India Returns Break Daily Record Of COVID-19 Infection, Reaching To 18 Million Cases

Illustration of a COVID-19 patient. (UNICEF / UNI41215 / Rae)

JAKARTA - India's total COVID-19 cases passed 18 million on Thursday, April 29, after the world record for daily infections and record daily death tolls broke again in India.

India reported 379.257 new COVID-19 cases and 3.645 new deaths as of today, according to Health Ministry data. So far, it is the deadliest day for any country hit by a pandemic.

India's best hope for curbing a second deadly wave of COVID-19 is by vaccinating its large population, experts say. India also booked vaccination registrations for all people aged 18 years and over last Wednesday, to receive the vaccine starting the day after Saturday.

The obstacle is that India does not have sufficient vaccine stocks. Citing data from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center reported by CNN, although India has purchased 205.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, this number only covers 8 percent of its population of 1.4 billion people.

As many as 600 million people do not qualify for the vaccine. Many people who tried to register said they failed, complaining on social media that they couldn't get a slot or they couldn't go online to register, because the website had errors due to being accessed by multiple people at the same time.

"Statistics show that far from crashing or underperforming slowly, the system is working without any disruption", the Government of India said in a statement late Wednesday.

The government said more than 8 million people had signed up for vaccinations, but it was not immediately clear how many got the slots. Meanwhile, only 9 percent of India's population have received a single dose since the vaccination campaign began in January with health workers and then elderly.

Meanwhile, aid from various countries continued to arrive. Two planes from Russia, carrying 20 oxygen concentrators, 75 ventilators, 150 bedside monitors, and 22 metric tonnes of medicine, arrived in the capital Delhi on Thursday.

The United States also shipped more than USD 100 million worth of supplies to India, including 1.000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks, and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests, the White House said in a statement and would start arriving on Thursday.

In addition, around 20 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, alerted by AstraZeneca, belonging to the United States, were also said to have been diverted to India according to the White House.