Abstract
India is going through its second surge of COVID-19 pandemic caught off-guard, after it declared rather publicly that India had vanquished the enemy in September 2020. In the last 2 weeks of April 2021, India has beaten several world records for new cases and deaths by official estimates. The real numbers are likely to much higher as the testing and reporting infrastructure remains in shambles. The triple whammy of mass gatherings, lack of administrative and infrastructure preparedness and low vaccination is probably to blame.
 The humanitarian catastrophe that is played out so visually in heart-wrenching stories across the interconnected digital world is of scrambling for oxygen, scarcity of hospital beds, lack of medication and the incessant burying or cremating of the dead. The desperation in the eyes of the people as they queue outside of locked hospital gates, the oxygen cylinders supplying minutes of life to patients in cars or auto-rickshaws as they wait is heartbreaking. For members of the Indian diaspora, these pictures hurt deep and one is bound to feel helpless.
 Yet through all this, there is hope. The Gurudwara’s with their oxygen langars, the elderly vacating beds for the younger and often sicker patients, the journalists who are using every social media access to request essential oxygen and drugs, the volunteers who ferry, bury and burn the abandoned dead are testimony of the good that exists in humanity. The world is rising to the call of India including efforts by the Indian diaspora. There are lessons to be learnt but first, let us help and heal.
Highlights
May 1st 2021, India crosses 400k daily new cases detected, 3k official deaths and a total of over 212k total death toll according to the World Covid meter[1] from the COVID-19 pandemic
Even if the official infrastructure is unable to record the ‘true’ number of deaths as is claimed by many statisticians and the ‘real’ figure is 10x higher at 1500 deaths per million, India is would sit below France (1598), USA
If statistics are anything go by, India is not in the top 100 league of nations and one can be accused for fanning sensationalism if one were to believe the twitter trends of #IndiaCovidCrisis
Summary
May 1st 2021, India crosses 400k daily new cases detected, 3k official deaths and a total of over 212k total death toll according to the World Covid meter[1] from the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Bhramar Mukherjee, who is originally from India, is a professor of biostatistics, epidemiology and global health at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA She has charted India’s second surge and in her study, outlined how social distancing in an inherently community-based culture like India, with a population of 1.3+ billion people and intergenerational extended families, might be difficult, as was seen in the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed in India’s draconian first lockdown. India has a daily production capacity of at least 7100 tonnes of oxygen, including for industrial use, which appears to be enough to meet current demand, figure 5.21 India's total medical oxygen demand was just 3842 tonnes as of April 12, as the surge in cases really took hold This week, the government allocated 6822 tonnes of liquid oxygen per day to 20 of the country's worst-affected states, compared to their combined demand of 6785 tonnes, yet supplies reached their destination often too little and too late.[22]. Bed management o The government needs to take over all hospital beds and provide care to COVID and non-Covid patients for free using a triage system
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