India has crossed the 5 million mark for Covid-19 cases and recorded more than 83,000 deaths. While data are available for the national and state levels and for some districts, the situation elsewhere, especially in towns and villages, remains largely opaque.
SP Kalantri is the medical superintendent at Kasturba Gandhi Hospital in Sevagram, in eastern Maharashtra’s rural and backward Wardha district, and has been a professor at the attached Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences for over 30 years. He spoke to Rukmini S about the view from Wardha on the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
He says cases are starting to come in from villages. Wardha district has two labs that can conduct RT-PCR tests, and together are doing close to 400-500 tests per day….