How coronavirus eventually gripped India - and why it took so long

It now has more cases than anywhere in the world except Brazil and the US

India coronavirus
The South Asian nation now has third-highest number of cases in world after Brazil and the US 
(Image credit: Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)

As Covid-19 spread through Europe in February and March, India braced for a similar wave of infections.

Worried politicians placed the billion-strong population under a strict lockdown and sent healthcare workers out into villages to look for coronavirus symptoms - yet at first, medics found little to report.

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Holden Frith is The Week’s digital director. He also makes regular appearances on “The Week Unwrapped”, speaking about subjects as diverse as vaccine development and bionic bomb-sniffing locusts. He joined The Week in 2013, spending five years editing the magazine’s website. Before that, he was deputy digital editor at The Sunday Times. He has also been TheTimes.co.uk’s technology editor and the launch editor of Wired magazine’s UK website. Holden has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, having started his professional career while completing an English literature degree at Cambridge University. He followed that with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. A keen photographer, he also writes travel features whenever he gets the chance.