What to Know About India’s Coronavirus Crisis

A deadly second wave of coronavirus infections is devastating India, leaving millions of people infected and putting stress on the country’s already overtaxed health care system.

Officially, by late May, about 27 million infections had been confirmed and more than 300,000 people were dead, but experts said the actual figures were most likely much higher. At one point, India had been responsible for more than half of the world’s daily Covid-19 cases and set a record-breaking pace of about 400,000 a day.

The official numbers show signs of easing. The major cities of Delhi and Mumbai, hit hard at the beginning of the second wave, have reported sharp drops in new infections and deaths. On May 31, Delhi lifted restrictions on manufacturing and construction, critical drivers of an economy that has been battered by the pandemic. But life in the capital city is not expected to return to normal immediately. Schools and most businesses are still closed.

Still, the virus is likely spreading through the rest of the country, and only a tiny portion of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Some in India blame a new variant.

Months ago, India appeared to be weathering the pandemic. After a harsh initial lockdown, the country did not see an explosion in new cases and deaths comparable to those in other countries.

But after the early restrictions were lifted, many Indians stopped taking precautions. Large gatherings, including political rallies and religious festivals, resumed and drew millions of people.

Beginning this spring, the country recorded an exponential jump in cases and deaths.

By April, some vaccinated individuals, including 37 doctors at one New Delhi hospital, were found to have contracted the virus, leaving many to wonder if a more contagious variant was behind the second wave.

Many in India already assume that the variant, B.1.617, is responsible for the severity of the second wave. The variant is sometimes called “the double mutant,” though the name is a misnomer because it has many more mutations than two. It garnered the name because one version contains two genetic mutations found in other difficult-to-control variants.

Researchers outside of India say the limited data so far suggests instead that the variant called B.1.1.7, which has affected Britain and the United States, is more likely to blame.

The World Health Organization has called B.1.617.2 “a variant of concern” and said preliminary studies suggested an increased rate of transmission. That research, however, is limited and has not yet been peer reviewed, and scientists caution that other factors could explain the viciousness of the outbreak.

Whatever the outcome, the variant is now spreading in Britain, Nepal and other places. Scientists say that the vaccines currently available appear to be effective against it.

Critics cite the Modi government’s policies for worsening the crisis.

At the center of the India’s crisis is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who early this year declared victory over the virus.

Mr. Modi’s Covid-19 task force did not meet for months. His health minister assured the public in March that India had reached the pandemic’s “endgame.” As infections rose, Mr. Modi allowed large gatherings to help his governing Bharatiya Janata Party and burnish its Hindu nationalist credentials. His government approved a Hindu festival with millions of worshipers. He campaigned in state elections without a mask at rallies of thousands of maskless supporters.

Critics say his administration was determined to cast an image of India as back on track and open for business despite lingering risks. At one point, officials dismissed warnings by scientists that India’s population remained vulnerable and had not achieved “herd immunity” as some in his administration were suggesting.

In an editorial, The Lancet, a medical journal, wrote that Mr. Modi “seemed more intent on removing criticism” on social media than “trying to control the pandemic.” The Indian Medical Association has called for a “complete, well-planned, pre-announced” lockdown.

The growing distress across the country has tarnished Mr. Modi’s aura of political invulnerability, which he won by steamrolling the opposition and by leveraging his personal charisma to become India’s most powerful politician in decades. Opposition leaders are on the attack, and his central hold on power has increasingly made him the target of scathing criticism online.

In early May, in the first local elections since the start of the second wave, Mr. Modi’s B.J.P. was unable to secure a much-sought-after victory in West Bengal, one of India’s most populous states. The B.J.P. won more seats in the local legislature than it did in the last election, but was unable to seize control from the opposition All India Trinamool Congress, an indication of displeasure at Mr. Modi’s handling of the Covid crisis.

A shortage of oxygen and hospital beds leaves patients scrambling.

Overwhelmed by new cases, Indian hospitals cannot cope with the demand, and patients in many cities have been abandoned to die.

Clinics across the country have reported an acute shortage of hospital beds, medicines, protective equipment and oxygen.

The Indian government says that it has enough liquid oxygen to meet medical needs and that it is rapidly expanding its supply. But production facilities are concentrated in eastern India, far from the worst outbreaks in Delhi and in the western state of Maharashtra, and it can take several days for supplies to reach there by road.

Understand the Covid Crisis in India

Families of the sick are filling social media with pleas for oxygen as supplies run low at hospitals or because they are trying to administer care at home. Fraudsters and black marketeers have emerged.

Oxygen and beds have become increasingly available in Delhi as new infections have dropped. Still, dire needs remain in other parts of the country.

India makes vaccines for the world, but few Indians have been inoculated.

India is one of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers, but it has struggled to inoculate its citizens. New inoculations have fallen as supplies have tightened, leading to temporary closures of vaccination centers in Delhi and some other places.

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