More emergency medical aid from foreign donors to alleviate a dire oxygen shortage arrived in India on Sunday, as COVID-19 deaths in the South Asian nation rose to a new record.
India is setting almost daily records for new infections and deaths as the virus crisis engulfs overstretched hospitals in cities and spreads into rural regions.
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The country of 1.3 billion reported 3,689 deaths on Sunday – the highest single-day rise yet in the pandemic, to take the overall toll to more than 215,000.
Just under 400,000 infections were added, bringing the total number of cases past 19.5 million.
The latest figures came as medical equipment, including oxygen-generation plants, was flown into the capital New Delhi from France and Germany as part of a huge international effort.
“We are here because we are bringing help that… will save lives,” Germany’s ambassador to India, Walter J. Lindner, said as 120 ventilators arrived late Saturday.
“Out there the hospitals are full. People are sometimes dying in front of the hospitals. They have no more oxygen. Sometimes (they are dying) in their cars.”
French ambassador, Emmanuel Lenain, said his country wanted to show solidarity with India.
“The epidemic is still going on in one country.
“The world won’t be safe until we are all safe. So it’s a matter of urgency,” he said early Sunday following the delivery of eight oxygen-generation plants and dozens of ventilators from France.
More lockdowns
India’s eastern state of Odisha on Sunday became the latest region to order a lockdown to slow the spread of the pathogen.
The nation’s worst-hit city, Delhi, reported just over 25,000 cases on Saturday as it extended its own lockdown by another week.
Hospitals in the capital continued to issue SOS calls for oxygen on social media, with the latest appeal posted by a children’s hospital on Twitter on Sunday.
The plea came a day after up to a dozen patients died at a Delhi hospital amid an oxygen shortage, local media reported.
There are also growing fears about the surge of the virus in small cities, towns and rural regions where health infrastructure is already patchy and limited.
India, on Saturday, opened up its inoculation drive to all adults, but supplies are running low and only online enrolments are allowed for those aged under 45.
“It is a necessity now. We are seeing so many people testing positive,” data scientist Megha Srivastava, 35, told AFP outside a Delhi vaccination centre as she waited for her shot. (AFP)
