Last year, on 30 January, the first cases of coronavirus were detected in India. It took another two and a half months for the first deaths to be reported. But by September, with close to 100,000 infections and 1000 deaths each day, India was soon to be one of the worst affected countries in the world.
The latest figures, however, show a remarkable, almost miraculous turnaround, with a dramatic plummeting of India’s COVID-19 pandemic graphs. True, with over 10.8 million cases, India remains the second most infected nation in the world, after United States, whose tally has crossed 27 million.
Even when it comes to deaths due to the virus, India’s numbers, at close to 155,000, are significantly high. But deaths per million, at just 112, remain remarkably low. What is even more astonishing is that out the total number of infected persons, over 97% have beat the disease.
This is one of the highest rates of recoveries in the world. Even more encouraging is the fact that active cases just over 146,000 and the daily infection rate around 11,000, are both manageable. Even the daily death rate is now below 100.
Even more laudable is India’s vaccination drive, which reached a notable landmark of 56,36,868 on 6 February. Of these, 52,66,175 are frontline health workers, over 50% of the total registered cohort. In other words, India has vaccinated over 5.5 million people in merely 21 days, which purports to be a world record.
Read More at https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/how-india-can-be-the-worlds-pharmacy-1.77037655