Telemedicine has almost become a replacement for in-person care in many cases in India, said Vikram Kapur, a partner at Bain & Co. who leads its Asia-Pacific healthcare practice. "There's just not enough doctors and so many people needing care," he said.

While there is no national data on telemedicine in India, he estimated that there were four to five times as many virtual consultations during India's recent surge than there were before the pandemic and that they were still occurring at two to three times pre-Covid-19 levels, even though reported new cases have dropped to fewer than 50,000 a day recently.