Toronto, May 10: India plans to recruit hundreds of former army medics as the country wrestles with record COVID-19 infections and deaths rose by more than 4,000 amid calls for a complete nationwide lockdown. Some 400 former army medical officers are expected to serve on contract for a maximum of 11 months, its defence ministry said in a press release on Sunday.

Meanwhile, many Indian states have imposed strict lockdowns over the past month while others have announced restrictions on public movement and shut down cinemas, restaurants, pubs and shopping malls. But pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce a nationwide lockdown as it did during the first wave last year. He is battling criticism for allowing huge gatherings at a religious festival and holding large election rallies over the past two months even as COVID-19 cases were surging.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) called for a “complete, well-planned, pre-announced” lockdown instead of sporadic night curfews and restrictions imposed by states for a few days at a time. “IMA is astonished to see the extreme lethargy and inappropriate actions from the ministry of health in combating the agonizing crisis born out of the devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said in a statement on Saturday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top White House coronavirus adviser in the United States, said on Sunday he has advised Indian authorities they need to shut down. “You’ve got to shut down. I believe several of the Indian states have already done that, but you need to break the chain of transmission. And one of the ways to do that is to shut down,” Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week” television program.

The Indian health ministry reported 4,092 deaths over the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 242,362. New cases rose by 403,738, just shy of the record and increasing the total since the start of the pandemic to 22.3 million.

With an acute shortage of oxygen and beds in many hospitals and with morgues and crematoriums overflowing, experts have said the actual numbers for COVID-19 cases and fatalities could be far higher than reported.

The world’s largest vaccine-producing nation has fully vaccinated just over 34.3 million, or only 2.5 percent, of its 1.35 billion people as of Sunday, according to data from the government’s Co-WIN portal. Support has been pouring in from around the world in the form of oxygen cylinders and concentrators, ventilators and other medical equipment.

Particularly, Canada has sent as many as 25,000 vials of the antiviral Remdesivir and up to 350 ventilators from its National Emergency Strategic Stockpile to help respond to the critical COVID-19 situation in India. An army plane carried these medicaments from Trenton, Ontario on Wednesday. Also, $10 million in funding to support the Indian Red Cross Society has been provided by the Canadian government.