Experts Are Baffled About India’s Sudden Drop Of Daily COVID Cases

• India’s number of daily Covid-19 cases has seen a sudden drop that has since puzzled experts.
• On September 16, 2020, the country reported almost 100,000 new infections.
• Now they only have 8,000 to 12,000 daily cases.
• The country’s vaccination program only started recently.

India has been one of the worst-hit countries since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Being the world’s second most populous country, virus infections immediately spread and, on September 16 alone, recorded almost 100,000 cases.

Surprisingly, the number of daily cases has been dropping at an amazing rate from September to the present. Case in point, the country only had 8,635 new cases last February 1.

India has since attracted the world’s attention as everyone now wants to learn the secret behind the sudden drop.

In Delhi, for example, about 90% of dedicated beds for coronavirus patients have remained unoccupied. “Earlier there used to be a huge waiting list. Now hardly 40-50 patients are here,” said Dr Deven Juneja of the Max Smart Super Specialty Hospital back in June.

“We are now slowly limping back to normalcy in terms of offering our services in departments, which until now, were virtually paralyzed due to the pressure of Covid-19 cases,” added King George’s Medical University spokesperson Sudhir Singh.

Of course, infectious diseases experts are quick to note that vaccines have nothing to do about the downward trend yet since they only started giving shots weeks ago. On the other hand, some health officials say the country’s strict mask policy may have contributed in decreasing the infections. Some are pointing out, however, that masks have been mandatory since April last year so that might not be the reason either.

So what exactly happened? There are a lot of factors to consider.

In an interview, Medical University of South Carolina assistant professor Dr. Krutika Kuppalli shared:

“There are a lot of questions and lessons to be learned, and I think that we need to do a deeper dive into what they’ve done well… I know from having worked and lived in India that they have a lot of challenges in terms of dealing with large populations that are in close quarters, infection control issues, hygiene issues, ventilation issues — all the things that we are concerned about in terms of how this disease spreads.”

Watch this video interview for more: