[Countries, companies and powerful
members of the diaspora have all pledged to pitch in, but it likely won’t be
enough to stop the unfolding catastrophe.]
By Emily Schmall and Karan Deep Singh
As a second wave of the pandemic
rages in India, the world is coming to the rescue.
But it is unlikely to plug enough
holes in India’s sinking health care system to fully stop the deadly crisis
that is underway, and the health emergency has global implications for new
infections worldwide, as well as for countries relying on India for the
AstraZeneca vaccine.
“It’s a desperate situation out
there,” said Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, the founder and director of the Center
for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, adding that donations will be
welcome, but may only make a “limited dent on the problem.”
In the early months of 2021, the
government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi acted as if the coronavirus battle
had been won, holding huge campaign rallies and permitting thousands to gather
for a Hindu religious festival.
Now, Mr. Modi is striking a far
more sober tone. He said in a nationwide radio address on Sunday that India has
been “shaken” by a “storm.”
Patients are suffocating in the
capital, New Delhi, and other cities because hospitals’ oxygen supplies have
run out. Frantic relatives have appealed on social media for leads on
intensive-care unit beds and experimental drugs. Funeral pyres have spilled
over into parking lots and city parks.
Now, Mr. Modi appears to be looking
to the rest of the world to help India quell its seemingly unstoppable
coronavirus wave.
A global coronavirus surge, largely
driven by the
devastation in India, continues to break daily records and run rampant in
much of the world, even as vaccinations steadily ramp up in wealthy countries.
More than one billion shots have now been given globally.
On Sunday, the world’s seven-day
average of new cases hit 774,404, according to a
New York Times database, higher than the peak average during the last
global surge, in January. Despite the number of shots given around the world,
far too few of the global population of nearly eight billion have been
vaccinated to slow the virus’s steady spread.
Vaccinations have been highly
concentrated in wealthy nations: 82 percent of shots worldwide have been given
in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to data compiled by
the Our World in
Data project. Only 0.2 percent of doses have been administered in
low-income countries.
On Monday, India broke the world
record for daily coronavirus infections for a fifth consecutive day, reporting
nearly 353,000 new cases. And it added 2,812 deaths to its overall toll of more
than 195,000, which experts say may
be a vast undercount.
Earlier this month, Adar
Poonawalla, the chief executive of the
Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, made a direct appeal to President Biden on Twitter, asking
him to “lift the embargo” on raw material used to make Covid-19 vaccines.
Tim Manning, the White House
Covid-19 supply coordinator, said Monday
on Twitter that the U.S. Defense Production Act, which Mr. Biden invoked in
March, did not equate to an embargo.
“Companies are able to export,” Mr.
Manning tweeted. “In fact, companies that supply our vaccine manufacturing
export their product all across the world.”
“There is just more global
manufacturing happening everywhere than the suppliers can support,” he added
Facing increased pressure, the
White House said Sunday that it had removed
impediments to the export of raw materials for vaccines and would also
supply India with therapeutics, test kits, ventilators and personal protective
gear.
“Just as India sent assistance to
the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are
determined to help India in its time of need,” Mr.
Biden said on Twitter.
The Biden administration then said
Monday that it would share up to 60
million AstraZeneca doses from its stockpile with other countries in
the coming months, so long as they clear a safety review being conducted by the
Food and Drug Administration.
The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek
Murthy, who announced the plan on Twitter, did not specify which
countries would receive those doses.
Members of Congress had lobbied Mr.
Biden to donate the AstraZeneca vaccine to India, since there is no shortage
for Americans who want to be vaccinated with the three vaccines that have been
authorized for emergency use there.
The extent of support the president
offers India could lay the foundation for a Biden-Modi relationship at a time
when the United States and China are both jockeying for influence with India
and greater access to its enormous market.
Mr. Biden’s response to India at
its time of crisis has come under scrutiny, raising questions of how far the
administration has actually moved away from former President Donald J. Trump’s
“America First” foreign policies.
The Serum Institute did not respond
to questions about the White House’s announcement.
Between bouts of the pandemic, when
Mr. Modi’s government thought the worst was behind it, India enacted a
policy of vaccine diplomacy, selling or
donating 66.4 million doses.
In late March as the domestic
caseload began to creep upward, Mr.
Modi suddenly stopped exports, crippling the vaccination campaigns of other
countries reliant on made-in-India vaccine.
The Indian government is now
holding back nearly all of the 2.4 million doses produced daily by the Serum
Institute, one of the world’s largest producers of the AstraZeneca vaccine. So
far, only the U.S. has offered to fill some of the shortage.
Still, vaccine shortages have
hobbled India’s effort to protect its people. Only about 2 percent of the
population has been fully inoculated.
Several other countries have also
stepped up to offer support to India.
Britain pledged medical equipment, including 495 oxygen
concentrators (devices that can extract oxygen from ambient air and provide it
to patients) and 140 ventilators. France and Australia are considering sending oxygen supplies.
Even Pakistan, with which India has fought several wars and maintains chilly
relations, has offered X-ray machines, ventilators and other aid, its foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said.
Two Indian-American businessmen —
the chief executive of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, and the Google chief, Sundar
Pichai — have both said that their companies will provide financial assistance
to India.
“Devastated to see the worsening
Covid crisis in India,” Mr. Pichai wrote on Twitter, pledging $18 million to aid groups
working in the country.
Indian officials have also been
making direct requests of other countries. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s
external affairs minister, tweeted last week about his meeting with Margrethe
Vestager, the European Commission executive vice president who oversees digital
policy. On Sunday, the European Union announced that it would provide oxygen
and medicines.
“The E.U. is pooling resources to
respond rapidly to India’s request for assistance via the E.U. Civil Protection
Mechanism,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on Twitter.
Mr. Jaishankar’s spokesman did not
respond to a request for comment on the assistance promised to India, but
experts said it could only do so much.
In many cases, India has lagged
behind other countries with its preparedness measures and ability to scale up
care, triaging resources like oxygen that reach patients just in time or not at
all.
“Early and aggressive investments
were absolutely necessary,” said Krishna Udayakumar, an associate professor of
global health and director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.
Unlike the United States and
Britain, which signed advance purchase agreements for millions of doses of
the AstraZeneca vaccine beginning last May, India waited until January, and
then only bought 15.5 million doses produced by Serum and the pharmaceutical
company Bharat Biotech — a drop in the ocean for a country of nearly 1.4
billion people.
India had indicated as early as
last September, at the height of the first wave, that it would rely heavily on
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, signing a deal to buy 100 million doses. But
Sputnik won’t be available in India until next month at the earliest.
If India were to dramatically ramp
up its vaccine manufacturing capacity and give emergency authorization to other
vaccine makers, it could potentially curb the worst effects of the second wave.
“This is the only long-term solution,” Dr. Laxminarayan said. “India has the capability to do it, if the country puts its mind to it.”
Rebecca Robbins contributed
reporting.