India: in Bangalore, life resumes as pandemic explodes
Audio 02:35
In the ChurchStreet area known for its many bars.
Côme Bastin / RFI
By: Côme Bastin Follow
6 min
Double emergency in India, where the pandemic is exploding while the GDP collapses.
The authorities are trying to control the health situation while boosting the economy.
In Bangalore, subways, construction sites and bars have reopened but doctors are worried about the growing number of patients.
Publicity
In the corridors of the large Jain hospital in Bangalore, Doctor Chadha is worried.
The number of infected people continues to increase.
Over the past two months, more and more patients have been in this hospital. Today our 40 beds equipped with respirators are almost all occupied. We are trying to open a second block for the sick. This worries me because we haven't even reached the peak of the epidemic yet.
An economy on its knees
The second most infected country in the world, India has 4.5 million cases of coronavirus.
But at the same time, the Indian economy is on its knees.
Over the April-May-June period, GDP contracted by 23.9%.
In the construction sector, the drop is 50%.
Real estate developer, Kishore Jain justifies the resumption of activities.
The construction sector is India's second largest employer after agriculture. In Bangalore, the majority of workers work in this sector. These people need an economic activity to feed their families. The workers therefore returned from their villages. Today, we have regained 70% of our pre-containment workforce level. Of course, this work is done in compliance with sanitary measures.
Empty metro and crowded buses
The resumption of transport is quite chaotic.
You have to queue for 20 minutes and pass two temperature checks to enter an almost empty metro.
But in the street, the buses are crowded.
The obligation to occupy only one seat in two has been abolished… On the grounds that it was not respected.
On the famous Church Street, bars fill up after six months of closure.
A first client testifies.
It feels good to find a little freedom. In bars, they try to enforce physical distancing. But in Bangalore, we don't really take any precautions anymore. Some people no longer wear masks, no longer wash their hands and no longer respect distances.
Almost 100,000 cases per day
This economic opening is part of the significant increase in the pandemic in India.
Director of the Covid-19 intensive care unit at Jain hospital, Dr. Farouk wants to be reassuring by phone.
Hospitals are not overwhelmed.
It is true that we have more and more patients. But the death rate in Bangalore is dropping. It is now 1.4%. And 80% of the patients we see are asymptomatic. We then send them back to quarantine at home. In addition, half of the beds in private hospitals are now reserved for Covid patients.
An exploding number of cases, but low mortality: these observations are found throughout the country.
In this deconfined India, every day we approach 100,000 additional cases.
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