In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was indiscriminately spreading around the world, the seeming ability of India, the world’s second most populous country (with over 1.3 billion people), to contain the virus within its borders and keep COVID-19 infection and mortality rates low relative to population size was seen as miraculous. However, the miracle ended when ‘second-wave’ hit India in April 2021. On 1 May 2021, India became the first country in the world to record more than 400,000 coronavirus infections in a single day. This exponential rise in COVID-19 cases started on 28 April 2021 when India recorded 379,459 new COVID-19 cases and 3,647 deaths. This marked the eighth straight day of more than 300,000 cases a day—making India the second-highest COVID-19 case count in the world (over 20 million) with over 25 per cent of the global deaths from COVID. The following examines India’s fight against the pandemic, the failure to contain the second wave, the lessons learned and the way forward.

2020 年初，当 COVID-19 大流行在世界范围内肆意蔓延时，世界第二人口大国（超过 13 亿人口）印度似乎有能力将病毒控制在其境内并保持 COVID-19 感染相对于人口规模而言，死亡率低被认为是奇迹。然而，奇迹在 2021 年 4 月“第二波”袭击印度时结束。2021 年 5 月 1 日，印度成为世界上第一个单日记录超过 40 万例冠状病毒感染的国家。COVID-19 病例呈指数增长始于 2021 年 4 月 28 日，当时印度记录了 379,459 例新的 COVID-19 病例和 3,647 例死亡。这标志着连续第八天超过 300 天，每天 000 例 — 使印度成为世界上 COVID-19 病例数第二高的国家（超过 2000 万例），占全球 COVID-19 死亡人数的 25% 以上。以下考察印度抗击疫情、未能遏制第二波疫情、吸取的教训和前进的道路。