- [Narrator] Overwhelmed hospitals,
people dying on the streets
from lack of oxygen and packed crematoriums.
This is a snapshot of the COVID-19 crisis in India.
In contrast, just a few months ago
the prime minister declared victory against the pandemic.
(speaking in foreign language)
After that, there were political rallies.
(speaking in foreign language)
Mass gatherings and religious festivals like this one.
And then on April 21st, the country reported
a record number of COVID-19 cases in a single day.
And those numbers kept growing for several weeks.
With many health experts saying real numbers
are likely much higher.
By May 7th, deaths soared past 4,000.
As COVID cases in several Western countries
have trended lower, the scale of infection in India
and a new variant fresh reported there
have alarmed the rest of the world.
- If you have a huge country like India,
that's deep in its own COVID crisis right?
That means the pandemic is not gonna end for the world.
- [Narrator] Here's how India became
the world's COVID hotspot
and what that means for the global pandemic.
First, we have to go back to early 2020.
As much of the world was struggling to contain the virus,
India appeared to have things under relative control.
(speaking in foreign language)
Early on, Modi announced the world's largest lockdown
in the country of 1.3 billion people.
- He publicly came out multiple times
and said we have to pull it together,
we have to wear masks, we have to socially distance,
there was a lot of respect for COVID restrictions
and people were also scared.
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Narrator] The measures triggered
a mass migration of workers
trying to get back home from cities.
Epidemiologist warned that this movement
of people could help spread the virus undetected
to other parts of the country.
But the number of reported COVID-19 cases
remained relatively low, and India's apparent success
stood in contrast to some other countries including the US
which was reporting more cases than any other nation.
Some public health experts said a possible reason
for few cases in India could have been
the lack of widespread testing.
But they also noted that the majority
of the population is under 25.
And since asymptomatic cases are more common
among young people, many may have gone undetected.
After a 10 week lockdown India started to ease restrictions
and the number of cases started growing
with the first peak in September.
- [Shan] It was quite bad and the healthcare system
was stressed but the hospitals didn't crumble or buckle.
And we saw that actually in other parts of the world,
it was much worse.
- [Narrator] Despite that first surge,
by December India's numbers
had gone back down and by early 2021
life looked like it was returning to normal
- [Shan] Stores were back open, they were super packed,
restaurants were open filled with people, indoor dining,
there were cricket matches again, packed stadiums.
Life in Delhi felt like another universe.
The US was dealing with another wave,
right in December, January
- [Narrator] India was doing very well
compared to the US or the UK.
And that's when Modi talked of the country success
in front of other global leaders
at the world economic forum.
(speaking in foreign language)
So what went wrong?
Public health experts blame India's ferocious surge
on a combination of new factors.
The first one, people became more relaxed
about COVID safety measures.
Many people stopped wearing masks,
and there were several crowded gatherings
which public health experts say
may have been super spreader events
including huge political rallies.
(speaking in foreign language)
April was a key election month and political parties
including Modi's BJP party organized events
across the West Bangor state.
A BJP spokesperson said that no one had anticipated
the magnitude of the COVID-19 surge,
adding that Modi and other members of his party
followed all the safety protocols in place at the time.
Right around then, resources to fight the pandemic
weren't reinforced or maintained.
- Everyone essentially thought that COVID was over
by January hospitals were taking down their COVID-19 wards,
testing centers that had been started last year
were also being dismantled.
It's only oxygen plants
where they had allocated the budget were never built.
- [Narrator] And on top of all of this
highly contagious variants that were first identified
in the UK and South Africa were circulating in the country.
As well as a new variant known as B.1.617
that originated in India
- The 617 in India, it's a wildly opponent.
- [Narrator] The WHO has said preliminary studies
indicate that this one may be more contagious
than some other variants.
And has since been detected in more than 40 countries
including the US, UK and France.
This has added urgency to the global vaccination race,
which has so far helped cases plummet
in some of those countries.
So, even as the COVID situation has improved
in some parts of the West,
the fight against the pandemic across the globe
is far from over.
- A big lesson is just countries can't get complacent.
And even if one country is doing well
if another country is not doing well in terms of COVID
that will affect every other country in the world too.
(upbeat music)