NEW DELHI (AP) – India on Thursday set a world record for more than 314,000 new infections as a sharp rise in coronavirus in the world’s second most populous country sends more and more sick people into a fragile health system, which has no hospital beds or oxygen. .
The 314,835 infections added in the last 24 hours increase the last 15.9 million cases in India since the pandemic began. It is the second highest total in the world next to the United States. India has about 1.4 billion people.
The death toll has risen by 2,104 in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll in India to 184,657, the Ministry of Health said.
A large number of hospitals report a shortage of beds and medicines and operate with dangerously low oxygen levels.
The New Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered the government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals to save people’s lives. “You can’t die because there is no oxygen. Ask, borrow or steal, it’s a national emergency, ”the judges said in response to a request from a New Delhi hospital asking for his intervention.
The government is rushing to the oxygen tanks to replenish supplies to hospitals.
Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday that “demand and supply are monitored all day”. He said in a tweet that to cope with the exponential increase in demand, the government has increased the oxygen quota for the seven most affected states.
Blockades and tight sidewalks have caused pain, fear and agony in many lives in New Delhi and other cities.
In scenes known across the country, ambulances are seen running from one hospital to another, trying to find an empty bed. Relatives in distress are placed outside crematoria where the arrival of corpses has jumped several times.
“Every day I get numerous calls from desperate patients for a bed. Demand is too great to supply, ”said Dr Sanjay Gururaj, a doctor from Shanti Hospital and Bengaluru-based Research Center.
“I try to find beds for patients every day and it has been incredibly frustrating not being able to help them. Last week, three of my patients died at home because they couldn’t get beds. As a doctor, it’s a horrible feeling, “said Gururaj.
Yogesh Dixit, a resident of northern Uttar Pradesh state, said earlier this week that he had to buy two oxygen cylinders at 12,000 rupees ($ 160) each, more than double the normal cost, for the his father ill because the Lucknow State Hospital had run out of supply.
He bought two “so doctors can order another oxygen cylinder at any time,” he said, adding that he had to sell his wife’s jewelry to cover the cost.
The main cremation site in Lucknow, the state capital, received about 200 bodies on Sunday. Shekhar Chakraborty, 68, described the scene: “Bodies were everywhere, cremated on sidewalks for walking. I have never had such a large flow of corpses in my life, ”he said.
In Kanpur, another city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 35 new temporary platforms have been installed on the Bithoor-Sidhnath Ghat stretch along the Ganges River to incinerate bodies.
The Ministry of Health said that of the country’s total production of 7,500 metric tons (8,300 U.S. tons) of oxygen per day, 6,600 metric tons (7,275 U.S. tons) were earmarked for medical use.
He also said that 75 railway coaches in the Indian capital have been converted into hospitals providing an additional 1,200 beds for COVID-19 patients.
The Times of India newspaper says the previous highest daily count of 307,581 cases was reported in the United States on January 8th.
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Associated Press writers Krutika Pathi in New Delhi and Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, contributed to the report.