India accounted for nearly half of the COVID-19 cases reported worldwide last week, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), as coronavirus deaths in the country increase by a record 3,780 during the last 24 hours.
The WHO said on Wednesday in its weekly epidemiological report that India accounted for 46% of global cases and 25% of global deaths reported last week.
Daily infections in the country rose by 382,315 on Wednesday, according to data from the health ministry, on the 14th consecutive day of more than 300,000 cases.
The second deadly wave of COVID-19 in India has seen hospitals run out of beds and oxygen and leave morgues and crematoria overflowing. Many people have died in ambulances and car parks waiting for a bed or oxygen.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been widely criticized not to act earlier to suppress the second wave of the virus. Religious festivals and political rallies have attracted tens of thousands of people to popular events.
“We need a government. Desperately. And we don’t have any. We are running out of air. We are dying … “, wrote the Indian author Arundhati Roy in an opinion article published on Tuesday asking that Modi leave the post.
“This is your crisis. You can’t solve it. It can only get worse … So please go. It’s the most responsible thing you do. You have lost the moral right to be our prime minister. “
Two “express oxygen” trains arrived in the capital Delhi on Wednesday carrying liquid oxygen they desperately needed, railway minister Piyush Goyal said on Twitter. So far, more than 25 trains have supplied oxygen to different parts of India.
The Indian government says there is enough oxygen supply, but distribution has been hampered by transportation problems.
A bench of two Delhi High Court judges has held video conferences almost daily to hear requests from hospitals seeking oxygen and invoke India’s constitutional right to protection of life.
The rise in infections in India has coincided with a drastic drop in vaccinations due to supply and delivery problems.
At least three states, including Maharashtra, home to the commercial capital of Mumbai, have reported a shortage of vaccines and have closed some inoculation centers.
India’s opposition has called for a nationwide shutdown, but the government is reluctant to impose a shutdown for fear of economic consequences, although several states have imposed social brakes.
India’s central bank on Wednesday called on banks to let certain borrowers have more time to repay loans as the rise in infections affects a rise in economic recovery.
In the remote state of Mizoram, which borders Myanmar, beds are so scarce at Zoram Medical College, the state’s largest COVID hospital, that all non-COVID patients have been asked, Dr.
Only three out of 14 fans are still available.
“In my opinion, a complete closure is required to control the situation,” he told Reuters news agency in the state capital Aizawl.
Medical experts say the actual number of dead and infected in India could be five to ten times the official total. The country added 10 million cases in just over four months, after taking more than ten months to reach the top 10 million.
Daily tests in India have dropped dramatically to 1.5 million, the state-run Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said on Wednesday. It peaked at 1.95 million on Saturday.
Public health experts believe India will not achieve herd immunity soon, but say hospitalizations and deaths will be significantly reduced over a six- to nine-month period, according to a report published in The Economic Times.
Herd immunity is when a sufficiently high proportion of the population is vaccinated or infected and developed antibodies so that an infected person can theoretically only infect less than one person, stopping the spread of the virus.
Cricket officials on Tuesday suspended the popular Premier League (IPL), which made money, while players tested positive.
India’s cricket board will help move the entire Australian cohort to the Maldives or Sri Lanka in the coming days, Cricket Australia chief Nick Hockley said on Wednesday.
Australia has banned travelers from India who have been in the country for the previous 14 days, but Hockley said players would wait outside India to get approval to return home.
Eight Asian lions at an Indian zoo in the southern city of Hyderabad have contracted the coronavirus, the government said on Tuesday, adding that there was no evidence that the animals could transmit the disease to humans.
