https://fpif.org/whats-up-with-the-herd/
There are several reasons for India’s current catastrophe. A more infectious variant started to appear in the population, which the World Health Organization this week labelled a global health risk. The Indian government was not only unprepared for the crisis, it was dangerously cavalier in its approach to the disease. After last year’s surge, it grew lax on testing and contact tracing. Nor did it put resources into the country’s inadequate medical system or in stockpiling key supplies like oxygen.
Then there are the errors of commission. The government did nothing, for instance, to prevent Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious event last month that draws millions of pilgrims to a holy location on the Ganges, from turning into the largest super-spreader event on the planet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi even continued to hold mass political rallies as the COVID numbers began to rise.
When it comes to vaccines, the government has been slow to order doses, distribute them to the population, and secure the raw materials to scale up manufacturing. Although India is the world’s largest producer of COVID vaccines, less than 3 percent of Indians are fully inoculated against the disease.