NEW DELHI – India on Thursday reported a world record of more than 314,000 new infections in one day, amid a major rebound in the virus in the world’s second most populous country that was sending more and more sick people to a fragile health system without oxygen or enough beds.
With 314,000 infections reported in 24 hours, India has accounted for more than 15.9 million cases since the start of the pandemic. It is the second highest figure in the world, behind the United States. India has almost 1.4 billion people.
Deaths grew by 2,104 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 184,657, according to the Health Ministry.
Many hospitals have reported a severe lack of beds and medicine, as well as dangerously low oxygen supplies.
The High Court in New Delhi on Wednesday ordered the government to divert industrial-use oxygen to hospitals to save lives. “People cannot die because there is no oxygen. Beg, borrow or steal, it’s a national emergency, ”the judges said in their response to the request from a New Delhi hospital.
The government sent tanker trucks with oxygen to replenish supplies in hospitals.
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“Supply and demand are being monitored around the clock,” Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a tweet on Thursday. To respond to the exponential increase in demand, he noted, the government has increased the oxygen quota for the seven most affected states.
Quarantines and heavy restrictions have brought pain, fear and anguish to many in New Delhi and other cities.
In scenes repeated across the country, ambulances sped from hospital to hospital, trying to find a free bed. Mourning relatives waited in line outside crematoria, where the number of bodies arriving has skyrocketed multiple times.
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“Every day I receive numerous calls from patients desperate for a bed. The demand is much greater than the supply, ”said Dr Sanjay Gururaj, a physician at Shanti Hospital and Research Center in Bengaluru.
“Every day I try to find beds for patients, and it is incredibly frustrating not being able to help them. In the last week, three of my patients have died at home because they couldn’t get beds. As a doctor, it is a dreadful feeling, ”said Gururaj.
Yogesh Dixit, who lives in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, said this week that he had to buy two bottles of oxygen for 12,000 rupees ($ 160) each, more than double their normal price, for his sick father, because the state hospital in Lucknow had run out of stock.
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He bought two “because doctors can order another bottle at any time,” he said, adding that he had had to sell his wife’s jewelry to cover the cost.
The main cremation ground in Lucknow, the state capital, received nearly 200 bodies on Sunday. “The bodies were everywhere, they were being cremated on the paths designed for walking. I have never seen such a flow of corpses in my life, ”said Shekhar Chakraborty, 68.
In Kanpur, another city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 35 new temporary platforms have been placed in the Bithoor-Sidhnath Ghat area, along the Ganges River, to incinerate bodies.
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India produces a total of 7,500 metric tons (8,300 US tons) of oxygen per day, of which 6,600 metric tons (7,275 US tons) were being used for medical use, the Health Ministry said.
The Ministry added that 75 train cars in the country’s capital had been converted into hospitals, with 1,200 additional beds for COVID-19 patients.
The previous record for confirmed infections in one day was 307,581, reported on January 8 in the United States, according to the Times of India newspaper.