The second wave of covid-19 pandemic in India began on March 8, 2021. We saw new daily cases as high as 4.14 lakh on May 6, 2021, which is 423 per cent higher than the peak of 97,860 on September 16, 2020 in the first wave. The number of active cases was 368 per cent more at 37.52 lakh on May 9, 2021 compared to the wave-1 peak of 10.19 lakh observed on September 17, 2020. In the first 69-day period of wave-2, on an average 1,629 people died every day, compared to daily average of 390 deaths during 403 days of wave-1. A total of 157,288 people died in wave-1 and 112,431 in the ongoing wave-2 as on May 15, 2021.
