Indian security forces called in to bolster fight against Covid wave

India has called in security forces to bolster its fight against Covid-19, deploying soldiers and building field hospitals as the country’s health system threatens to collapse under a deluge of infections.

In the capital New Delhi, one of the hardest-hit cities, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police reopened an emergency treatment facility built during the first wave of coronavirus last year.

The armed forces said they would add more sites, while recently retired military medics will be recalled to treat sick patients, according to General Bipin Rawat, chief of India’s defence staff.

Rooms at a five-star hotel in central Delhi were also converted into Covid-19 treatment facilities for judiciary officials and their families at the Delhi High Court’s request. The refitting prompted bitter accusations that the powerful were enjoying special treatment while many of the city’s sick died because of a lack of hospital beds.

The country is facing critical shortages of beds, oxygen and other life-saving medical supplies as its second wave shatters global records. India is reporting more cases than any country since the pandemic began, adding another 320,000 on Tuesday along with 2,700 deaths.

Yet the true toll of the outbreak is believed to be far higher, as many patients are unable to be tested or treated and many deaths went either unrecorded or misreported. In many parts of the country, the number of suspected Covid-19 victims arriving at cremation and burial grounds has far exceeded the official number of deaths.

International partners including the US, UK and EU are providing emergency supplies including oxygen and vaccines amid mounting alarm about the little-understood B. 1.617 variant that has emerged in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been accused of mismanaging — and even of exacerbating — the crisis by not doing enough to build up healthcare capacity and dismantling the emergency structures put in place last year.

His Bharatiya Janata party, which has sought to tamp down public anger and criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis, had as recently as February declared victory over the pandemic.

Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi chief minister, said the reopened police facility would be expanded to 2,000 beds with oxygen in the coming days.

Indians venting their frustration and despair on social media have been criticised by BJP supporters for stoking “negativity”, and the government has ordered companies including Twitter and Facebook to remove some critical posts.

Yogi Adityanath, BJP chief minister of India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh, threatened to invoke draconian national security laws to seize the property of those “spreading rumours” about oxygen shortages and using social media to “spoil the atmosphere”.

The influential Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s parent organisation, warned that “anti-India forces” could take advantage of the health emergency to fuel disaffection.

Dattatreya Hosable, RSS general secretary, warned Indians to be alert to “the conspiracies of these destructive forces” and urged the public to “contribute in maintaining an atmosphere of positivity, hope and trust in the society”.

The US, which has been criticised for stockpiling vaccines and imposing restrictions on exports of the raw materials used in their production, said it would send supplies to India to help boost its lagging inoculation campaign.