Amid oxygen crisis, record single-day rise of 3,46,786 cases pushes India tally to 1,66,10,481
A worker fills medical oxygen cylinders to be transported to hospitals amid the Coronavirus pandemic at a facility on the outskirts of Chennai on Saturday. Pic/AFP
As many as 20 patients died on Friday night and more than 200 lives are currently at stake due to the lack of oxygen at Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital in Rohini, Medical Director DK Baluja informed. Only half-an-hour of oxygen is left, he revealed further. He said that the government had allotted them 3.5 metric tonne of oxygen, which was to be re-filled on Friday. However, that did not happen.
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“Yesterday night [Friday], merely 1,500 litres of oxygen was provided, because of which we were left with no oxygen as it was insufficient and 20 people died,” Baluja said. There are 215 COVID-19 patients admitted in the hospital at the moment. As hospitals in Delhi face an acute shortage of oxygen, the COVID-19 cases are on the rise with 24,331 fresh COVID-19 cases and 348 related deaths.
Hospital stops admission
Amid the acute shortage of medical oxygen, Delhi’s Saroj Hospital on Saturday suspended the admission of new patients. “We are closing the admissions because of an oxygen shortage. We are discharging the patients,” the COVID-19 in-charge of Saroj Hospital said.
The hospital had filed a plea at the Delhi High Court on Friday seeking urgent directions to the Centre and Delhi government to facilitate an urgent critical oxygen supply to it. The plea states that Saroj Super Specialty hospital was recently declared one of the 14 COVID-19 nominated hospitals to provide all the beds for COVID-19 patients in Delhi. As of now, there are 92,029 active COVID-19 cases in the city.
Oxygen crisis kills six
Six patients died at a private hospital in Punjab on Saturday due to the shortage of oxygen. Five of the six patients were infected with COVID-19. “Despite the district administration being repeatedly asked to extend help, no one turned up to do the needful,” Sunil Devgan, the chairman and managing director of Neelkant Hospital, alleged. After the death of patients, merely five oxygen cylinders were supplied to the hospital, he said, claiming that three main oxygen suppliers have said that government hospitals are being prioritised in terms of oxygen supply.
IAF brings oxygen tankers
The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Saturday transported two container trucks of liquid oxygen from Pune to Gujarat’s Jamnagar. IAF has started airlifting big oxygen tankers from their place of use to the filling stations across the country to speed up the distribution of much-needed oxygen. Earlier on Thursday, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) invoked the Disaster Management Act due to a shortage of medical oxygen. In its order, the MHA said no restriction shall be imposed on the movement of medical oxygen between the states. This comes amid oxygen shortage in various parts of the country as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise.
India records 2,624 deaths in a day
A record single-day rise of 3,46,786 cases pushed India’s tally of infection to 1,66,10,481, while active cases crossed the 25-lakh mark, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Saturday. The death toll rose to 1,89,544 with a record 2,624 more fatalities in a day, the data updated at 8 am showed. With a steady increase, active cases in the country reached 25,52,940 and comprise 15.37 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has further dropped to 83.49 per cent. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease rose to 1,38,67,997, while the case fatality rate has dropped to 1.14 per cent.
1,66,10,481
Total number of cases in the country as of Saturday
1,89,544
Total no of deaths due to the virus in India
1,38,67,997
Patients Recovered and discharged in India by Saturday
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