Fear and Loss: Inside India’s Coronavirus Crisis

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

At the beginning of this year, many people in India thought the worst of the pandemic was finished there. But in the last few weeks, any sense of ease has given way to widespread fear. The country is suffering from the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world, with people being turned away from full hospitals and a scarcity of medical oxygen. How did India, after successfully containing the virus last year, get to this point? Guest: Jeffrey Gettleman, the South Asia bureau chief for The New York Times, based in New Delhi.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is a Daily.
0:10.2	Today, inside the COVID crisis in India, I spoke with my colleague, Jeffrey Gettelman,
0:18.6	about how the country went from successfully containing the virus to having the worst outbreak in the world.
0:38.9	Jeffrey, where in India are you right now?
0:42.0	I'm in New Delhi, the capital.
0:43.5	I wonder if you can describe the scene in Delhi at this very moment.
0:50.9	It's really unsettling. People are getting sick all across the city. I feel it closing and around me.
0:57.0	I know so many people firsthand, neighbors, friends, colleagues, people that I see in my daily routines,
1:04.4	the guy who sells us milk. All of these people are getting sick.
1:08.3	There's just a sense of real unease and fear. A lot of us just aren't going outside. We're really
1:15.9	scared to interact with anybody. And crossing India, we're seeing the same thing. This really sharp
1:23.7	spike of cases from like 100,000 per day to 200,000 infections per day to 300,000 infections to
1:31.5	350,000 where we're at right now. And that's just the official numbers.
1:38.2	The ferocious second wave of coronavirus described by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a storm that
1:44.4	has shaken the nation. So many people have gotten sick so fast. Hospital no more beds.
1:53.6	The hospitals are totally full. They're turning away thousands of people.
1:58.0	People arrive in ambulances, cars, scooters, and auto-rectures pleading for admission.
2:05.2	I had a friend call me the other night late and he had a friend who was very sick with coronavirus.
2:11.2	A young guy, maybe in his 30s. And my friend was trying to find a hospital for him to go to.
2:17.2	He tried every contact he had. He called around himself and they couldn't find a space for this guy.
2:24.3	And he ended up dying in the back of the ambulance because the hospital would take him.
2:30.1	The final few breaths taken by this man came after his brother had begged for oxygen for him for six
	...

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