Biden offers help in India’s hour of need
PRESIDENT Joe Biden said the US is determined to help India as it grapples with a surge in coronavirus cases.
In a tweet, Mr Biden said: “Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need.”
The president did not offer specifics in the brief message.
But earlier on Sunday the White House said the US is “working around the clock” to immediately deploy to India drug treatments and rapid diagnostic Covid-19 testing kits.
Also coming are ventilators and personal protective equipment, and the US will seek to provide oxygen supplies as well.
The White House says it has identified sources of raw material urgently needed for India’s manufacture of the Covishield vaccine and will make that available.
The US also intends to pay for an expansion of manufacturing capability for the vaccine manufacturer in India, BioE, so it can ramp up and produce at least one billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of 2022.
The annoucement came at the same time it emerged that Indian families are being left to ferry people sick with Covid-19 from hospital to hospital in search of treatment, as the country suffers a surge in infections with oxygen in short supply.
On social media and in television footage, desperate relatives can be seen pleading for oxygen outside hospitals or weeping in the street for loved ones who have died while waiting for treatment.
One woman mourned the death of her younger brother, aged 50.
He was turned away by two hospitals and died waiting to be seen at a third, gasping after his oxygen tank ran out.
And she blamed prime minister
Narendra Modi’s government for the crisis. “He has lit funeral pyres in every house,” she said, in a video shot by The Caravan magazine.
On Sunday, for the fourth straight day, India set a global daily record of new coronavirus infections, spurred by a new variant.
The surge has undermined the government’s premature claims of victory over the pandemic.
The 349,691 new infections brought India’s total to more than 16.9 million, behind only the United States. The health ministry reported another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India’s fatalities to 192,311.
The death toll could be a huge undercount, as suspected cases are not included, and many Covid-19 deaths are being attributed to underlying conditions.
The unfolding crisis is most visceral in India’s overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, and in images of gasping patients dying on their way to hospitals due to a lack of oxygen.