India Caseload Nears 20m, Situation Remains Grim

UAE reports 1,772 cases, 3 deaths; IPL players test positive; Aussie cricketer sends relief to India; Novavax starts vaccine trials on children; EU eyes letting fully vaccinated tourists into bloc.

NEW DELHI

India’s total COVID-19 caseload neared 20 million on Monday, in stark contrast to gradual reopenings in Europe and other wealthier parts of the world where rapid vaccination programmes have helped keep new cases down.

In India cases have soared by around eight million since the end of March, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi under growing pressure to take decisive action to reverse the surge.

Doctors in the resort state of Goa on India’s western coast told of how hospitals were overwhelmed by the spike in cases.

“There are critical patients who have to be managed on trolleys and floors and kept on ventilators in critical COVID wards,” the Goa Association of Resident Doctors said in a letter.

Clinics in the capital New Delhi have also sent urgent appeals for help.

“Oxygen is a basic requirement of a hospital and a consistent supply has not been assured. We are constantly firefighting,” the head of the Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital Dr Dinesh told the Indian Express daily.

Stung by defeat in a key state-level election and a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to rectify the oxygen situation in Delhi by midnight (1830 GMT), embattled Prime Minister Modi held talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen Monday.