Virus surge projected for north India

Field hospitals set up in stadiums, universities to combat covid-19 spread

People above eighteen years age queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
People above eighteen years age queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

GAUHATI, India -- With experts saying the coronavirus is likely spreading in India's northeastern state of Assam faster than anywhere else in the country, authorities were preparing Monday for a surge in infections by converting a stadium and a university into hospitals.

Cases in Assam started ticking upward a month ago and the official weekly average in the state on May 9 stood at more than 4,700 cases. But a model run by the University of Michigan -- which predicts the current spread of cases before they are actually detected -- says infections in Assam are likely occurring as fast as any other place in the country.

[Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gXQQSXHjUI]

Add to that recent elections in the state -- and the huge political rallies that accompanied them -- and experts fear a uncontrolled surge is on the horizon.

Along with cities in India's northeastern frontier -- which is closer to Burma, Bangladesh and Bhutan than it is New Delhi -- cases have also started to spike in some remote Himalayan villages in the region.

Nationwide, India's Health Ministry reported 360,000 new cases in the past 24 hours Monday, with more than 3,700 deaths. Since the pandemic began, India has seen more than 22.6 million infections and more than 246,000 deaths -- both, experts say, are likely undercounts.

Officials in Assam were racing to prepare for a virus surge because similar onslaughts in infections have overwhelmed hospitals in much richer Indian states.

"We are adding 1,000 beds a week to prepare ourselves in the event of cases spiraling," said Dr Lakshmanan S., the director of the National Health Mission in Assam.

The state's largest government-run hospital, the Guwahati Medical College Hospital, has more than doubled its number of intensive care beds to 220 and health officials are building another 200 in the hospital's parking lot.

A football and cricket stadium is being converted into a hospital for covid-19 patients with 430 beds. The private Royal Global University in the state capital, Gauhati, has been converted into a hospital with 1,000 beds.

The state is sending doctors, paramedics and medicine to these facilities and the university said it would provide books and newspapers for patients to read.

"This is the least we thought we could do in this time of huge crisis for our country," said Dr. A.K. Pansari, the university chairman.

There are 2,100 beds reserved in government centers for covid-19 patients in Gauhati, with hundreds more planned. That's in addition to the existing 750 beds for patients at private hospitals in the state.

Even as infections have increased, the rates of vaccination have fallen in Assam and the other states in the region since India expanded its coverage to include all adults on May 1.

Adding to concerns is confirmation the virus has started spreading into more remote Himalayan villages with poor health infrastructure. The region had largely been untouched by the virus earlier and many people behaved like covid-19 didn't exist.

But it now appears the virus was spreading in even remote villages without people knowing until it was too late. The lack of awareness about the virus, lack of resources and the remoteness is complicating contact tracing in such areas, said Dr. Mite Linggi, the medical superintendent at the district hospital at Roing in Arunachal Pradesh state.

Meanwhile, health authorities in Thailand said Monday they have confirmed the country's first cases of the Indian variant of the coronavirus, in a Thai woman and her 4-year-old son who have been in state quarantine since arriving from Pakistan.

The finding comes as Thailand battles a new wave of the coronavirus that began at the beginning of April. Many of the recent cases involve the British variant of the virus, which is more infectious than the original form found last year.

Thailand banned travelers from India, other than Thai citizens, starting on May 1. The country also extended the entry ban to foreigners visiting from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal on Monday in an effort to keep the Indian variant from spreading, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanee Sangrat said.

Additionally, an Australian judge on Monday rejected a challenge to a temporary covid-19 ban on citizens returning from India.

The government imposed the Indian travel ban on April 30 to relieve pressure on quarantine facilities for returned international travelers. The ban will be lifted on Friday, when a government-chartered plane is expected to repatriate 150 of the 9,000 Australians in India who want to come home.

Federal Court Justice Tom Thawley dismissed the first two parts of a four-pronged challenge to the ban initiated by 73-year-old Australian Gary Newman who has been stranded since March last year in the Indian city of Bangalore.

The second two parts are based on constitutional grounds so require more notice for a court hearing than Newman's application last week for an urgent hearing allowed.

The hearing was initiated before the government announced that six chartered flights would bring Australians home before the end of May. The government has yet to decide when commercial flights will resume.

Information for this article was contributed by Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul and staff members of The Associated Press.

People sit after they were vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
People sit after they were vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Indian youth above eighteen years age queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Indian youth above eighteen years age queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian health worker prepares to vaccinate a youth against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian health worker prepares to vaccinate a youth against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman is injected with a dose of COVAXIN as she gets vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman is injected with a dose of COVAXIN as she gets vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman is injected with a dose of COVAXIN as she gets vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman is injected with a dose of COVAXIN as she gets vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
A police officer using a loud speaker asks people to maintain COVID-19 protocol as people above eighteen years age queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
A police officer using a loud speaker asks people to maintain COVID-19 protocol as people above eighteen years age queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman getting vaccinated with a dose of COVAXIN against the coronavirus gestures to camera in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman getting vaccinated with a dose of COVAXIN against the coronavirus gestures to camera in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Indians aged above eighteen years  queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Indians aged above eighteen years queue up to get vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman is injected with a dose of COVAXIN as she gets vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
An Indian woman is injected with a dose of COVAXIN as she gets vaccinated against the coronavirus in Gauhati, Assam, India, Monday, May 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

Upcoming Events