As the second country after the US, India has recorded more than five million known coronavirus infections. Calculated in absolute numbers, the known new infections in the country with almost 1.4 billion inhabitants have been increasing faster than anywhere else for weeks.
In the past 24 hours, more than 90,000 new cases were added, and around 600,000 in the past week, as official figures show. Also, unlike in the USA, where most cases are known with 6.6 million, there is no evidence of a flattening of the curve.
Oxygen is running out
Given the rapid spread in India, local media had reported a shortage of medical oxygen for patients in several regions. Some are said to have died as a result. Oxygen manufacturers have quadrupled their production in the past six months – from around 750 tons per day to 3,000 tons, as the Indian manufacturers‘ association for industrial gases told television station CNBC-TV18. Nevertheless, the increased demand could not be met.
In the southern state of Karnataka, doctors had called for a price freeze in the face of rising oxygen prices in order to ensure that patients were treated, as reported by the television station NDTV.
Despite the rapid spread of the pandemic, the government is relaxing the measures and is trying to get the economy going again. Due to what was once a strict lockdown, the country’s economic output plummeted, millions of people lost their jobs, and many were afraid of starvation. The virus has now also reached the countryside, where health care is particularly poor.
