Different Strokes in the Second Wave

How the second wave of Covid-19 has been different, why this has eroded states' capacity and triggered a new kind of vaccine politics, and what corrective policy steps are needed now

In many ways, the second ongoing surge in the Covid-19 cases of infection in India is different from the first one witnessed between April and September 2020. An obvious difference is that the second wave is far more virulent in terms of the infection rate, though the trajectory for the death tally so far appears to have been mercifully dissimilar to that seen during the first wave.
 
The peak during the first wave was reached by the middle of September 2020 with the reported number of cases of around 98,000 and a death tally of 1,290. The infection level