The coronavirus is continuing to wreak havoc in India has exacted a heavy toll on those who work in cemeteries and crematoriums, leading some to a breaking point.

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"I used to feel very sad in the beginning and would burst into tears, but after having performed burial rituals for over 1300 bodies, I am emotionally drained," one crematorium volunteer told Israel Hayom. 

In the 24 hours ending on Tuesday morning, India reported 3,285 coronavirus deaths, bringing the toll to 201,165,000. According to the Indian Health Ministry, it has become the nation with the second most coronavirus cases in the world. In terms of mortality, it ranks fourth, after the United States, Brazil, and Mexico.  

The most affected state in India is Maharashtra, with a total population of 114 million, of which 4.4 million have been infected since March last year. The state has reported 66,179 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic. The state's recovery rate is 83.2%. Pune and Mumbai are the most affected cities in this state. Mumbai has recored 12,920 deaths and Pune 9,114. Due to these deaths, the cemeteries and cremation workers have also been under unprecedented stress.

"We started burying the bodies of COVID casualties when no one else was willing to touch them," the crematorium volunteer said. "I will never forget the first dead body wrapped in a plastic bag that we had to bury, the first COVID casualty in [the city of] Pune. 

"After crematorium workers saw the dead body, they refused to perform the burial ceremony and left. We asked the government for permission and arranged a funeral. Since then, we have been burying all those who perish from COVID.  

"We are a team of 70 volunteers and have performed more than 1300 burial ceremonies. We are doing this to ensure that everyone receives an honorable burial. My team and I are constantly on standby and are ready to spring into action the moment we get a call for help. On a daily basis, we attend to 10-15 bodies on an average. The whole day is consumed in bringing these bodies from hospitals to the burial grounds."

When asked about how a body can get cremated in his city, the volunteer said, "all the hospitals in Pune are connected through Whatsapp. We get in touch with the relatives of the dead, and with the help of the administrations, we bring the bodies to the cemetery and perform the ritual."

The death rate was much lower in India during the first wave of the pandemic, the volunteer said, and "people were much more terrified. The lockdown was stricter back then and everyone was more cautious. Somehow, this time people are less afraid, even though the infection and mortality rate is much higher.

"During the first wave, people were so afraid, they stood 20-25 feet apart from the bodies of close family members. Now, families are losing more than one member, which rarely happened during the first wave. Recently, we heard of a case when the father died of COVID, and in the next two weeks, so did his wife and son."

He said that the cemeteries in the city are getting overburdened due to ever-rising death tolls. COVID patients are buried under plastic bags as per the protocol. Since plastics take much longer to decay, we are not sure what happens to the dead bodies trapped within. The administration is continuously allowing formation of new cemeteries and yet all of them are being consumed by ever increasing dead bodies.

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As COVID continues to wreak havoc in India, New Delhi has asked Jerusalem for help in the form of oxygen and medicine.

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An official in the Indian Embassy in Israel told Israel Hayom that his  country wants to secure medical equipment, and had reached out to "all its friends, including Israel."

"The situation is a challenging one, but it is something we will overcome," the official said.

The Indian representative said that every country or continent had battled a massive second or third wave of COVID, but that there were a few encouraging signs that the numbers were declining.

"We are still second in the world in terms of the number of daily vaccinations, after the US. Our average for the past seven days is 2.6 million [vaccinations], compared to 2.9 million in the US. Starting next Saturday, we will make the vaccine available to everyone age 18 and over. Thus far, we have vaccinated 140 million people, or 14% of the all vaccinations administered worldwide."

The official said that approximately 10% of India's population has been vaccinated.

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The management of Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv has reached out to the health and foreign ministries about dispatching a shipment of medical equipment and personnel to help India beat back the COVID wave. Sourasky Director Professor Ronni Gamzu said, "In my opinion, it is the moral and correct thing to do at this time. We cannot celebrate life while on the other side of the world bodies are being burned. We at Ichilov [Sourasky] are willing to help immediately with anything needed to save lives."

Meanwhile, the situation in India continues to worsen. In the past 24 hours, 346,000 new cases have been reported, along with over 2,600 deaths.

These are the highest numbers India has seen since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020.

Five states account for 54% of all COVID cases in India, and crematoria are overwhelmed with bodies. Experts estimate that the true COVID death toll could be 20 times higher than the official tally of 190,000.

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Bhopal, INDIA

India registered 314,000 new coronavirus cases last Wednesday, taking its overall count since the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020 to 1,59,10,534. This was the highest-ever daily count recorded anywhere in the world for any country.

Some 40% of the world's new cases are being found in India. The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to the government to elaborate on its preparedness when it comes to battling COVID. Noting that India was currently facing a national emergency-like situation, the court asked the government to submit its plan with details on the nationwide vaccination drive plan, the supply of oxygen and drug, the powers regarding lockdowns and more.

The speed of contagion can be judged from the fact that it took just 15 days to witness an increase in the number of new daily cases from 100,000 to 300,000 within the country. Now, the virus has started spreading in the rural areas of India which were left untouched by Corona.

Some 15 days earlier, 48% of the country's cases were coming from the state of Maharashtra. Now, Maharashtra is contributing only 20% of cases standing at three lakh new patients. 50%  of the country's new patients are in 5 states Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and the national capital Delhi.

Every third test in the national capital region Delhi is positive. After these emergent cases, most of the states are moving towards lockdown. There is a complete lockdown in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan. The rest of the states are imposing partial lockdowns in select cities. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to states that the lockdown should be imposed as an option of last resort.

Scary pictures are emerging from all over the country. There are rows of dead bodies awaiting their turn at the crematoriums. In metro cities like Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Mumbai, Surat, people have to wait hours to perform the last rites of their families. To eliminate this waiting, new platforms are being built at the crematoriums. "The fire of pyre is continuously flaring at the salvation site on the banks of the Hindon River in Ghaziabad, (50 km from Delhi) ", senior journalist  Riyaz Hashmi said. Dr. NK Gupta, the chief medical officer Ghaziabad, added:  "Deaths from COVID-19 are immediately updated on the official portal. People from Delhi and Noida are bringing bodies here, so funeral cases are increasing. "

Pramod Kumar Sharma from Ghaziabad, who lost his family member, said, "Hospitals are only giving information of death to the family. Doctors and hospital Staff are not divulging information pertaining to the inpatients even when they are called for. " Desh Deepak Singh, a lawyer in the Lucknow High Court (Uttar Pradesh), says, "I lost more than 12 friends within one week. Many people have died not from COVID-19 but because of the chaos of the administration. Patients get tested and then wait for the report for a long time. "

Until then, the patient's lungs are already severely damaged and are beyond recovery. Moreover, the absence of beds and improper facilities in the hospitals are further causing people to pass away without treatment. Public health expert Dr. Nikhil Srivastav says, governments did not use the lean period to boost facilities.

"We did not learn any lesson from the first wave. We had reports of some cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi running out of beds and that should have been a good enough reason to be prepared for the second wave," he said. The situation is much direr when it comes to ICU beds. Several cities have just a few dozen ICU beds left. Amidst all this, there is a shortage of oxygen-Remdesivir injections supply in most states of India. The demand for this injection has been flooded on social media and in the black market this injection is being sold at a price ranging between 250 to 300 US dollars. Central India State Madhya Pradesh has recorded 30 more deaths due to lack of oxygen.

The central government of the country has drawn a global tender of 50,000 metric tonnes of liquid medical oxygen to meet the oxygen shortage. The country has removed import duty on the anti-viral drug Remedicivir. The government waived customs duties on Remadecivir, its raw materials and other components used to make antiviral drugs. In the midst of all this, the progress of covid vaccination in the country has also slowed down. 130 million doses have been taken so far. Of these, 111.6 million people have been given one dose and 18.5 million people have been given both doses. According to Dr. Balaram Bhargava, director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the vaccination program has been successful so far. After the second dose, only 0.03% (5709) people have been infected. After the first dose, 0.02% (21,353) of people have been infected. Dr. Bhargava says that it is a small number and not worrisome.

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