Indian Hospitals Run Out Of Oxygen As Covid-19 Surges
At least two hospitals in the Indian capital of Delhi are running out of oxygen, amid a healthcare crisis gripping several states.
A number of people have died while waiting for oxygen supplies, and the majority of intensive care beds in Delhi hospitals are full.
India is in the grips of a second wave of Covid infections.
It has close to 16 million confirmed infections and registered a record number of cases on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to hold meetings with the chief ministers of affected states and oxygen manufacturers on Friday.
In a tweet labelled “SOS” sent out on Friday morning, Max Healthcare said it had been waiting for expected fresh supplies for more than seven hours at two hospitals. It has 700 patients admitted at the two facilities.
In recent days, several other hospitals in Delhi had said they had either run out of oxygen or their supplies were dwindling rapidly.
Three other states – Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana – are also facing a critical shortage of oxygen, while other states like Maharashtra are seeing depleting supplies.
On Thursday India recorded the highest one-day tally of new cases anywhere in the world.
There were 314,835 new coronavirus cases during the previous 24 hours, while deaths rose by 2,104.
There have been reports of state authorities stopping oxygen tankers from travelling to other states, according to Delhi television station NDTV. Some facilities have been accused of hoarding their supplies.
Indian politician, Saurabh Bharadwaj, who is being treated in a Delhi hospital for Covid, posted a plea for help in Hindi on Twitter, saying there were just three hours of oxygen left where he was.
“A lot of people are dependent on oxygen and without oxygen, these people will die just like fish die in the absence of water,” he said. “This is a time for all to come together to work.”
Delhi is known to have among the best healthcare facilities in India, but it has been brought to its knees by the latest surge in cases, says BBC India correspondent Yogita Limaye.
Families are also waiting hours to perform funeral rites, Reuters news agency reports, with at least one Delhi crematorium resorting to building pyres in its car park in order to cope with the numbers arriving. Crematoriums are holding mass cremations, and working day and night in several cities.
“During the first phase of coronavirus, the average here was eight to 10. One day it reached 18. But today the situation is very bad. Last night we cremated 78 bodies,” Jitender Singh Shunty, who runs a crematorium in northeast Delhi, told Reuters.
“It is four times more frightful, this coronavirus… Many bodies are around, waiting. We have no place left in the crematorium to cremate them. Very bad times, very bad times,” he added.
A doctor working in a government hospital in the south of India, who wished to remain anonymous, said tensions were running high.
“Patients are trying to hit doctors,” they told the BBC. “They are blaming doctors for everything and even the [hospital] management is also blaming the doctors. It’s a stressful environment.”
“We have presently almost used 99% of oxygen ports – only 1% is left. It’s a very pathetic situation.”
A travel ban has taken effect in the UK for visitors from India. British and Irish citizens will still be allowed to enter the UK but will have to stay in a government-appointed quarantine hotel for ten days.
Canada and United Arab Emirates (UAE) have temporarily suspended passenger flights, while Singapore has tightened restrictions on travellers from India.
How did it get so bad?
In January, the pandemic was comparatively controlled, but since then the situation has gone from bad to worse.
India has seen a rapid rise in case numbers over the past month driven by lax safety protocols, a Hindu festival attended by millions and variants of the virus, including a “double mutant” strain.
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U.S. Seeing Some Russian Personnel Withdrawing But Still Early, Official Says
The United States is seeing some Russian personnel withdrawing after a huge buildup near Ukraine but it is still early and Moscow’s announcement of its redeployment alone is “insufficient to give us comfort,” a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters on Friday.
“It’s a bit too soon to tell exactly what forces are withdrawing and exactly what equipment appears to be left behind. But I can just tell you, we’re looking very, very closely,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Russia announced on Thursday it had completed a “snap inspection” of military drills in its south and west after weeks of tensions with the West over its concentration of tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine that had raised concerns in Kyiv and the West about the risk of war.
The remarks appeared to be the first U.S. confirmation of any pullback in forces. Ukraine had given a guarded welcome to Russia’s announcement of the troop drawdown.
“If Russia really pulls back from the border with Ukraine, the enormous military force it has deployed there, this will already ease tensions,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement.
But the drills seemed anything but ordinary to observers in Kyiv and the West. The White House said Russia had more troops on Ukraine’s eastern border than at any time since 2014, when it annexed Crimea and backed separatist seizures of territory in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president’s spokeswoman estimated earlier in April that Russia had more than 40,000 troops deployed on Ukraine’s eastern border and over 40,000 in Crimea. Around 50,000 of those forces were new deployments, she said.
“We were joined by a chorus of allies that were also equally concerned because they, too, couldn’t really reconcile what they were seeing with something that would be an ordinary training mission.”
Moscow said it had ordered troops involved in exercises to return to their bases by May 1.
Military hardware was to be left at a training ground near Voronezh, a Russian city about six hours’ drive from Ukraine, so that it could be used again in another big scheduled exercise later this year.
The senior U.S. defense official criticized Moscow for failing to notify or explain its drills under international agreements.
The troop buildup near Ukraine was one of several issues that have raised tensions between Russia and the West.
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