In early February, physicians in Amravati district, some 700km (435 miles) from India's commercial capital, Mumbai, noticed a sudden surge in the number of people suffering from Covid-19.
Life in this cotton-growing district in the western state of Maharashtra had almost returned to normal after the first wave of infections last summer. The ICUs of the 1,600-bed state-run hospital and half-a-dozen private hospitals were nearly empty.
"But everything changed in February," says Anil Jadhav, a local journalist. "And now there's panic in the district."
Since the beginning of February, Amravati has recorded more than 10,000 cases and over 66 deaths from Covid. More than 1,000 were receiving treatment for the disease this week. The positivity rate is in frightful double digits. Amravati and a few other districts in Maharashtra have been again locked down.
The hotspots in a district of 2.5 million people are mainly congested urban areas, say locals. SOURCE: BBC
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