Experts predict that it will soon pass Brazil and ultimately US as worst outbreak globally
Girls wearing protective face masks wait to pray inside temple premises on the occasion of the annual harvest festival of Onam, amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease , on the outskirts of Kochi, India, August 31, 2020. Picture: REUTERSSIVARAM V
And unlike the US and Brazil, India’s case growth is still accelerating seven months after the reporting of its first coronavirus case on January 30. The pathogen has only just penetrated the vast rural hinterland where most of its 1.3-billion population lives, after racing through its dense megacities.
From the Philippines to Peru, the novel coronavirus poses a unique problem to poor countries: the densely packed slums where millions of their citizens live present ideal conditions for the virus to spread, while their economic precariousness means that the shutdowns necessary to contain the pathogen are intolerable.Across the developing world, economies have been forced to open up even with the virus still running rampant, quickly overwhelming underfunded hospitals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has since counselled the population to “live with the virus” while giving local officials freedom to impose restrictions on a state-by-state basis, which many have. And there is every reason to believe that the coronavirus is still only getting started in India. Much of the country’s coronavirus burden so far has fallen on its globally connected megacities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, but the disease is now starting to shift to its rural hinterland where nearly 900-million people live, and health-care infrastructure is sparse. A lack of testing and medical help will likely mean that scores of infections and deaths are going unreported.
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