How India’s second wave became the worst COVID-19 surge in the world

New Delhi (National Geographic)---   During the past few weeks, Indian social media has been inundated with SOS messages: hospitals tweeting about dwindling oxygen supplies and physicians watching helplessly as patients perish from preventable deaths. A journalist pleading for but denied a hospital bed took to Twitter to log his deteriorating condition till he died.

Overwhelmed crematoria are working round-the-clock to keep up with the pace of bodies; furnaces have melted down from overuse and additional funeral platforms are being built outside. Such are the heartbreaking messages and haunting images that highlight the formidable second wave of the coronavirus pandemic raging through the country.

MIT researchers: Risk of contracting COVID-19 indoors the same at 6ft The risk of contracting COVID-19 indoors is the same when socially distanced 6 feet apart and 60 feet apart, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say. Jordan Williams TheHill

The risk of contracting COVID-19 indoors is the same when socially distanced 6 feet apart and 60 feet apart, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say.

The Biden administration is moving into a new phase of its campaign to vaccinate as many Americans as possible for the coronavirus, one where the government may not always be the best messenger to persuade people to get their shot.

So it's working to bring together hundreds of local and national groups into something it calls the COVID-19 Community Corps, enlisting people to help their friends, family and neighbors make appointments and get access to vaccines.

On a recent evening, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy led a Zoom call for people who have signed up to help. "I just want to remind you again, which we will keep doing again and again and again, that this is not just a government-driven effort," he said.

"It's about creating a community where we can celebrate what people are doing," Murthy said. "Where we can share best practices, where we can inspire one another just as we learn."

States ranked by percentage of COVID-19 vaccines administered: April 23 North Dakota has administered the highest percentage of COVID-19 vaccines it has received, according to the CDC's COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration data tracker. Maia Anderson

New Hampshire has administered the highest percentage of COVID-19 vaccines they have received, according to the CDC's COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration data tracker.

California and Texas Took Different Routes to Vaccination. Who’s Ahead? California stresses equity for minority groups. Texas is all about personal choice and liberty. Both are struggling to vaccinate Latinos and contending with vaccine hesitancy among conservative com… Lydia Zuraw Kaiser Health News

California and Texas, the country’s two most populous states, have taken radically different approaches to the pandemic and the vaccination campaign to end it.

California has trumpeted its reliance on science and policies it says are aimed at improving social equity.