MINNESOTA, USA — Few American doctors understand the COVID situation in India better than Dr. Frank Rhame.
He's an infectious disease specialist at Allina Health and he has been to India five times during his medical career.
"If you haven't been there you have no clue what density of humanity can be,” Dr. Rhame explains.
He says that population density is a big reason why India is seeing a record number of new COVID cases.
The previous record for new cases in a single day was set by the U.S. back in January with just under 300,000 new cases
India broke that record on Thursday, then broke it again on Friday, and again on Saturday.
Indian health officials reported nearly 350,000 new COVID cases Saturday, along with more than 2,600 new deaths.
That many deaths in a single day is like one person in India dying from COVID every 30 seconds.
Dr. Rhame says that's only the cases they know about, he says most of the cases in India are never reported.
"They believe it could be so much more, by a factor of two to five," Dr. Rhamesays.
Here in the U.S. Rhame says we'll likely see a travel ban to India in the coming days.
Right now, the U.S. State Department is urging Americans not to go there, but there is no ban in place yet.
The UK recently issued a travel ban to India to prevent the virus from spreading.
Rhame says Americans may also see higher steel prices in the coming weeks.
India is the 2nd largest steel producer in the world.
The industry relies heavily on oxygen and right now there is a shortage in India because so much oxygen is being used to treat COVID patients.
"They can't produce oxygen fast enough to keep up," Rhame explains.
"It's very difficult to import oxygen from other countries."
Rhame says the COVID numbers are concerning in India, and if the government doesn’t act quickly, those numbers could go even higher in the coming days.
"If they lock down, which I think they're on the verge of doing, because it's such a disaster, then it basically takes two to four weeks before it slows down. If they do that, they will bring it under control,” Rhame says.