Here's why COVID-19 cases are rising in India, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria lists two main reasons

COVID-19 is on the rise in India and country has reported its highest-ever single-day spike of COVID-19 cases with over 2.34 lakh new cases and more than 1,300 deaths in the last 24 hours.

According to All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Director Dr. Randeep Guleria, the cause for the surge in COVID-19 cases in India is multifactorial.

He said that when vaccination started and cases went down in January and February people stopped following COVID-19 appropriate behavior. This was also the time when the deadly virus mutated and spread more rapidly.

Admitting that India’s healthcare system is under severe strain due to this sudden surge in the number of coronavirus cases, Guleria said that there is a need to keep increasing our hospital beds and resources for the increasing number of cases.

We also have to urgently bring down the number of COVID19 cases, he added.

“We must understand lives are also important. This is also a time when a lot of religious activities are happening in our country and polls are also underway.

We can do this in a restricted manner so that religious sentiment is not hurt and COVID-19 appropriate behaviour can be followed,” Guleria said. Speaking on the huge COVID-19 spike in Delhi, Guleria said that in terms of health infrastructure and containment, what we were doing in the past we need to do that again. "We have now a larger spike in Delhi as compared to 6-7 months ago. In terms of health infrastructure and containment, what we were doing in the past we need to do that again," he said.

He further said that people need to remember that no vaccine is 100 per cent efficient. You may get the infection but the antibodies in your body will not allow the virus to multiply and you'll not have the severe disease, he said.