Taxi driver turns hearse driver as coronavirus cases in New Delhi spike

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Before the novel coronavirus struck New Delhi, Mohammad Aamir Khan was one of tens of thousands of people making a living in the Indian capital as a taxi driver.

But that work dried up during the nearly three-month lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus.

With cases rising in India even before the government lifted the lockdown last week, a friend suggested perhaps the only business now booming in the country — driving a private ambulance.

It wasn’t long before his ambulance became a hearse. Now his days are spent transporting corpses from the hospital to cremation pyres and cemeteries, sometimes stacked on top of each other six at a time, their names written in permanent marker on their burial shrouds.

Read the full Reuters feature here.

Mohammad Aamir Khan, an ambulance driver, wears his personal protective equipment (PPE) at a mortuary, before transporting bodies of people who died due to Covid-19, in New Delhi, India, June 8. — Reuters
Mohammad Aamir Khan, an ambulance driver, wears his personal protective equipment (PPE) at a mortuary, before transporting bodies of people who died due to Covid-19, in New Delhi, India, June 8. — Reuters

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