64 dead in 20 days, Covid panic grips Agra villages as poor facilities pose hurdle

Villagers near Agra in Uttar Pradesh have been reporting a large number of Covid deaths over the past weeks, causing fear and panic among villagers.

The heartbreaking images of a woman trying to resuscitate her husband by blowing into his mouth became one of the defining moments of India’s second wave of Covid-19. The photographs from Agra are still fresh in the minds of people as reports come in of villages near the city seeing families being wiped out due to Covid. About 40 kms from Agra is a village called Etmadpur. 14 people have died in this village in the past two weeks and all had developed fever, cough and breathlessness before succumbing. Following the number of deaths, 100 people were tested for Covid in this village and 27 were found positive.