LONG HAUL FOR SURAT
ON July 13, the daily count of new Covid cases breached the 900 mark in Gujarat, with Surat alone accounting for 287 infections—the city’s highest single-day figure yet. It was a new low for this textile and diamond trading hub that is now one of the biggest Covid hotspots in the state. The last time Surat, a city of 6.6 million people, faced a health emergency of such a scale was in 1994 when scared residents bolted out to escape the pneumonic plague epidemic.
As of July 14, of the 42,722 Covid cases in Gujarat, 7,540 had been reported from Surat—many of them textile and diamond industry workers. The city recorded 320 fatalities, over 15
