The US and UK yesterday rushed ventilators and vaccine materials to India as the country battles a catastrophic, record-breaking COVID-19 wave that has overwhelmed hospitals and set crematoriums working at full capacity.
A surge in the past few days has seen patients’ families taking to social media to beg for oxygen supplies and locations of available hospital beds, and has forced the capital, New Delhi, to extend a week-long lockdown.
The country of 1.3 billion has become the latest hot spot of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 3 million people, even as richer countries take steps toward normality with quickening innoculation programs.
Photo: Reuters
“He was gasping for air, we removed his face mask and he was crying and saying: ‘Save me, please save me,’” Mohan Sharma, 17, said of his father, who died outside a Delhi hospital.
“But I could do nothing. I just watched him die,” Sharma told reporters.
France, Germany and Canada have also pledged support to India, which has driven increases in global case numbers in the past few days, recording 352,991 new infections and 2,812 deaths yesterday — its highest tolls since the start of the pandemic.
The first of nine airline container-loads of supplies from the UK, including ventilators and oxygen concentrators, is set to arrive in India early today, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, pledging the UK would do “all it can” to help.
The White House said it was making vaccine-production material, therapeutics, tests, ventilators and protective equipment immediately available to India.
However, it did not mention whether it would send any of the 30 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses it holds in surplus, sparking accusations of hoarding.
India’s Hindu-nationalist government is facing growing criticism for allowing mass gatherings across the country in the past few weeks, with millions attending religious festivals and thronging political rallies.
On Sunday, Twitter confirmed that it withheld dozens of tweets — including from opposition lawmakers — critical of the government’s handling of the crisis after a legal demand from New Delhi.
In Iraq, the death toll from a blaze that on Saturday ripped through an intensive care unit for COVID-19 patients rose to at least 82, sparking outrage and the suspension of key health officials over alleged negligence.
Japan’s annual “Golden Week” holiday got under way with new restrictions in Tokyo and Osaka, where shopping malls and department stores were asked to close, and residents urged avoid nonessential travel.
Bars and restaurants selling alcohol have also been asked to shut early during the week — usually Japan’s busiest travel period — which comes just under three months before the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Olympics are due to get under way.
Fiji’s capital, Suva, yesterday entered a 14-day lockdown after detecting the first community transmission cases in 12 months following a funeral.
The tourism-dependent islands have recorded fewer than 100 cases and just two deaths in a population of 930,000, and the moves comes as a huge blow for hopes of opening “travel bubbles” with Australia and New Zealand.
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