Covid hits rural India: cases and deaths quadruple

Saturday, 8 May 2021Newsdesk

A disconcerting feature of the second wave of Covid-19 is the surge in cases in rural India. Compared with the first peak in September last year, the number of cases in India’s hinterland or backward regions has quadrupled, and so has the number of the dead.

New Delhi, 08 May2021

As per news report of The Indian Express, the districts covered by the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) — 243 of the 272 for which data are available — had more than 39.16 lakh people infected with the disease as on May 5. This is more than four times the 9.5 lakh infections at the peak of the first wave on September 16, 2020.The burden of active cases in these districts is also much higher in the second wave, which is yet to peak. The active caseload right now is more than 4.2 times the peak active caseload in the first wave. More than 7.15 lakh people in these districts are currently infected with the disease, putting under extreme stress the sub-optimal healthcare infrastructure in rural districts.

Source -The Indian Express