India is running out of oxygen as the number of COVID-19 cases soar in what one official called a “tsunami” of disease.
Indian hospitals, overwhelmed by patients sick with the coronavirus, pleaded for more oxygen supplies Saturday as the country set a world record for COVID cases for the third consecutive day, Reuters reported.
One major healthcare chain, Max Healthcare, tweeted that it had less than two hours of oxygen left, while another, Fortis Healthcare, said it was suspending new admissions in Delhi.
India has been hard hit by a second wave of the pandemic that has resulted in one COVID-19 death in just under every four minutes in Delhi, Reuters said.
While the government has deployed military planes and trains to get oxygen to Delhi from elsewhere in the country and overseas, hospitals in Delhi went to the city’s high court begging for emergency medical supplies, especially oxygen.
A priest, left, who helps performing last rites, runs to avoid the heat from the multiple burning funeral pyres of patients who died of COVID-19 at a crematorium on April 24, 2021 in New Delhi, India.Getty Images
The number of cases across the country of around 1.3 billion rose overnight Saturday by 346,786, the Health Ministry said, for a total of 16.6 million cases, including 189,544 deaths.
COVID-19 deaths rose by 2,624 over the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate for the country so far. Crematoriums across Delhi said they were full.
Construction laborers wearing masks as a precaution against COVID-19 walk on a street in Hyderabad, India on April 24, 2021. AP
India surpassed the US record of 297,430 single-day infections anywhere in the world Thursday.
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