A New Delhi court has said it will start punishing government officials for failing to deliver life-saving oxygen as Indian hospitals continue to struggle to secure steady supplies.
On Sunday, India recorded a slight drop in new infections with 392,488 from a high of 401,993 in the previous 24 hours. It also reported 3,689 additional deaths, bringing the total to 215,542. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The government has been using the railroad, the air force and the navy to rush oxygen tankers to worst-hit areas where overwhelmed hospitals are unable to cope with an unprecedented surge in patients gasping for air.
Twelve Covid-19 patients on high-flow oxygen died on Saturday at a hospital in New Delhi after it ran out of the supply for 80 minutes, said SCL Gupta, director of Batra Hospital.
The Times of India newspaper reported another 16 deaths in two hospitals in southern Andhra Pradesh state, and six in a Gurgaon hospital on the outskirts of New Delhi because of the oxygen shortage.
With the government unable to maintain a steady supply of oxygen, several hospital authorities sought a court intervention in the Indian capital where a lockdown has been extended by a week to contain the wave of infections.
"Water has gone above the head. Enough is Enough," the New Delhi High Court said, adding it would start punishing government officials if supplies of oxygen allocated to hospitals were not delivered.
"We can't have people dying," said Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Patil.
The court said it would start contempt proceedings.
New Delhi recorded 412 deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest since the pandemic started.
The army opened its hospitals to civilians in a desperate bid to control the massive humanitarian crisis. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government also gave emergency financial powers to allow the army to set up new quarantine facilities and hospitals and to buy equipment.
The military also called up 600 doctors who had retired in the past few years. The navy deployed 200 nursing assistants in civilian hospitals, a government statement said.
On Saturday, India said all adults 18 and over could receive shots. Since January, nearly 10% of Indians have received one dose, but only around 1.5% have received both, although the country is one of the world's biggest producers of vaccines.
India has so far given more than 156 million vaccine doses. Some states have already said they do not have enough for everyone, and even the ongoing effort to inoculate people older than 45 is sputtering.
The United States, Britain, Germany and several other nations are rushing therapeutics, rapid virus tests and oxygen to India, along with some materials needed for India to boost its domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here