Abstract
In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was indiscriminately spreading around the world, the seeming ability of India, the world’s second most populous country (with over 1.3 billion people), to contain the virus within its borders and keep COVID-19 infection and mortality rates low relative to population size was seen as miraculous. However, the miracle ended when ‘second-wave’ hit India in April 2021. On 1 May 2021, India became the first country in the world to record more than 400,000 coronavirus infections in a single day. This exponential rise in COVID-19 cases started on 28 April 2021 when India recorded 379,459 new COVID-19 cases and 3,647 deaths. This marked the eighth straight day of more than 300,000 cases a day—making India the second-highest COVID-19 case count in the world (over 20 million) with over 25 per cent of the global deaths from COVID. The following examines India’s fight against the pandemic, the failure to contain the second wave, the lessons learned and the way forward.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 097492842110684 |
| Pages (from-to) | 9-27 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs |
| Volume | 78 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 9 Jan 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 Indian Council of World Affairs.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Keywords
- COVID-19
- democracy
- Modi administration
- vaccine diplomacy
- political trust
