Covid-19 coronavirus: India packs infected into train carriages with pandemic peak months off

Surgical masks hang on a key holder inside a residential house in Srinagar, India. Photo / AP

India will not reach its coronavirus peak until mid-November, according to researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research, as New Delhi plans to convert train carriages into isolation wards.

A new lockdown also looms for 15 million people in the city of Chennai.

After a surge in infections, some hospitals in New Delhi were unable to admit coronavirus-positive patients as they had run out of beds, despite fewer than 40,000 cases being recorded.

India's capital has only 9816 dedicated beds for coronavirus patients but Manish Sisodia, its deputy chief minister, has warned that 500,000 people will be infected by July 31.

The Indian Government has now stepped in to convert 500 train carriages into isolation wards in New Delhi for around 8000 people.

As coronavirus cases rise sharply in India, the country's public health system has been overburdened with patients, with many needing intensive care and ventilators.https://t.co/rttxGYXrmJ

— DW News (@dwnews) June 16, 2020

The number of tests being carried out in New Delhi will be doubled over the next two days, and a temporary 10,000-bed hospital is being built in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas Ashram.

On Friday, a lockdown will be reimposed on the city of Chennai and several neighbouring districts due to a rise in infections, state officials said.

India has the fourth-highest number of cases in the world - now over 332,400 - while the number of one-day infections surpassed 12,000 for the first time over the weekend.

Nearly 60 per cent of India's cases are found in seven densely populated cities, including New Delhi and Mumbai, with infections surging since a nationwide lockdown was lifted on June 1.

The predicted mid-November peak is also fuelled by the ongoing movement of 100 million migrant labourers from India's cities, heading back to their homes in the rural periphery.

"We are far from the peak," warned Dr Nivedita Gupta, chief epidemiologist at the ICMR.