NEW DELHI — Crematories are so full of bodies, it’s as if a war just happened. Fires burn around the clock. Many places are holding mass cremations, dozens at a time, and at night, in certain areas of New Delhi, the sky glows.
crematorium UK /ˌkrem.əˈtɔː.ri.əm/ US /ˌkrem.əˈtɔːr.i.əm/ 火葬場
(UK plural crematoriums or crematoria ) (US also crematory ˈkriː.mə.tɔːr.i/, plural crematories )
India is now recording more infections per day — as many as 350,000 — than any other country has since the pandemic began, and that’s just the official number, which most experts think is a vast underestimation.
The infections have spread so fast that hospitals have been completely swamped. People are turned away by the thousands. Medicine is running out. So is lifesaving oxygen. The sick have been left stranded in interminable lines at hospital gates or at home, literally gasping for air.
Although New Delhi is locked down, the disease is still rampaging. Doctors across this city and some of Delhi’s top politicians are issuing desperate SOS calls to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, on social media and on TV, begging for oxygen, medicine, help.
Experts had always warned that Covid-19 could wreak real havoc in India. This country is enormous — 1.4 billion people. And densely populated. And in many places, very poor.
Many in India are also upset with the pace of the vaccination campaign, with fewer than 10 percent of the population having received one dose, and only 1.6 percent fully vaccinated, despite two vaccines being produced there.
Eric's English Lounge 