Karnataka : Two states in southern India became the latest to declare coronavirus lockdowns as the experts warned that conditions were ripe for a repeat of the tragic scenes seen in other parts of the country, where a surge in cases left hospitals unable to cope with the demand for beds, medicines and oxygen.
Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka state, has the highest active caseload of any Indian city with more than 300,000 and is already buckling under oxygen shortages, overrun hospitals and crowded crematoriums.
Karnataka and neighbouring Tamil Nadu state both declared lockdowns from May 10 to 24 on Friday. In Tamil Nadu, the lockdown announcement followed a daily record of more than 26,000 cases.
Infections have swelled in India since February in a disastrous turn blamed on more contagious variants as well as government decisions to allow massive crowds to gather for religious festivals and political rallies.
On Saturday, India reported 401,078 confirmed cases, including a record high of 4,187 deaths. Overall, India has more than 21.8 million confirmed infections and nearly 240,000 deaths. Experts say even those dramatic tolls are undercounts.One doctor in Bengaluru said he had to reject patients “left, right and center” as his hospital struggled to find more oxygen.
“The problem is the demand is so high that we need constant oxygen,” said Sanjay Gururaj, the medical director at Shanti Hospital and Research Centre. The hospital is sending a truck twice a day to oxygen plants on the outskirts of the city to bring back 12 jumbo oxygen cylinders. “In normal times, this would have lasted over two weeks — now, it lasts just over a day.”The state’s oxygen shortages prompted the high court on Wednesday to order the federal government to increase the daily liquid medical oxygen supplied to Karnataka. The ruling came after 24 virus patients died in a government hospital on Monday. It was not clear how many of them died due to the lack of oxygen, but an investigation is ongoing.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far left the responsibility for fighting the virus in this current surge to poorly equipped state governments, and faced accusations of doing too little. His government has yet to impose a national lockdown as it did during its first wave last year, but around half of all Indian states have imposed a total shutdown. The rest are under a partial shutdown.
The government says it is doing everything it can amid a “once-in-a-century crisis”. Meanwhile, many medical experts, opposition leaders and even Supreme Court judges are calling for national restrictions, arguing that a patchwork of state rules is insufficient to quell the rise in infections.
Experts caution that the surge in Bengaluru is fast eclipsing other hard-hit cities like the capital, New Delhi, and Mumbai. Cases have increased 100-fold since February, said Murad Banaji, a mathematician modelling Covid-19 growth in India, citing official data. Test positivity has jumped to more 30 per cent, which indicates the infection is much more widespread than confirmed figures, he said.
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