Multiple hospitals in India’s capital run out of oxygen as city struggles with massive coronavirus spike

India is enduring a massive Covid-19 wave, having set a new global record in daily infections. The situation is particularity tense in New Delhi, with hospitals running out of space and supplies to tackle the influx of patients.

Multiple hospitals in New Delhi have run out of oxygen necessary for critical coronavirus patients’ life support, the city's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said in a televised speech on Thursday.

“It might become difficult for hospitals here to save lives,” he stated, adding that some of the neighboring regions had stopped diverting medical supplies to the capital, saving them to meet local needs.

As well as experiencing a lack of oxygen, some hospitals have run out of beds to accommodate coronavirus patients, the director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University, Shahid Jameel, told Reuters.

“Right now there are no beds, no oxygen. Everything else is secondary,” he said. “The infrastructure is crumbling.”

The city is experiencing a particularly large shortage of intensive care unit beds, as it needs some 5,000 more than all of its hospitals can provide, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said.

“We can't call this a comfortable situation,” the minister told reporters.

India reported some 314,835 new cases on Thursday, marking the new global all-time highest daily tally. The new figure surpassed the previous record of some 297,000 infections detected in a single day, set by the US back in January.

India’s tally is rapidly approaching the 16 million mark, with over 180,000 people succumbing to the disease since the beginning of the pandemic. In absolute figures, India remains in second place among the worst-hit nations, with its figures surpassed only by the US’ 31.8 million tally. In per-capita terms, however, the situation in India is not as bad as that comparison would suggest, given its massive population of over 1.3 billion – several times larger than the US’ 330 million.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!