Pandemic’s epicentre is shifting to India as deaths eclipse that of Mexico
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India is fast becoming the world’s new virus epicentre, setting a record for the biggest single-day rise in cases as experts predict that it will soon pass Brazil — and ultimately the US — as the worst outbreak globally.
As many as 78,761 new cases were added on Sunday, the most any country has yet reported in one day, while 971 deaths were reported on Monday, pushing the Asian country past Mexico for the third-highest number of deaths worldwide. At the current trajectory, India’s outbreak will eclipse Brazil’s in about a week, and the US in about two months.
And unlike the US and Brazil, India’s case growth is still accelerating seven months after the reporting of its first coronavirus case on January 30. The pathogen has only just penetrated the vast rural hinterland where most of its 1.3-billion population lives, after racing through its dense megacities.
As the world’s second largest country, and one with a relatively poor public health system, it’s inevitable that India’s outbreak becomes the world’s biggest, said Naman Shah, an adjunct faculty member at the country’s National Institute of Epidemiology.
“It would not be surprising, regardless of what India does,” said Shah, a member of the Indian government’s Covid-19 task force.
From the Philippines to Peru, the novel coronavirus poses a unique problem to poor countries: the densely packed slums where millions of their citizens live present ideal conditions for the virus to spread, while their economic precariousness means that the shutdowns necessary to contain the pathogen are intolerable.
Rich to poor
Across the developing world, economies have been forced to open up even with the virus still running rampant, quickly overwhelming underfunded hospitals.
The list of worst-affected countries globally has accordingly shifted from rich to poor as the pandemic races around the world. Where once countries such as Italy, Spain and the UK had the biggest outbreaks and highest death tolls, now the US is the only advanced economy in the top ten, among other developing nations such as Mexico, Peru and SA.
Nowhere has the developing world’s plight played out more viscerally than in India, where an ambitious national lockdown imposed in March was lifted after two months as joblessness, starvation and a mass migration of workers leaving cities on foot became too much to bear.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has since counselled the population to “live with the virus” while giving ...
As many as 78,761 new cases were added on Sunday, the most any country has yet reported in one day, while 971 deaths were reported on Monday, pushing the Asian country past Mexico for the third-highest number of deaths worldwide. At the current trajectory, India’s outbreak will eclipse Brazil’s in about a week, and the US in about two months.
And unlike the US and Brazil, India’s case growth is still accelerating seven months after the reporting of its first coronavirus case on January 30. The pathogen has only just penetrated the vast rural hinterland where most of its 1.3-billion population lives, after racing through its dense megacities.
As the world’s second largest country, and one with a relatively poor public health system, it’s inevitable that India’s outbreak becomes the world’s biggest, said Naman Shah, an adjunct faculty member at the country’s National Institute of Epidemiology.
“It would not be surprising, regardless of what India does,” said Shah, a member of the Indian government’s Covid-19 task force.
From the Philippines to Peru, the novel coronavirus poses a unique problem to poor countries: the densely packed slums where millions of their citizens live present ideal conditions for the virus to spread, while their economic precariousness means that the shutdowns necessary to contain the pathogen are intolerable.
Rich to poor
Across the developing world, economies have been forced to open up even with the virus still running rampant, quickly overwhelming underfunded hospitals.
The list of worst-affected countries globally has accordingly shifted from rich to poor as the pandemic races around the world. Where once countries such as Italy, Spain and the UK had the biggest outbreaks and highest death tolls, now the US is the only advanced economy in the top ten, among other developing nations such as Mexico, Peru and SA.
Nowhere has the developing world’s plight played out more viscerally than in India, where an ambitious national lockdown imposed in March was lifted after two months as joblessness, starvation and a mass migration of workers leaving cities on foot became too much to bear.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has since counselled the population to “live with the virus” while giving ...