With all that’s been going on in the world lately, you’d be forgiven for forgetting for just a second that there’s a pandemic out there. The coronavirus is still going strong and countries around the world have seen spikes in cases lately.

India happens to be one of those countries. For the longest time, it made no sense how a country as densely populated as India, with a  population is in the billions, has been reporting a relatively low number of cases & fatalities. 280,067 cases may seem like a lot, but India is not even in the top 5 most infected countries.

That being said however, a recent spike has brought the total number of cases in Mumbai, India’s financial capital to 51,000, effectively surpassing the total number of cases past the peak in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged.

And it’s not just Mumbai that’s seeing spikes in cases. Infections are also spiking in India’s capital of Delhi, where authorities say they expect to see more than 500,000 cases by the end of July. The spike in cases appears to be the direct effect of the country loosening its restrictions after three months of a stringent lockdown.

Before you start thinking that India lifted the lockdown too early however, the situation in the country was dire prior to the easing of restrictions. Millions have already lost their jobs and livelihoods, with many migrant workers dying of exhaustion and starvation after having little choice but to flee major cities on foot.

While low numbers in testing could be one explanation for the considerably low number of cases India saw before this spike, experts now have reason to believe that the country could just be witnessing a late peak in cases. This does not bode well for India at all.

Hospitals are already at maximum capacity in spite of the fact that the lockdown period was used to ramp up health facilities. If this spike continues, India could very well be the next epicentre for this deadly virus.