In early March this year, health minister Harsh Vardhan claimed India was in the “endgame” of the pandemic. Cricket matches, and massive religious festivals, all largely maskless, were held.
“These were all possible super-spreader events,” said Dr Jameel, of Ashoka University.
“We celebrated too early,” says Dr Jameel. “Modellers were predicting a second wave. Historically, if you look at respiratory pandemics, they come back. But nobody really expected it to be this big. We were really caught by surprise and it has completely overwhelmed the system.”
India is not alone in this: British doctors said at the weekend that most people don’t realise how close this country came to a similar collapse when our more transmissible variant, B1117, hit before Christmas.
Dr Julian Tang, respiratory sciences honorary associate professor at the University of Leicester, said the rate of the rise in the numbers of Covid-19 cases is not that different to what happened here.
D.T.