NEW DELHI -- The resumption of domestic flights this week in India is a clear signal that the country is moving to end the world's largest lockdown, an experiment that affected more than 1.3 billion people. The restrictions caused major job losses, widespread food insecurity and an exodus of workers from India's cities.
Now India is bracing for what comes next. While the lockdown slowed the spread of the novel coronavirus, experts say, the number of fresh cases is rising. India ranks fourth in the world in the number of new cases a day: Only Russia, Brazil and the United States are adding more. India has more than 150,000 cases.
In recent weeks, the government has relaxed restrictions on movement, transportation, commerce and manufacturing. Large gatherings remain prohibited, and international flights are still banned. But experts say loosening the restrictions means cases will increase at faster rates. That will intensify pressure on hospitals already under strain and will affect access to health care overall.
India's two largest cities -- Mumbai and Delhi -- are preparing for a surge in cases. In Mumbai, the nation's hardest-hit city, beds in some coronavirus wards are already full and the local government asked another state to send doctors and nurses to help. In Delhi, authorities are turning yet another major government-run hospital into a center for coronavirus patients and just ordered all private hospitals to reserve 20% of their beds for such cases.
"It is going to be a mess," said Jayaprakash Muliyil, a leading Indian epidemiologist. In a city as densely populated as Mumbai, "trying to control any viral transmission is next to impossible."
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Mumbai, India's financial capital, now has more than 31,000 confirmed cases. "Our covid wards have been full for the past three weeks," said Lancelot Pinto, a pulmonologist at P.D. Hinduja Hospital, a large private hospital in the city.
A Section on 05/27/2020