The second wave of the
pandemic has struck India with a devastating impact. With
over 300,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths across the
country each day at present, the total number of deaths has
just passed the 200,000 mark – that’s about one in
16 of all COVID deaths across the world. It is also
evident that the India statistics are significant
underestimates.
The virulence of the second
wave in India seems to be related to a confluence of
factors: government
complacency, driven by poor data collection and being in
denial about the reality of the data; a new
variant with a hockey-stick shaped growth curve; and