"India Opened Up Prematurely" After 1st Covid Wave: Top US Health Adviser

COVID-19 India: India has been severely affected by the unprecedented second wave of the coronavirus and hospitals in several states are reeling under the shortage of health workers, vaccines, oxygen, drugs and beds.

India made the "incorrect assumption" that it was finished with the COVID-19 pandemic and opened up prematurely that has left the country in such "dire straits", America's top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has told senators. India has been severely affected by the unprecedented second wave of the coronavirus and hospitals in several states are reeling under the shortage of health workers, vaccines, oxygen, drugs and beds. "The reason that India is in such dire straits now is that they had an original surge and made the incorrect assumption that they were finished with it, and what happened, they opened up prematurely and wind up having a surge right now that we're all very well aware of is extremely devastating," Dr Fauci told the US Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee during a hearing on Tuesday on the COVID-19 Response. Dr Fauci, who is the Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is also the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.