India posts world record COVID cases with oxygen running out | Reuters India |

India recorded the world's highest daily tally of 314,835 COVID-19 infections on Thursday as a second wave of the pandemic raised new fears about the ability of crumbling health services to cope.

Health officials across northern and western India, including the capital, New Delhi, said they were in crisis, with most hospitals full and running out of oxygen.

Some doctors advised patients to stay at home, while a crematorium in the eastern city of Muzaffarpur said it was being overwhelmed with bodies, and grieving families had to wait their turn. A crematorium east of Delhi built funeral pyres in its parking lot.

"Right now there are no beds, no oxygen. Everything else is secondary," said Shahid Jameel, a virologist and director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University.

"The infrastructure is crumbling."

Television showed images of people with empty oxygen cylinders crowding refilling facilities, hoping to save relatives in hospital.

"INDIA WEEPS"

Another 2,104 people died in the space of a day, taking India's cumulative toll to 184,657, according to the health ministry data. The previous record rise in cases was in the United States, which had 297,430 new cases on one day in January, though its infection rate has since fallen sharply.

 

A mass cremation of victims who died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is seen at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India, April 22, 2021. Picture taken with a drone.

MORE INFECTIOUS VARIANTS

New, more infectious variants of the virus, in particular a "double mutant" variant (B.1.617) that originated in India, have helped accelerate the surge, but many also blame the politicians.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government ordered an extensive lockdown in the early stages of the pandemic but has been wary of the economic costs of more tough restrictions.

EXCLUSIVE India to get Russia's Sputnik V vaccine only by end-May

Desperation all across the globe as the rich nations with vaccine supplies attempt to resell their overdosis on the global marketplace ... US - UK - Israel - The Netherlands ...

Massive opportunities with digital media to communicate across the planet ... every day similar to the biblical era of the Tower of Babel ... people talk but don't listen and understand the needs of the other!

'Sapere aude'