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dpa
New Delhi
India on Thursday reported a single-day rise of over 200,000 Covid-19 cases for the first time, putting a severe strain on health care infrastructure as crematoria and graveyards struggled to keep up with the death toll.
India has been the world’s worst-hit country since early April, forcing regional governments to impose a host of restrictions including weekend curfews to control the spread of the virus.
As many as 200,739 fresh cases in the past 24 hours pushed the total caseload to over 14 million, the Health Ministry said. A total of 1,038 deaths were reported, taking the total death count to 173,123.
The national capital New Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai, among the eight regions seeing record daily infection counts, were facing shortages of hospital beds and oxygen supplies. Orders have been issued to convert private hospitals and hotels into Covid-19 facilities.
A local government app that provides Covid-19-related information showed only between one to five intensive care beds available in over 100 of some 125 hospitals in Delhi, which recorded its highest-ever single-day rise of 17,282 infections.
Local television channels showed crowds of suspected Covid-19 patients waiting outside hospitals in Delhi for hours to get admitted.
The health care infrastructure is slowly crumbling in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, where Covid-19 patients huddled in wheelchairs to receive oxygen or take up beds hastily set up in hospital lobbies, reports said.
“The situation is very bad and too grim to describe. Hospitals are running full and we have to return patients, even those who are coming from (neighbouring states of) Uttar Pradesh or Haryana,” an official from a state-run Covid-19 facility in New Delhi told the New Indian Express daily.
“They are travelling quite a distance and those approaching us are mostly critical cases. They have to be put on ventilators or on ICU beds.” As the number of dead rises, crematoria and burial grounds in Delhi and states like Gujarat and Bihar are also seeing long queues and increasing wait times.
Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat, one of the main crematoria in the city, has seen its daily caseload double, while excavators have working at other graveyards amid worries about running out of space.
In Maharashtra, which has seen around 59,000 cases and 278 deaths, authorities have shut restaurants and banned public gatherings of more than five people.
In new stricter curbs in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced a weekend curfew, during which only essential services and activities will be allowed.
Auditoriums, restaurants, malls, gyms and spas will be shut down and movie theatres will be allowed with a third of their capacity on weekdays.
India saw a downward trend in infections from the end of 2020, but the numbers began rising again in mid-February.
India’s total cases are second behind US, while fatalities are the fourth behind US, Brazil and Mexico.
Strains of the virus in India with “double mutations” have been found in patients in 10 states. This could be responsible for rising infections and a faster spread in these states, Health Ministry sources told broadcaster NDTV.
Recent regional elections and festivals including the mammoth month-long Kumbh Mela are expected to accelerate the infection rate further.
New Delhi
India on Thursday reported a single-day rise of over 200,000 Covid-19 cases for the first time, putting a severe strain on health care infrastructure as crematoria and graveyards struggled to keep up with the death toll.
India has been the world’s worst-hit country since early April, forcing regional governments to impose a host of restrictions including weekend curfews to control the spread of the virus.
As many as 200,739 fresh cases in the past 24 hours pushed the total caseload to over 14 million, the Health Ministry said. A total of 1,038 deaths were reported, taking the total death count to 173,123.
The national capital New Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai, among the eight regions seeing record daily infection counts, were facing shortages of hospital beds and oxygen supplies. Orders have been issued to convert private hospitals and hotels into Covid-19 facilities.
A local government app that provides Covid-19-related information showed only between one to five intensive care beds available in over 100 of some 125 hospitals in Delhi, which recorded its highest-ever single-day rise of 17,282 infections.
Local television channels showed crowds of suspected Covid-19 patients waiting outside hospitals in Delhi for hours to get admitted.
The health care infrastructure is slowly crumbling in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, where Covid-19 patients huddled in wheelchairs to receive oxygen or take up beds hastily set up in hospital lobbies, reports said.
“The situation is very bad and too grim to describe. Hospitals are running full and we have to return patients, even those who are coming from (neighbouring states of) Uttar Pradesh or Haryana,” an official from a state-run Covid-19 facility in New Delhi told the New Indian Express daily.
“They are travelling quite a distance and those approaching us are mostly critical cases. They have to be put on ventilators or on ICU beds.” As the number of dead rises, crematoria and burial grounds in Delhi and states like Gujarat and Bihar are also seeing long queues and increasing wait times.
Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat, one of the main crematoria in the city, has seen its daily caseload double, while excavators have working at other graveyards amid worries about running out of space.
In Maharashtra, which has seen around 59,000 cases and 278 deaths, authorities have shut restaurants and banned public gatherings of more than five people.
In new stricter curbs in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced a weekend curfew, during which only essential services and activities will be allowed.
Auditoriums, restaurants, malls, gyms and spas will be shut down and movie theatres will be allowed with a third of their capacity on weekdays.
India saw a downward trend in infections from the end of 2020, but the numbers began rising again in mid-February.
India’s total cases are second behind US, while fatalities are the fourth behind US, Brazil and Mexico.
Strains of the virus in India with “double mutations” have been found in patients in 10 states. This could be responsible for rising infections and a faster spread in these states, Health Ministry sources told broadcaster NDTV.
Recent regional elections and festivals including the mammoth month-long Kumbh Mela are expected to accelerate the infection rate further.
