They were clapping, hooting, whistling, blowing into vuvuzelas—a crowd of 33,000 football fans rooting for a goal, expecting a cliffhanger ending. But the Chennaiyin goalie fisted out a full-booted volley, the best chance NorthEast United had that evening in 2016. They lost a home game. At Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati. Similar scenes—idyllic, except for the context—played out again this February. Sarusajai hosted the Filmfare Awards. That, of course, was then. The world has changed. The shadow of the coronavirus pandemic has lengthened across India. The stadium has morphed into a field hospital: a quarantine centre, with rows of 1,000 beds under a tarp-covered longhouse shaped like an inverted U. Masked workers and overseers in hazmat suits have replaced the excitable football fans.

The beds—their neat white sheets gleaming under the floodlights—are empty for now. But the threat posed by the pandemic has never been more stark. The stadium provides a panoptic view of what lies ahead. How our states, which are no stranger to deadly outbreaks,...