NEW DELHI (AP) – Coronavirus-infected Seema Gandotra gasped for breath in an ambulance for ten hours as he unsuccessfully tried to find an open bed at six hospitals in the vast capital of India. When she was admitted, it was too late and the 51-year-old died hours later.
Rajiv Tiwari, whose oxygen levels began to drop after testing positive for the virus, has the opposite problem: he has identified an open bed, but the 30-year-old resident of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh cannot reach it. “There is no ambulance that can take me to the hospital,” he said.
Such tragedies are known from trainings in other parts of the world – but were largely unknown in India, which could have been prevented by a hard-hitting collapse in its health system last year.. But now it is everyday events in the vast country that are seeing the biggest upsurge of the pandemic so far and seeing the chronically underfunded health system crumble.
Tests are delayed. Medical oxygen is scarce. Hospitals are understaffed and overflowing. Intensive care units are full. Almost all fans are used, and the dead pile up at crematoria and cemeteries. In the last 24 hours alone, India has recorded more than 250,000 new infections and more than 1,700 deaths, and the United Kingdom announced a travel ban on most visitors from the country this week. In all, India has reported more than 15 million cases and about 180,000 deaths – and experts believe these numbers are likely to be an understatement..
The wave of India is contributing to a worldwide increase in infections as many places are experiencing crises, such as Brazil and France, which are partly fueled by new, more contagious variants, including one first detected in India.. More than a year into the pandemic, global deaths have surpassed 3 million and are rising again, averaging almost 12,000 a day. At the same time, introductory campaigns have relapsed in many places – and the boom in India has only exacerbated it: the country is a major vaccine producer but has been forced to delay the delivery of shots to focus on its domestic demand.
Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who watched India’s pandemic, said India could not learn about training elsewhere and could take anticipatory measures.
When new infections began to decline in September, authorities thought the worst pandemic was over. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan even declared in March that the country had entered the “finals” – but he was already behind the tab: the average weekly incidents in the state of Maharashtra, home of the financial capital of Mumbai, tripled the previous month.
Mukherjee was among those who urged the government to use cases that were low to speed up vaccinations earlier this year. Instead, officials quarreled by restricting large gatherings during Hindu festivals and has refused to postpone the ongoing elections in the eastern West Bengal state, where experts fear large, unmasked crowds at rallies will fuel the spread of the virus.
Now the two largest cities in India have imposed strict locksmiths, the poor of whom will suffer excessively. Many have already left large cities, for fear of a repeat of last year, when a sudden blockade forced many migrant workers to walk to their hometowns or risk famine.
New Delhi, the capital, is converting schools into hospitals. Field hospitals in cities that have been hit hard, that have been abandoned, are being razed. India is trying to import oxygen and has started to divert oxygen supply from industry to the health system.
It remains to be seen whether these frantic efforts will suffice. The Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in New Delhi is raising its beds for COVID-19 patients from 46 to 160. But R. Meneka, the official who coordinates the COVID-19 response in the hospital, said he is not sure if the facility the ability to supply oxygen to so many beds.
The government hospital in Burari, an industrial center on the outskirts of the capitals, had oxygen for just two days on Monday and found most sellers in the city were running out, said Ramesh Verma, who coordinates the COVID-19 response there.
“We get hundreds of calls for beds every minute,” he said.
Kamla Devi, a 71-year-old diabetic, was rushed to a hospital in New Delhi when her blood sugar levels dropped last week. Upon returning home, her levels dropped again, but this time there were no beds. She died before she could be tested for the virus. ‘Whether you have corona (virus) or not, it does not matter. The hospitals have no place for you, “said Dharmendra Kumar, her son.
Laboratories were unprepared for the sharp increase in demand for tests associated with the current boom, and all were ‘caught off guard’, said A. Velumani, chairman and CEO of Thyrocare, one of India’s largest private testing laboratories, said. He said the current demand was three times more than last year.
India’s massive vaccination problem is also struggling. Several states have noted deficits, though the federal government claims there are enough stocks.
India said last week that it would allow the use of all COVID-19 shots which is enlightened by the World Health Organization or regulators in the United States, Europe, Britain, or Japan. On Monday, he said it would soon expand the vaccinations to every adult in the country, estimated at 900 million people. But with a shortage of global vaccine, it is not clear when Indian vaccine manufacturers will have the ability to achieve these goals. Indian vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech has said it is increasing 700 million doses annually.
Meanwhile, Shahid Malik, who works at a small oxygen supplier, said that the demand for medical oxygen increased by a factor of 10. His phone has been ringing for two days. By Monday, the store still had oxygen, but no cylinders.
He answered every call with the same message: ‘If you have your own cylinder, come get the oxygen. If you do not, we can not help you. ”
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Associated Press journalists Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow and Krutika Pathi in Bengaluru contributed.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Division receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.