THREAD: Charts on public hospital beds availability across India. Source is National Health Profile released in 2020: a little dated, but health infra is built over years. Safe to discount recent makeshift changes and see this as reflection of core infra strength. Here goes:

In terms of total beds per million population, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala are on top. The averages in the states are nearly 50% of that in the U.S. and U.K. West Bengal, whose past governments seem to have put quite some money into public health, is a surprise

Delhi has a higher beds per million population, but it is a small glorified city corp. Plus, there are no rural regions. But there is the burden of having to cater to a constantly migrating population. Despite high number of public beds, Delhi still struggled.

At the bottom are usual suspects Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and MP. The "surprises" are the "developed" Maharashtra and Gujarat. Haryana is languishing at the bottom too.

In rural areas, Tamil Nadu beats everyone else by a distance and is followed by Kerala. At the bottom are MP, UP and Bihar. Maharashtra is terrible, and there might be huge trouble in the countryside given the rocketing cases. Gujarat does somewhat better, but is still abysmal

In urban regions, Gujarat is at the rockbottom, and the depressing news reports from Ahmedabad are not a surprise. Here too, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, the "developed" Maharashtra, UP, Bihar do badly. Karnataka, West Bengal are great, while Rajasthan is a pleasant surprise

I can't but wonder if Chennai will have enough public beds: compared to the national average, TN urban average is lower. And TN is one of the most urbanized states, if not the most. Might witness a very comfortable countryside, and a stressed city if cases rise

Data on private beds are not available. But I think it is far less important, as large scale affordable services are provided only by public healthcare, and given the country's poor and lower middle class will be the most vulnerable, THIS is the real deal