are not
— source democracynow.org | Apr 29, 2021