How India's Covid Outbreak Got This Bad And Other Questions

In April, events have taken a different turn. Images that have gone viral on social media show bodies heaped in makeshift crematoriums. Hospital beds and oxygen are scarce.

In February, health care workers and epidemiologists in India puzzled over their good fortune. Coronavirus case counts had gone down, demand for ventilators was manageable and experts predicted that the country would be spared a major second wave. In April, events have taken a different turn. Images that have gone viral on social media show bodies heaped in makeshift crematoriums. Hospital beds and oxygen are scarce. Desperate patients and relatives have turned to the black market for medicine, while others die in hospitals amid oxygen shortages. Recent days have seen repeated record infection figures, which are likely undercounts. As the pandemic surges - and as hospitals buckle under the strain - some have blamed their government, and the wider world, for failing to stem the cataclysmic spike. Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus surge in India