An Indian doctor described the country’s massive surge in coronavirus cases as overwhelming during a Friday interview.
“What we are seeing is nothing short of an apocalypse,” Dr. Farah Husain, who leads the Covid-19 ICU unit at Lok Nayak Hospital in Delhi, said on CNN’s “New Day.” President Joe Biden pledged to dispatch aid to India, which is facing the world’s most serious coronavirus outbreak, during a Monday phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (RELATED: India Can’t Cremate The Bodies Of COVID-19 Victims Fast Enough)
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The administration is sending supplies, including ventilators and oxygen, to the number two-most-populated country on the globe.
India has over 18 million virus cases as of Friday and trails behind the U.S., which has over 32 million reported cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. There have been over 2 million virus cases and over 16,000 deaths in India from April 18 through April 24, which are record highs, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“We’ve had patients being rushed in, almost wards getting filled up overnight, 90 patients in less than 12 hours,” Husain said.
Husain said the challenge of the second wave is it’s very aggressive and infectious.
The doctor said their hospital, “the largest dedicated hospital in Delhi,” sent home over 12,000 of their 2020 patients, but the current wave is worse.
“Unfortunately, this time it is overwhelming. It is extremely fatigued, we are feeling very, very tired and the fact that we’ve not been able to control the numbers is something which is extremely shocking for us,” Husain said.
The administration has pledged to distribute millions of coronavirus vaccine doses around the globe. India anticipates it will receive the largest fraction of the 60 million COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine doses, two Indian government sources told Reuters.
Husain said the virus “been extremely taxing” personally as multiple families contracted the coronavirus. “It’s like no other house has been spared, COVID is there in every house,” Husain said.
“The second wave has come as a shock to most of us. We were expecting it, but we were not expecting the numbers. That is where the problem lies and that’s why the structural basis of our health care system is getting worn out,” Husain said.
Husain said she sees the vaccine as India’s best hope in surviving the outbreak.
“It is something that I would be very very willing to promote and people should go ahead and take their shot as soon as they get the chance to do so,” Husain said.
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