NEW DELHI (AP) – New Delhi imposed a week-long lockdown on Monday evening to prevent the collapse of the Indian capital’s health system, which authorities said had been pushed to the limit amid an explosive rise in cases. of coronavirus.
In scenes known of peaks elsewhere, ambulances catapult from one hospital to another, looking for an empty bed on the weekend, while patients queue outside the medical facilities waiting to be let in. Ambulances also lazed outside the crematoriums with half a dozen dead bodies each.
“People keep arriving, in a near-collapsing situation,” said Dr. Suresh Kumar, head of Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, one of New Delhi’s largest hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
Most are in desperate need of oxygen, Kumar said. But the city is struggling with oxygen and medicine shortages, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who told reporters that the new tough measures being imposed were necessary to “prevent a collapse of the health system,” which “had reached its limit.”
Just months after India thought it had experienced its worst pandemic, the virus is now spreading faster than ever before, said Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who is tracking infections in India.
The wave is devastating for India and has weighed heavily on global efforts to end the pandemic as the country is a major vaccine producer, but has had to postpone the export of shots abroad, hampering campaigns in developing countries in particular.
The increase in the number of cases comes as the global death toll from the coronavirus passed as many as 3 million people on Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the global vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places outside India, such as Brazil and France.
India reported more than 270,000 infections on Monday, the highest daily increase since the start of the pandemic. It has now recorded more than 15 million infections and more than 178,000 deaths. Experts agree that even these numbers are likely to be under numbersBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called off a trip to New Delhi amid the proliferation of cases.
New Delhi, a city of 29 million inhabitants, has less than 100 beds with fans and less than 150 beds for patients in need of critical care. Similar scenes took place in other parts of the vast country. In the Himalayan state of Jammu in northern India, the weekly average of COVID-19 cases has increased fourteen-fold in the past month.
In response, officials have started imposing strict measures again. The Indian capital was closed over the weekend, but now authorities are extending that for a week: all shops and factories will close except those providing essential services such as grocery stories. People are not allowed to leave their homes except for a few reasons, such as seeking medical care. They may also travel to airports or train stations.
They were the toughest measures imposed since India’s hard shutdown last year, which lasted months and left deep marks. Politicians have since been reluctant to even mention the word. When similar measures were imposed in recent days in the state of Mahrashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, officials refused to call it a lockdown. Those restrictions will last for 15 days.
Kejriwal urged calmness, especially among migrant workers who suffered especially during the previous shutdown, saying this would be a “minor lockdown”.
But many feared it would spell economic downfall. Amrit Tripathi, a worker in New Delhi, was one of thousands to walk miles home after India abruptly announced a harsh and nationwide lockdown in 2020. “We will starve,” he said, if the current lockdown is extended.
Doctors and officials say the measures are needed to ease pressure on the fragile health system, which has been underfunded for decades. Failure to prepare for the current wave has caused hospitals in New Delhi and other major cities to collapse under the pressure of increasing infections.
Hussain reported from Srinagar. Associated Press writer Neha Mehrotra contributed to this report.
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