Dr. Kedar Toraskar hasn’t been able to sleep much over the last few months. His mind would constantly turn to the young COVID-19 patients fighting for their lives in the ICU ward he oversees at Wockhardt Hospital in the western Indian city of Mumbai.

The recent coronavirus surge in India affected young people on a scale his team of critical care doctors hadn’t previously seen, Toraskar said. “We saw a lot of deaths, a lot of young people who succumbed to the disease,” he said. “It was really, truly very depressing.”