India’s Covid Crisis Has a Familiar Culprit
The same government flaws that have long plagued Indian entrepreneurs are now jeopardizing the world’s battle to end the pandemic.
New variants are spreading like wildfire.
Photographer: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images
Just a few short weeks ago, Indian government officials were patting themselves on the back. India was the “pharmacy of the world,” they said, and its cheaply produced vaccines would help end the Covid-19 pandemic globally. The federal health minister declared that the country had entered “the endgame” of its own battle against the pandemic. Even the Reserve Bank of India announced in unusually enthusiastic tones that India had “bent [the Covid-19 curve] like Beckham” and that “soon the winter of our discontent will be made glorious summer.”
Such boasts sound foolish, at best, today. Covid-19 case numbers and deaths have begun to spike exponentially in India, easily passing the numbers recorded during last autumn’s peak. Hospital beds are running short and so are vaccine doses. Although the government has halted all vaccine exports, many states have only a few days’ supply left in stock.