“It’s a tsunami”: virus ravages India, warns of underestimating deaths

NEW DELHI.- India’s second wave of coronavirus slides quickly into devastating crisis, with overflowing hospitals, a lack of oxygen supply, desperate people dying while awaiting treatment and a new world record of cases for the third day in a row in what is already set as a pandemic “tsunami”.

Hospitals in New Delhi have turned to the city’s High Court to ask state and federal governments to make emergency arrangements to provide medical supplies, mainly oxygen.

It’s a tsunami. How will they now develop the necessary capacities to face the crisis? “, the Delhi High Court called on the state and federal governments in response to this request.

The number of cases across the country of about 1.3 billion people has increased by 346786 in 24 hours, the health ministry said, to add a total of 16.6 million cases and 189,544 deaths from the coronavirus. Deaths from Covid-19 have increased by 2,624 in the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate in the country to date.

But the experts They say these numbers, shocking as they are, are only a fraction of the true extent of the virus spread and deaths caused by Covid-19. Millions of people even refuse to go out because their fear of contracting the virus is extreme. Accounts across the country say patients find themselves airless as they wait in chaotic hospitals that lack oxygen to save lives. The sudden increase in recent weeks may have been linked to a new, more contagious variant.

“It’s a complete massacre of data”, said to The New York Times Bhramar Mukherjee, epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who closely follows India. “Of all the models we have made, we believe that the actual number of deaths is two to five times higher than what is reported“, He said.

In one of the large cremation grounds in Ahmedabad, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, bright orange fires light up the blazing night sky. 24 hours of the day, like an industrial factory that never stops. Suresh Bhai, a worker there, said he had never seen such an endless assembly line.

But on none of the thin sheets of paper he distributes to grieving families, wrote the cause of death as Covid-19. “Sickness, sickness, sickness,” Suresh said. “This is what we write.”

When asked why, he replied that was what his bosses had ordered him to do, who did not respond to requests for comment.

Chaos in hospitals

Meanwhile, the situation in hospitals is chaotic. Max Healthcare, which operates a network of hospitals in northern India, tweeted that theand there was less than two hours of oxygen leftwhile Fortis Healthcare, another big chain, has said it will suspend new admissions to Delhi.

“We have been waiting for supplies since morning,” said Fortis.

The government deployed military planes and trains to bring oxygen to New Delhi from the most remote corners of the country and abroad, including Singapore. Televisionshowed a man identified as Amit, who was mourning his deceased brother at Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi, who said that had seen families running around with empty oxygen cylinders to try to fill them.

At the same time, the vaccination campaign in India is progressing slowly. Less than 10% of Indians received at least one dose, even if your country is historically world’s leading manufacturer of vaccines. And India’s urgent needs are already having a ripple effect around the world, but especially in the poorest countries. India had planned to ship millions of doses, but now, given the country’s severe vaccine shortage, exports have practically closed, leaving other nations with far less doses than they bargained for.

Reuters Agency and The New York Times newspaper

THE NATION