After recording less than 10,000 cases of the novel coronavirus in India earlier this year, the country is seeing a major spike in cases currently as nearly 2,00,000 cases of the infection are being registered per day. While experts believe that the fast-spreading variants of Covid-19 are responsible for the much virulent second wave, people (over the age of 45) across the country are also being vaccinated simultaneously.

Meanwhile, India's national capital Delhi surpassed Mumbai to become the worst-affected city in the country as a result of the virus after registering over 17,000 cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday. Every hospital in the city is booked with patients and the doctors and other health experts are naturally concerned about the growing number of cases. "It is an absolute rampage in the city, young and old, vaccinated or not vaccinated, the virus is just hitting everyone. Delhi's situation is grim," a senior consultant at Apollo Hospitals in Delhi was quoted as saying by a news agency.

At Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP), in particular, the number of admissions per day has been so much that two unrelated patients seem to be sharing a single bed, despite an increase in the capacity of beds over the past few months. As per a report by a news agency, the hospital's medical director, Suresh Kumar, said, "We are definitely over-burdened. We are already working at full capacity. Today we have 158 admissions in Lok Nayak alone. People are not following the Covid guidelines. They are just careless."

A nursing officer at the hospital also reportedly said that new patients were arriving every 10 minutes. "Till a few weeks back, we had just 10-12 patients at a time in the Covid ward. From the start of this month, we have had more than 500 patients. But we have over 1,600 beds in our hospital and all staff are on Covid duty so we are not feeling that much of a burden yet," the officer reportedly said.

CM Arvind Kejriwal imposed weekend curfew on April 15 in the national capital in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus. Adding that curfew passes will be issued for essential services, he said, "We have decided to impose weekend curfew in Delhi. This is because people generally go out for work on weekdays and entertainment on weekends. So to break the chain or rising COVID-19 cases, we are imposing a weekend curfew." Delhi has registered a total of 7,67,438 cases with 50,736 active cases so far, while 11,540 people succumbed to the illness.