India is suffering national grief and trauma even as aid begins to arrive, a Delhi journalist says, with Covid-19 cases surging and the official death toll heading to 200,000.
A patient rests inside a banquet hall temporarily converted into a Covid-19 ward in New Delhi on April 27, 2021. Photo: AFP
Vital medical supplies began to reach India on Tuesday with countries sending ventilators and oxygen concentrators, while the US said it would be sending vaccines.
India reported 323,144 new cases on Tuesday and 2771 new deaths took the toll to 197,894.
Health journalist in Delhi Anoo Bhuyan said official numbers on testing, positive cases and deaths were clearly an undercount.
"Statisticians and academics are projecting that India's case numbers are many, many times more than what is being reported," she told Morning Report.
"If we thought this was bad and if we thought this was our peak, this was not. At least as far as modellers and statisticians are concerned, they're saying that our peak is yet to come."
Cemeteries and crematoriums in many cities were overflowing, especially in the north of India, and families were having to cremate relatives on pavements, she said.
A health worker wearing PPE rests on a footpath of a government hospital in Kolkata. Photo: AFP
"I don't know how people are coping," Bhuyan said.
"I know people who have lost multiple members of their family; a friend of mine has lost both of his parents last week and he's also struggling with Covid himself right now, another friend of mine has lost four members of his family in the last week.
"There are no words.
"There's a national grief and a national trauma.
Essential services including transport and food deliveries are able to remain open during the latest lockdown, Bhuayn said, however in parts of the country religious festivals had continued.
"Religion in India is a big part of politics, and politicians always make exceptions for religion."
Ventilators and oxygen was arriving from other countries but it was a very piecemeal approach, she said, and a shortage of trained healthcare professionals remained.
"It's not going to be a system that's magically going to work now no matter what the physical infrastructure we're able to get."
'Terrified'
New Zealand is lifting its travel ban on India, allowing citizens and their immediate family to travel directly from there to New Zealand, but not permanent residents or visa holders.
Sentory Te Kura travelled to India with her two five-year-old children in 2019 after their father was deported and they needed to get proof of the relationship.
She said people were still attending weddings and funerals, while she even wouldn't think of going outside.
"We stay home, we don't go anywhere, me and my babies, but I'm terrified if we do go anywhere, or we get sick and we have to go to the hospital or the doctors, I'm scared that we can just catch it."
Two relatives who had no symptoms had tested positive, she said.
She said she had asked Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the New Zealand High Commission for help.
Te Kura said she could not afford to fly to a country not on the high risk list and stay there 14 days - one of the conditions that would allow her to re-enter New Zealand.
New Zealand has designated India, along with Brazil, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea, as very high risk countries.
New Zealand Indian Central Association president Paul Patel said many countries had been quick to send medical aid to India and New Zealand should step up.
"We should be doing exactly what Australia has done. Australia has already sent over ... supplies, from medical oxygen through to masks.
"We should have been a bit more proactive, in fact a lot more proactive, than what we have been."
Patel said his organisation was advising its member associations that the best way to help would be to raise funds to send to India.