Initially, India had seemed to avoid the worst outcome, tamping down previous waves with lower case and casualty counts. But not anymore. Nearly every day brings a new grim milestone in cases (often over 350,000), on test positivity rate (a stunning 36% in New Delhi) and deaths (officially about 2,000 a day, but unofficially estimated at five to 10 times that).

India is "probably the most dire situation we've seen anywhere, not just because of the scale of the current situation, but also what it portends in terms of where we're going to be in a couple of weeks," Irfan Nooruddin, director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, told an editorial writer.

The Biden administration ensured that the U.S. stepped up to help, however belatedly. And it must be prepared for similar justified pleas from other nations where the virus and its variants are greatly outpacing vaccinations.

"Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need," a National Security Council spokeswoman said in a statement on Sunday after the U.S. announced it was sending rapid test kits, personal protective equipment, therapeutics, and ventilators, as well as making it easier to export raw materials for vaccines.

In a separate announcement, the Biden administration said it would release about 60 million doses of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, which is not yet approved in the U.S., to be distributed worldwide. India will likely receive some but not all of the allotment. Several other European and Asian nations — including India's geopolitical rivals China and Pakistan — had already stepped up to help, as did international institutions like the European Union and World Health Organization. This put appropriate pressure on the U.S., especially since the tight ties between India and the U.S. were strained due to President Joe Biden's restrained approach to an ally and a key component of the "Quad" (India, Australia, Japan and the U.S.), the quartet of democracies aligned as a counterweight to China's rise.

While of course there are basic epidemiological reasons for the surge, there are political ones, too. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not only resisted further restrictions to curb transmission, he's held packed rallies for political purposes and allowed a mass Hindu religious festival to proceed. Like many governments around the world, India's ineffective response to the virus exacerbated its problems. "The Indian government's response can only be characterized as callous indifference and incompetence," said Nooruddin, a professor of Indian politics at Georgetown University.

But that shouldn't stop the U.S. and other countries from continuing to respond to India's dire emergency and help it continue to play a major role in vaccine production. The challenge, Nooruddin concluded, "is to douse the fire, so India has a way of getting the global vaccine supply going again. And then I think the United States has to figure out what it's willing to do, in order to avoid the situation from arising over and over."

Indeed, India won't be the last epicenter to see a crisis become a calamity.