India: data suggests runaway COVID infections as deaths hit daily record

Indian data suggests runaway COVID infections as deaths hit daily record Nearly two-thirds of people tested in India have shown exposure to COVID-19, a chain of private laboratories said on Wednesday, indicating a runaway spread of the virus as the daily death toll rose to a record 4,529. Tanvi Mehta,Manas Mishra Reuters

Nearly two-thirds of people tested in India have shown exposure to COVID-19, a chain of private laboratories said on Wednesday, indicating a runaway spread of the virus as the daily death toll rose to a record 4,529.

India reported 267,334 new daily infections on Wednesday, taking its tally to 25.5 million, the world's second highest after the United States, with a death toll of 283,248, health ministry data showed.

For months, nowhere has been hit harder than India by the pandemic, as a new variant discovered there fuelled a surge of up to more than 400,000 new infections a day.

Only the United States has had a worse single day death toll, when it lost 5,444 people on Feb. 12, a Reuters tracker shows.

And with hospitals and crematoria overflowing and the health system overwhelmed, it is widely accepted that the official figures grossly underestimate the real impact of the epidemic, with some experts saying infections and deaths could be five to 10 times higher.

There are fears that the new, highly infectious variant is out of control and that many cases are going unreported because of lack of testing, particularly in the vast countryside.

Data from Thyrocare, a chain of private laboratories, appeared to back up those fears, showing that 63.5% of people tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies on average over the last seven days, up from 45% a month ago. ...