Lack of Tests & Ventilators: How Rural India is Facing Covid Surge

<div>Covid infections are now spreading fast into India's rural areas where 65 percent of the country's population live. And India's rivers are witness to the kind of devastation the infection is bringing to India's hinterland.<br> <br> </div> <div>A mass pile of shallow graves were found along river banks in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district. Dead bodies have been floating up in rivers flowing through Bihar’s Buxar district and Ballia and Ghazipur districts in Uttar Pradesh over a reported shortage of firewood as the number of Covid-related deaths are on the rise.<br> <br> </div> <div>In fact, Hindi daily <em>Dainik Bhaskar</em> has reported that over 2,000 bodies were found floating or buried along Ganga in UP in a 1,140 km stretch. Even though officials in some districts have claimed the dead bodies don’t belong to locals, this is certainly an indication of Covid is ravaging the countryside.<br> <br> Although the number of covid cases maybe showing a decline in some of the worst-affected cities, numbers from rural areas are indicating a spike in cases.<br> <br> </div> <div>In India's top hot spot, Maharashtra, for instance, where the situation appears to be stabilising in cities like Mumbai, reports say that at least 32% of the state’s daily cases are now coming from the rural or the peri-urban pockets — from <a href="https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimesofindia.indiatimes.com%2Fcity%2Fnagpur%2Fcases-decline-in-cities-but-no-relief-in-rural-areas-of-region%2Farticleshow%2F82669040.cms&amp;data=04%7C01%7Cshorbori.purkayastha%40thequint.com%7Caf2a7661b8fb425beb4908d91937afad%7C200127ebcff6490fb0c74a630c2871be%7C1%7C0%7C637568549219472209%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&amp;sdata=ByIf4r3C2QCfFlEhE0tgJ%2FyRjpgTAxW0nmlSsXPhWek%3D&amp;reserved=0">districts like Akola</a> which has over 6,000 positive patients, or Washim which has over 4,000 patients or Gondia which reported a death toll of 631 patients a