08
May
A disconcerting feature of the second wave of Covid-19 is the surge in cases in rural India. Compared with the first peak in September last year, the number of cases in India’s hinterland or backward regions has quadrupled, and so has the number of the dead. The districts covered by the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) — 243 of the 272 for which data are available — had more than 39.16 lakh people infected with the disease as on May 5. This is more than four times the 9.5 lakh infections at the peak of the first wave on September 16, 2020.…