MYANMAR FOLK DESPERATE FOR OXYGEN
Hundreds queued across Yangon, hoping to refill oxygen cylinders for their sick loved ones
RESIDENTS across Myanmar’s biggest city are defying a military curfew in a desperate search for oxygen to keep their loved ones breathing as a new coronavirus wave crashes over the coup-wracked country.
The spike in cases is the latest blow to Myanmar, already suffering from a February coup and a bloody crackdown on dissent that has killed more than 900 people and gutted the economy.
Hundreds queued across the city as the sun rose on Wednesday in the hope of refilling blue oxygen cylinders to take home to family members stricken with the virus. Some had brought chairs and prepared for a long wait.
For others, it was too late.
“My sister was suffering from Covid-19 for three days,” Than Zaw Win, said as he left one of the queues in the city of some 7 million.
“In the first day, she was dizzy with low (blood) pressure... and she suffered a lot yesterday as she couldn’t breathe well. But while I was queueing to fill oxygen this morning, my niece called me to go back home as my sister had died.”
Authorities logged more than 7,000 new cases on Wednesday, compared with fewer than 50 per day in early May.
Millions in the city and the second city of Mandalay have been ordered to stay home, but the toll continues to rise and volunteer teams are stepping in to remove the bodies of victims from their neighbourhoods.
Ye Kyaw Moe, a sailor, said he slipped out at 3am — half an hour before the lifting of a militaryimposed curfew — to get a place in the oxygen line. But when he arrived at a refill centre here there were already 14 others in front of him.
“I haven’t slept for the whole night. I also had to be careful to avoid the soldiers as we are still under martial law.”
The State Administration Council — as the junta calls itself — said there was no need for alarm.
“Actually we have enough oxygen,” ran the headline in Tuesday’s Global New Light of Myanmar, a state-backed newspaper.
“The people do not need to worry about it so much and should not spread the rumour,” it quoted junta leader Min Aung Hlaing as saying.
But Than Zaw Win disagreed. “She had no other diseases. There is no way my sister would have died if we had enough oxygen,” he said.