Coronavirus: How Delhi 'wasted' lockdown to become India's biggest hotspot

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Coronavirus: How Delhi 'wasted' lockdown to become India's biggest hotspot

28 June 2020

With more than 77,000 cases of Covid-19, India’s capital, Delhi has become the country’s biggest hotspot. The BBC's Aparna Alluri explains how this appears to be an opportunity missed.

The city administration appears to have squandered the opportunity afforded by a stringent nationwide lockdown that lasted more than two months.

Lax contact tracing, excessive bureaucracy, poor or no co-ordination with private health services and political wrangles have all led to a surge in numbers.

Smaller Indian cities appear to have done a far better job than the capital, the seat of India’s federal government. The southern city of Bangalore has been lauded for its contact-tracing efforts which have contained the infection, and Chennai (formerly Madras) has had relatively few deaths despite a surge in cases.

But much like the financial capital Mumbai which has also been hit hard by the virus, Delhi has been overrun with cases and its public hospitals, some of the best and biggest and best in the country, are struggling.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53190500

[CrispyQ]

1. Just think if the whole world had gone on lockdown in early March.

[sandensea]

2. But Wall Street and the chambers of commerce didn't like it

So in most places, it didn't happen. And even where it did, the orders often had far too many holes - and didn't last long enough.

Some areas, like metro Buenos Aires (Argentina) just now, have had to go back to strict lockdown as a result.