India sees drop in new COVID-19 cases

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Indians wait to refill oxygen cylinders for COVID-19 patients at a gas supply facility in New Delhi. Associated Press/Photo by Ishant Chauhan (file)

The number of new coronavirus infections in Mumbai has dropped by almost 70 percent in the last week. The national daily number of new cases fell below 300,000 for the first time in weeks on Monday after India saw a devastating surge over the past month.

Is the country recovering? India is still grappling with a health crisis, with daily COVID-19 deaths remaining above 4,000 this week, according to Johns Hopkins University. The declining national figures are largely due to slowing transmission in a few populous states. But that could be obscuring the situation in the countryside, where most Indians live and have access to fewer resources. With 3.6 million active cases across India, many states are adding thousands of hospital beds and creating temporary COVID-19 hospitals.

Dig deeper: Read John Dawson’s report in Beginnings about how things got so bad in India.

Rachel Lynn Aldrich

Rachel is a former assistant editor for WORLD Digital. She is a Patrick Henry College and World Journalism Institute graduate. Rachel resides with her husband in Wheaton, Ill.