Delhi extends lockdown as cases jump; India shaken: PM
India’s capital New Delhi extended its lockdown on Sunday and Western nations pledged help as the country’s coronavirus crisis grew with infections and deaths hiting record highs.
COVID-19 has now killed more than three million people worldwide since emerging in China in December 2019.
India has driven increases in global case numbers in recent days, recording 349,691 fresh infections and 2,767 deaths on Sunday — the highest since the start of the pandemic.
Worst hit in the country of 1.3 billion people was the capital New Delhi, with reports of overwhelmed hospitals, severe oxygen and medicine shortages and patients’ families pleading for help on social media.
Also on Sunday, the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) reported 1,813 new coronavirus cases and two deaths. MOHAP noted that an additional 1,652 individuals had fully recovered from COVID-19.
The UAE Ministry of Health also announced that 21,580 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were given in the past 24 hours. The total number of doses provided up to Sunday stands at 10,215,856 with a rate of vaccine distribution of 103.29 doses per 100 people.
“We have decided to extend the lockdown by one week,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said. “The havoc of corona(virus) continues and there is no respite.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a monthly radio address on Sunday that India had been shaken by a “storm” as he called on people to get vaccinated and not “get swayed by any rumour about the vaccines.”
There has been growing criticism of Modi’s government over allegations it was caught underprepared ahead of the surge. On Sunday, Twiter confirmed it withheld dozens of tweets critical of the crisis ater a legal demand from New Delhi.
The Indian Express reported on Sunday that Vinod K. Paul, a member of government advisory body NITI Aayog, warned in a presentation to the prime minister and state leaders on Friday that daily cases could rise to as high as half a million by mid-may.
Some states and territories have imposed curbs on movement and activities, with Indianadministered Kashmir on Saturday announcing a weekend lockdown.
With life-saving oxygen in short supply, family members in India are let on their own to ferry coronavirus patients from hospital to hospital in search of treatment as the country is engulfed in a devastating new surge of infections. Too oten their efforts end in mourning.
The stories are told on social media and in television footage, showing desperate relatives pleading for oxygen outside hospitals or weeping in the street for loved ones who died 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 ater his oxygen tank ran out and no replacements were to be had. She blamed the government for the crisis. “Its leader has lit funeral pyres in every house,’’ she cried in a video shot by India’s weekly magazine The Caravan.
Burial grounds in the capital New Delhi are running out of space. Bright, glowing funeral pyres light up the night sky in other badly hit cities.
Pakistan offered to send essential medical supplies to its neighbour that’s in the grip of a devastating coronavirus surge that has depleted oxygen stocks and other hospital needs.
The United States will “immediately” make supplies of vaccine-production material, as well as therapeutics, tests, ventilators and protective equipment available to India as the South Asian giant faces a Covid-19 surge, the White House said on Sunday.
Western nations including Britain, France and Germany have also pledged help as India’s coronavirus crisis grows, driving increases in global case numbers in recent days even as the number of vaccines administered globally surpasses the one billion mark.
The European Union will provide help to India as it fights record numbers of deaths and cases, the Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen pledges on Sunday.
Italy’s health minister signed an ordinance forbidding entrance into Italy to anyone who has been in India in the last 14 days.
UAE reports 1,813 new cases, 2 deaths; India victims’ mark touches 3,49,691; crematoriums and graveyards overwhelmed; Pak offers help; EU and US rushing medical aid.