NEW DELHI (AP) – New Delhi imposed a weekly shutdown on Monday night amid an explosive rise in coronavirus cases to prevent the collapse of the Indian capital’s healthcare system, which authorities said had taken to the limit.
In scenes known from waves elsewhere, ambulances catapulted from one hospital to another, trying to find an empty bed over the weekend, while patients lined up outside waiting for the let them in. Ambulances were also idling outside the crematoria, carrying half a dozen corpses each. .
“People continue to arrive, in an almost collapsed situation,” said Dr Suresh Kumar, who heads Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, one of New Delhi’s largest hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients.
Most desperately need oxygen, Kumar said. But the city is facing a shortage of oxygen and some medicine, according to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who told reporters that new strict measures were needed to “prevent a collapse of the system. sanitary ”, which had“ reached its limit ”.
A few months later, India believed it had seen the worst of the pandemic, the virus is now spreading at a faster rate than at any other time, said Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who has been tracking infections in India.
The increase is devastating for India and has weighed heavily on global efforts to end the pandemic as the country is a major producer of vaccines, but has been forced to delay firing exports abroad, making campaigns in developing countries particularly difficult.
The increase in cases comes as the global death toll from coronavirus surpassed 3 million people on Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the global vaccination campaign and a deep crisis in places beyond India, such as now Brazil and France.
India reported more than 270,000 infections on Monday, its highest daily increase since the pandemic began. It has now recorded more than 15 million infections and more than 178,000 deaths. Experts agree that even these figures are probably undervalued. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson canceled a trip to New Delhi amid rising cases.
New Delhi, a city of 29 million people, has less than 100 beds with fans and less than 150 beds available for critically ill patients. Similar scenes represented in other parts of the vast country. In the Himalayan state of Jammu, in northern India, the weekly average of COVID-19 cases has multiplied by 14 in the last month.
In response, officials have again imposed strict measures. The capital of India closed over the weekend, but now authorities are extending this situation for a week: all shops and factories will close, except those that provide essential services such as grocery stores. People are not supposed to leave their homes, except for a handful of reasons, such as seeking medical attention. They will also be allowed to travel to airports or train stations.
They were the strictest measures imposed since the harsh closure of India last year, which lasted months and left deep scars. Since then, politicians have been reluctant to mention the word. When similar measures were imposed in the state of Mahrashtra, where the financial capital of Mumbai is located, in recent days, officials refused to call it a blockade. These restrictions must last 15 days.
Kejriwal urged calm, especially among migrant workers who suffered especially during the previous shutdown, and said this would be a “small closure”.
But many feared it would mean economic ruin. New Delhi worker Amrit Tripathi was among the thousands who walked home for miles after India abruptly announced a tough, national shutdown in 2020. “We will starve to death,” he said. extend the current lock.
Doctors and officials say measures are needed to ease the pressure on the fragile health care system, which has been underfunded for decades. Failure to prepare for the current increase has left hospitals in New Delhi and other major cities collapsing under the pressure of rising infections.
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Hussain reported from Srinagar. Associated Press writer Neha Mehrotra contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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