Inside a Covid-19 hospital in India, doctors see no end in sight

Mortuary workers prepare to transport the body of a person who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital in New Delhi, India, [Photo: Reuters]

It was barely noon on Thursday when the metal doors of the mortuary at a hospital in south New Delhi swung open and staff in white coveralls rolled out a stretcher. Mourning relatives looked on, as a body bag was loaded into an ambulance and taken away to a cemetery.

It was yet another casualty from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 4,500 people and infected more than 150,000 across India. While infection rates from the virus have begun to fall in many countries, in India they are still rising sharply, and epidemiologists warn peak is yet to come.