Every day appears to mark a new recordhighest number of daily cases in India. On May 7, India broke its previous world record of new covid cases when it recorded over 4.12 lakh. The following day on May 8 India also recorded its highest even single day covid deaths at 4,197. India’s new covid cases con- tinue to remain as the highest in the world, both in terms of new infection and deaths. India has a home-grown variant called B.1.617, which some in the news media and medical industry have concluded, as being responsible for the ferocious second wave. However, researchers abroad believe that limited data so far suggests that a better-known variant may be more to blame: the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant first found in the UK. The situation in India has gone past the danger zone and which, according to US health specialist Dr. Fauci, the situation is “desperate”. Many renowned health experts have been sug- gesting that an aggressive lockdown be imposed for at least two weeks to bring down the record new infections and deaths. Hospitals across India are in shambles as patients are made to sleep on hospital floors and even wheel chairs. What is worse in the current scenario is that India faces acute shortage of oxygen much needed for covid patients. This item has been released by the Centre but the distribution appears to not be fair and the matter has even gone to the court. With people dying in their thousands across India, even crematoriums are unable to provide space. The entire health care system in India is under intense pressure. Doctors and medical staff are overworked and yet there seem to be no let up in fresh cases. A leading US-based global health research body- the University of Washington’s In- stitute for Health Metrics and Evaluation- has pro- jected over 1 million (10 lakh) cumulative deaths from COVID-19 in India by August 2021. Another of America’s highly regarded epidemiologists and biostatisticians – Professor Bhramar Mukherjee of Michigan University -has said that according to her mathematical projections, India could have 500,000 daily COVID-19 cases and 3,000 daily COVID-19 deaths by May 1. This figure may now seem farfetched but against the backdrop of earlier reports that India is missing four out of five covid cases is indeed worrisome. The hap- pening across India should ring an alarm bell in Nagaland where the state’s health care system leaves much to be desired. The health care sys- tem will be seriously challenged as number of covid-19 patients seeking hospital beds is rising while most government hospitals have limited number of beds and reportedly are already full. On May 8, Nagaland recorded 311 new cases, which is the highest ever since the pandemic. According to recent reports quoting medical ex- perts, most of the new cases are young people below the age of 40 etc. It is gratifying that the state government has asked private hospitals to reserve some beds for covid patients. Hopefully, this will be followed up early so that those in need of critical care will be attended to