'INDIAN WALL' — Nightly's Renuka Rayasam writes about the dire Covid situation in India: The headlines and pictures out of India are terrifying: hospitals running out supplies, planes airlifting oxygen, bodies piling up at crematoriums, sobbing family members mourning their dead. But among my cousin's friends in Hyderabad, in South India, life is continuing as normal. When we talked on the phone this morning, she described a state of extreme denial among people in her social circle. One friend was having her maid continue to work every day even though she had symptoms that clearly resembled Covid. The friend finally told her maid to stop coming after the maid's mother died. Another friend organized a sleepover for her daughter's 16th birthday — my cousin tried to lobby the other moms, including one doctor, into cancelling the party with no success. My cousin, who lived in California for about a decade before moving back to India 15 or so years ago, told me that it would be easy for many people in her circle to avoid social gatherings, and they could afford to pay their maids to not work. (Domestic and farm workers and others living day-to-day don't have that luxury.) But they just aren't scared. People are still going to movies and having big weddings, she said. She sees them drinking sugarcane juice at crowded street stalls unworried about a virus that's killed more than 200,000 people by official estimates — the current mortality rate is likely 10 times higher than official numbers. Some epidemiologists believe the country could reach a million deaths by the end of August. My cousin describes Indians as an overly optimistic bunch, confident that Ayurvedic medicine and heaps of turmeric will protect them from illness. "Until it strikes the family, they think it's OK," she said. Covid is now striking a lot of families in India: Many of my own relatives have tested positive in recent days. Some were told not to go to the hospital because there is no room for them. People have named the surge "The Indian wall," after the charts showing the rapid rise in cases, essentially a vertical line that splits off from a horizontal one, said Rupali Limaye, global vaccine expert at Johns Hopkins University. That precipitous shift in reality has been difficult to comprehend. "From a risk perception standpoint, it's really hard for people to wrap their heads around," said Limaye, who runs several projects in India. "They were told that India has scooted by." That complacency, combined with the lack of lockdowns, a more contagious and deadly variant, and the slow pace of vaccinations, means cases in the country are projected to rise for at least the next three weeks. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown little appetite to order countrywide Covid safety measures for now. His Hindu nationalist government has taken steps to blunt criticism, refusing to call the situation an official emergency for fear of looking like the country's Covid response failed. Today Facebook blocked posts calling for Modi's resignation for several hours. Limaye believes that Indians will change their behavior once they start to see more people getting sick. But convincing Indians to get vaccinated will be an even bigger challenge, she said. Indians are bombarded with reams of misinformation about vaccine risks. Limaye talked this morning with a group she works with in India to launch a new campaign to encourage vaccinations featuring Bollywood stars, cricket players and Instagram celebrities. My cousin is less optimistic about India's Covid trajectory, issuing what I hope won't be a chilling warning for those in the U.S. who also think the pandemic has passed. "Until last month we thought we were out of danger," she said. "We were laughing at other people. Now you see. You never know what could happen. It's changing very fast." Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | 
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