India reported the world’s highest daily tally of coronavirus infections for a second day on Friday, surpassing 330,000 new cases, as it struggles with a health system overwhelmed by patients and plagued by accidents.
Deaths in the past 24 hours also jumped to a record 2,263, the health ministry said, while officials across northern and western India, including the capital, New Delhi, warned most hospitals were full and running out of oxygen.
The surge in cases came as a fire in a hospital in a suburb of Mumbai treating COVID-19 patients killed 13 people, the latest accident to hit a facility crowded with virus sufferers.
On Wednesday, 22 patients died at a public hospital in the western state of Maharashtra when their oxygen supply ran out due to a leaking tank, after at least nine had died in a hospital fire last month in the state’s capital of Mumbai.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has been criticised for relaxing virus curbs too quickly, met chief ministers of the worst-affected states.
Later he said the government was making a “continuous effort” to increase oxygen supplies, including steps to divert industrial oxygen.
Modi asked states to work together to meet the needs for medicine and oxygen, and stop hoarding and black marketeering.
“Every state should ensure that no oxygen tanker, whether it is meant for any state, is stopped or gets stranded,” he was quoted as saying in a statement.
Daily infections hit 332,730, up from 314,835 the previous day, when India set a record that surpassed a U.S. figure of 297,430 new cases set in January. The U.S. tally has since fallen.
Delhi reported more than 26,000 new cases and 306 deaths, or about one fatality every five minutes, the fastest since the pandemic began. (Reuters)
