Health workers wearing personal protective equipment carry wood to prepare for a mass cremation of COVID-19 victims at a crematorium in New Delhi April 26, 2021. (CNS/Reuters/Adnan Abidi)
India is leading the world in the number of coronavirus infections. On May 2, Reuters reported that India's new daily COVID-19 cases passed 400,000 for the first time, as the second wave worsened. Reuters reported May 6 with information from India's Health Ministry that a "record 412,262 new cases and 3,980 deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, taking total infections past 21 million and the overall death toll to 230,168."
Almost everyone I know is affected by the second wave in one way or the other. Some are infected, some have lost (or fear losing) a family or a community member, a friend, a neighbor, a colleague. Most are living in isolation, unable to express apprehension and anxiety, unable to go out and do something.