India’s health ministry reported 103,558 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, making India the second country with 100,000 new cases in a single day. The other country to reach that level, the United States, recorded more than 200,000 cases a day for much of December. India is inoculating more than 2 million people a day, but with 1.3 billion people, that means that only 5% of its population is receiving the first dose of the vaccine. India, a major vaccine manufacturing center, has slowed vaccine exports to focus on immunizing its population.
The epicenter of the outbreak in India is the state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, which reported 57,074 new cases on Sunday and ordered weekend blockades and night curfews in response. Some public health experts attribute the increasing cases to the erosion of immunity acquired in previous infections, behavioral changes and new, more deadly and contagious variants. About 20 percent of new cases in Maharashtra have been found to include a new “double mutant” variant, which includes mutations E484Q and L452R, according to the Indian health ministry.
Louisiana State University virologist Dr. Jeremy Kamil told BBC News that he does not believe that the new double variant is more deadly or necessarily more transmissible. The Indian government says the variants are probably not responsible for the sharp increase in cases.
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