Sword Lake is the most special highlight in the heart of Hanoi TripAdvisor has just announced the award chosen by customers (Travelers’ Choice 2021 – Best of the Best), in which Hanoi and Hoi An are two tourist destinations of Vietnam in the list of 10 famous destinations. can’t miss” in Asia in 2021. The awards announced by TripAdvisor are voted on by millions of website visitors around the world, with categories such as best hotels, favorite destinations, favorite leisure activities. … The reviews are based on TripAdvisor travelers’ votes of places they visited in 2020, as well as places travelers wish to visit when tourism opens. In the list of top 10 Asian destinations in 2021 voted by Tripadvisor, Hanoi is in second place, and Hoi An is in fourth place. At the top of this list is Bali (Indonesia). In the top 10 “can’t-miss” destinations in Asia, there are also Bangkok (Thailand), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Phuket (Thailand), New Delhi (India), Jaipur (India), Kathmandu (India). Nepal), Beijing (China). Hanoi and Hoi An have been repeatedly rated by TripAdvisor as one of the 25 most sought-after destinations by world tourists. Earlier this year, the travel site TripAdvisor also announced a list of the top 10 destinations in the world, in which Hanoi ranked 6th in the category of the most attractive destinations in the world.

Hanoi is ranked 2nd in the list of top 10 “can’t-miss” destinations in Asia in 2021 voted by Tripadvisor. In the list of top 10 Asian destinations in 2021 voted by Tripadvisor, Hanoi capital is in second place, and Hoi An city (Quang Nam) is in fourth place. Bali (Indonesia), in addition to the top 10 “must-miss” destinations in Asia, there are destinations such as Bangkok (Thailand), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Phuket (Thailand), New Delhi (India) India), Jaipur (India), Kathmandu (Nepal), Beijing (China). Hoi An city (Quang Nam) ranks 4th in this list. Previously, the cities of Hanoi and Hoi An were repeatedly rated by TripAdvisor as one of the 25 most sought-after destinations by world tourists. At the beginning of January 2021, the travel site TripAdvisor also announced a list of the top 10 destinations in the world, in which the capital Hanoi ranked 6th in the category “World’s most attractive destination”. Writing about Hanoi, TripAdvisor page describes: “This thousand-year-old city is a harmonious combination of traditional and modern features. Hanoi still preserves and preserves the old quarter and architectural monuments well. dating back to the colonial period, while developing many modern buildings, in addition, this city also has a system of lakes, parks and more than 600 very attractive temples, pagodas and shrines, which can be easily explored by taxi”. The list of top 10 Asian destinations in 2021 has just been announced by Tripadvisor. The awards announced by TripAdvisor are voted on by millions of website visitors around the world with many categories such as: Best hotel, favorite destination, favorite entertainment activity … The reviews are based on TripAdvisor travelers’ votes of the places they visited in 2020, as well as the places travelers wish to visit when tourism opens.

Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app icon. Photo: AFP/VNA MEITy’s new rules require major social media platforms like WhatsApp to “trace” the origin of specific messages sent on the messaging service. However, according to a WhatsApp spokesperson, asking messaging apps to trace chats is equivalent to asking WhatsApp to track every single message sent on the app. This would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally compromise user privacy. The spokesperson stressed that along with civil society and experts around the world, WhatsApp has always opposed requests to violate user privacy, but the application is owned by this social network Facebook. We will also continue to work with the Government of India to find practical solutions to keep everyone safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information WhatsApp makes available. Earlier, the press reported that social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Google and Twitter could face legal action in India if they do not comply with a new regulation by the government to strengthen control. control of intermediary platforms, effective May 26. Failure to comply with the above provisions will result in the social media networks being stripped of their intermediary platform status and immunity and will face criminal action under Indian law. The above regulations also require social media companies to appoint a resident grievance officer, regulatory compliance officer and basic contact person, as well as to disclose detailed information about the company. details of these people on their website, along with physical contact addresses. The regulation also requires traceability of the originator of the message and includes a provision for voluntary verification as a way to establish user identity.

A person with COVID-19 has appeared on the top of the world’s 7th highest mountain Dhaulagiri. Photo: Nepal Travel Guide According to Sputnik, in the past two days alone, at least 19 people have been evacuated from the main stop on the top of Dhaulagiri after some showed signs of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. After testing, 7 of the evacuated climbers tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Mr. Mingma Sherpa – Chairman of Dhaulagri Seven Summits travel agency confirmed the latest developments. Located in western Nepal, Dhaulagiri is the 7th highest mountain in the world. The second wave of COVID-19 is causing extremely heavy damage to India and neighboring South Asian countries. Nepal – a country with a population of 30 million people similar to the Indian capital New Delhi – has begun to record more than 2,000 new infections a day. In April, a Norwegian climber was the first to test positive for COVID-19 after being taken from the Everest base station to a hospital in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, for testing. The climber said he had symptoms similar to high-altitude pulmonary edema, which is common among people 2,500 meters above sea level. To date, Mount Everest has seen at least 30 climbers infected with COVID-19. Despite consistently recording COVID-19 cases on top of the world’s highest mountain, Nepal remains open to expeditions to balance its economy hit by the pandemic. The Ministry of Tourism of Nepal has issued permits for 377 climbers to climb Mount Everest. After detecting positive cases of COVID-19 at the Everest and Dhaulagiri rest stops, the Nepalese military began to conduct tests on the remaining climbers. Meanwhile, on the other side of the mountain range, China suspended tours to explore Everest before the pandemic.

Even more sad is that those endless tragedies still have no end. These stories will appear more and more, as the Covid-19 pandemic begins to spread from big cities to rural India, where the health system is much worse than the urban areas. The picture is full of contrasts The Indian capital New Delhi recorded nearly 12,500 new Covid-19 cases on May 12 – just half of the number recorded here on April 30. Another somewhat positive sign is that the positive rate of tests has dropped to 19%, from a peak of 36% a few weeks earlier. A farmers market in Mumbai on May 11. Photo: Reuters. A similar positive situation is recorded in Mumbai – India’s most populous city. The positive rate of the test here dropped to 7%, below the 10% recommended by WHO. That partly shows that the two largest cities of India are gradually controlling the epidemic. However, if looking at the whole picture, the picture of the Covid-19 pandemic does not seem to have too many bright spots. Dark spots are appearing more and more, especially in rural India. This leads to a conundrum: If New Delhi, which has good health infrastructure and many good hospitals, struggles to contain the pandemic, how can rural areas where the system much weaker health care – can withstand the wave of epidemics. And the answer came pretty quickly. When the source of oxygen is exhausted On May 11, Sri Venkateswara Ramnarain Ruia Hospital in Andhra Pradesh state ran out of oxygen supply, while more than 60 patients were in critical condition. 11 patients later died. In anger, relatives of these people stormed into the intensive care unit, knocking over tables and chairs and smashing equipment. Television images showed several people clutching their heads in grief, while doctors and nurses fled for fear of assault. A Covid-19 patient is being cared for at a public hospital in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Photo: Reuters. Andhra Pradesh, like many other southern states, is facing severe oxygen shortages. Statistics of an Indian newspaper show that oxygen depletion has taken place in 20 hospitals, leading to the deaths of more than 200 patients. In the past, the southern states of India have agreed to share oxygen with each other. Now, some states want to end the cooperation. The southern state of Tamil Nadu refused to share oxygen with the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, where the tragedy took place that left 11 people dead. The state of Kerala also refused to share oxygen because of the state’s high demand for oxygen, as the test positive rate in the state increased to 27% from 8% in early April. “Many people have died without treatment,” commented Rijo M. John, a health economist in Kerala. Behind the bodies in the river People in Bihar, a northern Indian state, could not help but be shocked when they discovered dozens of bodies, suspected of being Covid-19 victims, washed up on the banks of the Ganges River on May 10. “I have never seen so many corpses,” said Arun Kumar Srivastava, a local doctor. He also said that “there will certainly be more deaths”, as many people carry bodies on their shoulders. A family member of a Covid-19 patient is grieving after hearing the news of a loved one’s death. Photo: Reuters. Officials said the bodies were dropped by ambulance drivers from a bridge, and denied that the bodies were floated by relatives due to lack of burial conditions. Krishna Dutt Mishra, an ambulance driver in Bihar, said that many people had to drop the bodies of loved ones in the river because the cremation price was too high. According to him, during the second Covid-19 wave, the price of cremation has increased from 2,000 rupees (about 27 USD) to 15,000 rupees (200 USD). This is a huge sum of money for many Indian families, and as a result, cremating a loved one becomes an impossibility for them. “I drove all the way from Buxar to Chausa. I’ve never seen dead bodies in the river, let alone seen dozens, or hundreds of bodies,” Mr. Mishra said. Bringing the ashes of unclaimed Covid-19 victims to the Ganges River Indian volunteers collect ashes from crematoriums to organize funerals for Covid-19 victims in Haridwar city.

The banks of the Ganges River in the city of Garhmukteshwar, Uttar Pradesh state (India’s most populous state) became a place to cremate the bodies of people who died of COVID-19. Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES The epidemic is spreading rapidly to the countryside After four consecutive days of recording the number of infections above 400,000 / day, the last two days the number of daily infections in India has fallen below this level. Many government health officials and experts predict this second wave of epidemics in India will peak around the end of this week. However, it seems that the epidemic crisis in India is moving to a more dangerous new phase. The danger is that the virus is now spreading rapidly to rural areas, according to the CIDRAP Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In the article in the newspaper New York Times Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman, head of this newspaper’s office in the capital New Delhi, also said that the infection and death from COVID-19 that broke out in big cities a few weeks ago is now spreading very quickly to rural areas. village. New Delhi recorded nearly 12,500 infections on May 11, less than half of the number recorded on April 30. Hospitals in New Delhi are now accepting patients again, after having to stop accepting them because of overcrowding last month, leaving infected people to die on the streets. Mumbai also recorded the same. The danger is that the number of infections in New Delhi and Mumbai will probably stop increasing and decrease gradually, but in many other places will increase. In other words, the situation of New Delhi a few weeks ago now extends to almost the entire country. Some of the worst-affected states are in the south, especially Karnataka. I cannot imagine what would happen in rural India. Expert RIJO M. JOHN worried about the prospect of the COVID-19 epidemic overflowing into the countryside How will it be? This fact raises a terrifying question: If New Delhi, a rich metropolis with dozens of hospitals, is unable to handle the current wave of high cases, what will happen once this wave spreads to the country? poor rural areas? The answer seems to be gradually becoming clear. On the evening of May 10, a leading hospital in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh ran out of medical oxygen. More than 60 critically ill patients wear breathing tubes but no oxygen. The doctors worked frantically, but 11 patients did not survive that night. In a distraught over the loss of a loved one, family members stormed into the hospital and smashed it. Doctors and nurses had to flee until the police arrived. It can be clearly seen that the hospital overload, lack of oxygen, medicine … very serious even in large urban areas will be more alarming in rural states, according to the radio. CNN . Chogath farming village in the western state of Gujarat has a population of 7,400, but there are 500-600 infections, the number of people who have not survived is very high because the whole village does not have a doctor. Nearby towns have several medical centers, but these small facilities have run out of beds and medical facilities. Dinesh Makwana drove his father, who was severely infected with COVID-19, through four medical centers in neighboring towns, but had to return home, because these centers had run out of beds. Usually about 30 people die in this village every year, but in the past month alone, villagers have had to cremate 90 bodies, according to Mr. Girjashankar. Many families have lost a lot of loved ones to COVID-19. Girjashankar, 70, still volunteered to go up the hill to cut firewood to help cremate the dead. Many southern states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu have made it clear that they will not share the medical oxygen they have with each other, having to keep it to serve hospitals that are overloaded because the number of patients is growing too fast in their states. Medical aid goods from other countries have started pouring into India since the end of April, but it is still not enough compared to the reality of the shortage in this country. Currently, in addition to urban areas suffering from severe epidemics, Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s government also spends some oxygen and medicine to urgently distribute to the states. However, with this little common ground, remote and isolated localities such as Chogath village (Gujarat state) still have to rely on their own strength.• Drop the body Ganges River because there is no money for cremation Newspaper Indian Express On May 10, Indians discovered more than 40 bodies washed up on the banks of the Ganges River near Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states in the north. Some news channels say that the number of bodies floating in the Ganges must be in the hundreds. In India, there is a custom that when a family member dies, the relatives will tie a stone to the body and drop it into the Ganges River – a sacred river for Hindus. However, many officials and locals believe that these bodies are those who died from COVID-19. Many bodies were partially burned and locals explained that the bodies were not cremated or cremated incompletely due to a severe shortage of firewood. Another reason families choose to drop their loved ones’ bodies in the river is because they can’t stand the cost of cremation, many health workers told the newspaper. New York Times . Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are two of India’s poorest states and are home to about 370 million people. Doctors warn people not to use cow dung on their bodies in the belief that it will help their immune systems deal with the virus or help them recover faster if they get sick. Hindus believe cows are a symbol of life and cow dung or cow urine is therapeutic. However, according to doctors, not only is there no scientific evidence that this can defeat COVID-19 but can also bring many other disease risks.

Cementerio de la Almudena, Madrid, Spain: About 5 million people are buried in Madrid’s Cementerio de la Almudena cemetery. In aerial photographs, the site looks like a maze of intricate marble tombstones arranged in concentric circles. Image: Songquan Deng. Yan’an elevated road intersection, Shanghai, China: The Yan’an Overhead Road Interchange is one of the most impressive intersections in China. The paths intertwine, forming a knot in the center. This highway appeared briefly in the movie Skyfall 2012 by James Bond. Image: Dnevozhai. Taj Mahal, Agra, India: The Taj Mahal is one of the world famous landmarks of India. The aerial photograph offers a perspective that shows the near-perfect symmetry of the monument, from the domes and spiers to the majestic gates. Image: Uladzik Kryhin. Galesnjak, Croatia: Its impressive shape has earned Galesnjak the nickname “Lover’s Island”. With ancient grave mounds and olive trees, the small island, measuring only 50 square meters, was famous about a decade ago when its unique shape was pointed out by Google Earth. Image: Shutterstock. Road to Tianmen Mountain, China: The route through Tianmen Mountain is like a piece of silk squeezed between the green mountains. The zigzag road has a total of 99 bends 11 km long, once published in Dangerous Road Known as the most dangerous road in the world. Image: WeStudio. Lotus Temple, New Delhi, India: The Lotus Temple in New Delhi looks impressive from any angle. Built in the 1980s, the sacred Baháʼí building is designed to look like a lotus flower. Around the temple are 9 lakes with the number 9 being the “perfect” number in Baháʼí beliefs. Image: Vibgyor Studios . Palmanova, Italy: The star-shaped city of Palmanova was built in the 16th century. This design embodies the Renaissance ideal of what a perfect city should be: clean geometry and surrounded by multiple walls. The city was fortified, able to prevent attacks from the Ottomans. Napoleon finally conquered Palmanova in the late 1700s. Photo: Maykova Galina. Pentagon, Virginia, USA: The Pentagon was built in the classical style and spread over an area of ​​​​more than 11 hectares. Initially, in the 1940s, the building was planned to be located on a land with 5 sides facing the road, then the work was built elsewhere but the architects kept the pentagonal design. . Image: gokturk_06. Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE: No list of stunning aerial views would be complete without Dubai’s palm tree archipelago. This man-made archipelago is home to super luxury hotels and luxury villas. The palm tree design gives the building a spectacular look when viewed from above. Image: Andrew Ring.

At the cremation site, where the fire was only temporarily extinguished late at night, loved ones had to wait for hours to say goodbye. The cremation scene was photographed, filmed, even broadcast live on social networks. These images will be sent to relatives in quarantine across India. They even appear on entire world news and newspapers, bringing India’s tragedy to a global audience. Fire ceremony participants must wear masks and protective gear. Photo: The New York Times. From the rooftops, local residents took pictures of the fire to show the world why they had to wear masks even indoors. Smoke and a strong smell of death, enveloping narrow alleys all day, even crept through closed windows, according to The New York Times. The cremation flame is a testament to the devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic on India. Exhausted from cremation The Covid-19 virus spread too quickly in India. The country continuously records more than 400,000 new cases every day. Nowhere in the country is beyond the devastating “tsunami”. Every day about 300 official deaths are recorded in New Delhi. However, this number is not believed to reflect the reality. “Before the pandemic, I received six to eight bodies a day,” said Jitender Singh Shunty, founder of a volunteer cremation organization Seemapuri, east of New Delhi. Now, every day I have to hold a cremation ceremony for about 100 bodies. Through his organization Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal, Mr. Shunty has provided free or low-cost cremation services to the poor for 25 years. As demand skyrocketed, Mr. Shunty’s full-time workforce encountered numerous difficulties. They had to build dozens of new crematoriums in the adjacent field. Mr. Shunty’s cremation center received 100 bodies a day. Photo: The New York Times. Mr. Shunty’s daily job is to help move bodies and arrange the location of his cremation. During a pandemic, he had to change his protective shirt, mask and gloves dozens of times a day. At night, he slept in his car because his wife and two sons had Covid-19. Crematorial staff are receiving special care in the hospital. “Our team is about 16 people. We are working day and night, ”he said. “It is only 8 am, but I have received 22 phone calls to confirm the body.” According to Hindu tradition, cremation is a frequently used method. They believe that cremation disrupts the association of the soul with the physical body. The eldest son will lead the funeral delegation and relatives will carry the body onto the funeral pyre. A Hindu monk, also known as pandit, will recite his last prayers before the fire is lit. The ash of the deceased will be scattered in the Ganges or another sacred river. Mourners will gather at the deceased person’s home to commemorate and conduct prayer rituals. Families usually collect the ash immediately to avoid confusion. Unclaimed ashes, Mr. Shunty said, are held for up to two months, after which they are scattered into the Ganges River. Separate birth and death In addition, the pandemic also deprives the deceased’s final rites and deprives relatives of their private space. Traditionally, relatives will gather to share the pain of loss. Now, the fear of infection keeps most loved ones away. Even many bodies were cremated with no one nearby. “My family members can’t even see those last moments,” said Mittain Panani, a 46-year-old businessman. Mr. Panani and his brother are the only two people who directly attended their father’s cremation in Mumbai. His mother is still hospitalized with Covid-19. “Even if you have money, power, influence, you can’t do anything in that moment. I feel really powerless, ”he said sadly. Relatives brought the body of Covid-19 patient to the cremation area. Photo: The New York Times. “Flames were rising from the funeral pyre, relatives wearing masks and protective clothing. The scene is like the end of the world, ”said Dimple Kharbanda, a film producer who returned to New Delhi to attend the cremation ceremony of his late father. She had to beg relatives, including aunts in the neighboring state, not to come to Delhi because of the risk of infection. “When someone in India dies, we get together and talk about them, their lives, their habits and the good things. However, at this point, we can’t even do that, ”said Poonam Sikri, Ms. Kharbanda’s biological aunt. “When I watched his cremation (Miss Kharbanda’s father) on the phone, it felt like I had lost a part of my body. I want to stroke his hair, rub his face and hug him one last time. But I can’t do it ”. For the families of Covid-19 victims, the cremation site is the final stop of a series of difficult trials. It ended a series of days dragging patients from hospital to hospital in search of a bed and struggling in line for oxygen. Last stop Before Darwan Singh’s body was taken to Seemapuri, his family did everything they could to save the 56-year-old breadwinner. His fever did not go away while the oxygen level in his blood dropped to a dangerously low level of 42%. For two days, his family could not find a hospital bed or an oxygen tank. His nephew, Kuldeep Rawat, said he was given oxygen for an hour before the hospital supplies ran out. The family brought Mr. Singh home at night. The next day, they had to wait another five hours in the parking lot of another hospital. Mr. Rawat said the family had to pay a bribe of about $ 70 to get a free bed in a public hospital. Unfortunately, Mr. Singh died overnight. According to Hindu tradition, cremation is believed to break the connection of the soul with the physical body. Photo: New York Times. With the Seemapuri cremation center overloaded, the hospital was unable to immediately hand over the body. On April 25, his body and five other people were taken to the cremation site. Mr. Rawat said he had to get in an ambulance to confirm his uncle’s identity. The family then took him inside the crematorium and had to wait 5 hours before it was his turn to bring his uncle to the pyre. Even the last stop also cost them a relatively large amount: 25 USD for the prayer meeting, 34 USD for wood, 14 USD for the pandit priest and 5 USD for the protective suit. Mr. Singh’s family could not even come to the funeral. Both his mother, wife, daughter and son were infected with Covid-19. Mr. Rawat feared that he would also be infected during the period of sending his uncle to the emergency room. “They have a hard time understanding what’s going on.” For the families living around the crematorium, the fire that burns all night and day is a constant reminder of Covid-19’s death that awaits them. In the Sunlight Colony, where shabby houses and flats lie with Seemapuri, smoke is so much that many people are forced to wear masks while indoors. Children are rinsed with hot water before going to bed and laundry is dried in the room. People living near cremators must wear masks even when indoors. Photo: The New York Times. Waseem Qureishi, a resident right next to the Seemapuri crematorium, said: “My kitchen is upstairs but I really can’t stand it inside. If the wind is headed towards my house, the situation is even worse. Anuj Bhansal, an ambulance driver who lives near the Ghazipur crematorium, also in eastern New Delhi, says he is very worried about his four children. He said every time the cremated body number reached 100 people, children in the neighborhood would run up a nearby garbage hill to see. “When the children watched the fire and smoke coming from the cremation site, they asked why it did not go out,” Mr Bhansal said sadly. “They have a hard time understanding what’s going on.” The chaplain’s account of the funeral for 150 Covid-19 patients before cremation Every day, Hindu cleric RamKaran Mishra performs a funeral for about 150 people who have died from Covid-19 at the Ghazipur crematory facility east of New Delhi, India.

Many states in southern India are warning to stop sharing medical oxygen with each other, protecting all that is available as their hospitals increasingly “swell” because of the increased number of COVID-19 cases. leap. At an Andhra Pradesh hospital, the family of COVID-19 patients went into a rage when the hospital treating their loved ones suddenly had their oxygen supply interrupted. These are the best evidences of the recurring tragedy in India itself. Despair that enveloped New Delhi – the capital of India, over the past few weeks has now spread across the country. Rural areas with poor health infrastructure are slowly feeling the devastation caused by the COVID-19 tsunami. According to the New York Times , it seems that the COVID-19 crisis in India is entering a new phase. Workers deliver oxygen tanks to a hospital in the states of Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo: AP) The number of COVID-19 cases in New Delhi and Mumbai is slowing down. But elsewhere are now really taking the COVID-19 blow. People questioned New Delhi, home to many of India’s top hospitals and packed with the country’s elite that can’t even handle the massive surge in cases, what will happen in the regions. poor countryside. On the night of May 10, a government hospital in Andhra Pradesh fell into a state of oxygen depletion. Doctors frantically call the providers to ask for help. But when the source could not be found, 11 patients died. The families of the patients, after learning of the news, entered the intensive care unit, screaming and smashing the equipment. TV images show the women holding their heads in despair. Doctors and nurses had to flee and wait for the police to arrive. Despite the aid of other countries, India still has a serious shortage of medical oxygen. More than 20 hospitals were depleted of oxygen, nearly 200 patients died from lack of oxygen. Vaccine campaign is being accelerated, but supply is not enough demand. Many vaccination sites in the states have run out of vaccines and people are still unable to schedule vaccinations. When the COVID-19 tsunami shows no signs of cooling down, the wave of criticism against Prime Minister Narendra Modi has intensified. Many people thought that he declared the victory of the epidemic too soon, causing the country to fall off guard. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remains India’s most powerful political organization by far. But the solid wall the party has maintained over the years is showing some cracks. When the second wave of COVID-19s began to strike India, the country almost split into two extremes. New Delhi, Mumbai – the two largest cities in India warned that the number of new infections increased continuously with the infection rate up to 36%. In rural areas, the epidemic has also spread but has not yet strongly exploded, leaving many people leisurely. Currently, the situation in New Delhi and Mumbai is improving. On May 11, New Delhi reported 12,481 new infections, half the number of cases recorded on April 30. The positive rate for COVID-19 decreased to 19%. A mass cremation site on the banks of the Ganges River in Allahabad city, Uttar Pradesh. (Image: Getty Images) In Mumbai, the commercial capital of India, the incidence of infection decreased from 25% to 7%. People began to believe that the epidemic was about to end – something they didn’t dare to think about a few weeks ago. Last month, many hospitals in New Delhi were closed due to lack of oxygen. People are not allowed to be hospitalized to die right in front of the emergency room, in front of the hospital gate, or even on the street. When the situation was less stressful, these hospitals accepted the patients again. At the beginning of April, the infection rate in many rural India was only one digit. But now, this number is skyrocketing. “It’s hard to imagine what’s going on in the rural areas, where infection rates rose from 8% in early April to almost 27% on May 11. “, Professor Rijo M John went to the Indian Institute of Management in Kerala state. According to Mr. John, rural India does not carry out testing much and many patients may be dying because they do not receive treatment. On May 11, Modi’s government dispatched an “oxygen express train” to bring liquid oxygen to COVID-19 hotspots in the southern region. But states need more than that. A few weeks ago, several southern Indian states agreed to share oxygen supplies with each other. This week, some started mentioning ceasing to cooperate. The state government of Kerala says it cannot supply oxygen to neighboring states as it needs to retain the entire supply for the state’s growing demand. Tamil Nadu also made a similar statement, claiming he could not be shared with his poorer neighbor, Andhra Pradesh. Earlier this week in the village of Chausa, Bihar state, people panicked when they found dozens of bodies floating mysteriously on the banks of the Ganges River. No one knows who these people are or how their bodies got there. Even on the evening of May 10, images of decomposing bodies in colorful, bulging and floating bodies floating on the river shook the Indian media. Suspected bodies of COVID-19 have been washed ashore in the Ganges river in the past few days. (Photo: PTI) About 30 bodies have been found, most likely, of patients with COVID-19, officials say. Meanwhile local people said they saw about 100 bodies. “I’ve never seen so many bodies,” Arun Kumar Srivastava, a doctor in Chausa said. When the uneasiness of the villagers of Chausa had not passed, their neighbor witnessed the same scene. Villagers in Gahmar village, Uttar Pradesh state found more than 50 bodies of patients with COVID-19 washed up on the banks of the Ganges River as they passed their villages. Krishna Dutt Mishra, an ambulance driver in Chausa, said many poor people were throwing their loved ones into the river when the cremation price increased from $ 27 (more than 600,000 dong) to 200 dollars (more than 4.6 million dong). At many cremation sites, staff in some places charge five or even 10 times more than the usual price. For many families, this is too much for them.

The morgue and crematorium are operating at full capacity, but still not enough to meet demand when the epidemic storm swept the country. Air fares and demand for private jets abroad have skyrocketed in India over the past few days. Photo: Reuters On April 26, the Worldometers page reported that the number of new infections in India in the past 24 hours reached 354,531 people, the 5th consecutive day setting a world record for the number of cases per day. The total number of deaths due to the epidemic is currently 195,116, an increase of 2,806 from a day earlier. In New Delhi alone, it is estimated that one person per 4 minutes from the virus dies. Many countries vowed to impose travel restrictions on tourists from India. Negative developments have caused wealthy people in the world’s second-most populous country to rush to find a way to catch the last flight or take a private jet to leave the country, before “banning” orders. effective. According to Gulf News, one of their favorite destinations is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is only a short distance from India and often has hundreds of flights to and from each day. The UAE has announced a ban on visitors originating from India for 10 days from April 25. The price list listed on the websites shows that the fare for one-way commercial flights from Mumbai to Dubai on April 23-24 is about 80,000 rupees (over $ 1,000), 10 times more than normal . Fares for the New Delhi – Dubai route are more than 50,000 rupees (approximately 700 USD), 5 times more than a week ago. The Economic Times newspaper on April 23 quoted a spokesperson for the Indian aircraft rental service company, revealed that the need to rent a private jet was “terribly escalating”. Only on April 24, the company has 12 flights to Dubai and all flights are full. Another private jet carrier, Enthral Aviation, said the company was also overwhelmed by hundreds of bookings in recent days. That forced the airline to hire more planes from abroad to meet demand. The cost of renting a 13-seater aircraft from Mumbai to Dubai is US $ 38,000 and a 6-seater aircraft for the same itinerary is US $ 31,000. To save money, some people team up to rent planes together. Enthral Aviation also received a few requests to Thailand, but the most booked destination is still Dubai. According to the Sunday Times, at least eight private jets from India arrived in the UK on April 24 before London imposed a ban on entry to the South Asian country. The day before, fares for one-way commercial flights from Mumbai or New Delhi to the UK capital were around 100,000 – 150,000 rupees ($ 1,337 to 2,007), double the normal price, but also ran out of space. . Seats on commercial flights from India to the US over the weekend are still available, but prices are generally double as usual.

For many consecutive days, the world media has been flooded with heartbreaking information and images from today’s most devastating pandemic hotspot. Many patients in India die while waiting for their beds, oxygen supplies depleted in hospitals leading to tragic deaths beyond imagination. “India experienced its worst day because of Covid-19” became the headline used by many newspapers day in and day out. Photo: Reuters. After surpassing the US daily record for the first time on April 22, with 315,000 new cases, India has continuously set new records in the past few days. Photo: Reuters. India is suffering from the darkest chapter of the pandemic. Bodies were piled up in crematoria. Many cremation facilities operate non-stop, staff here say they get almost no rest. Photo: Reuters. In Hinduism, cremation is traditionally the most important part of funeral rites as these religious believers believe that the body must be cremated in order for the soul to transcend. Photo: Reuters. On April 29, the country recorded 379,257 new cases of Covid-19 and 3,645 people died from the pandemic. To date, the number of Covid-19 cases in India has reached 18.38 million, of which 204,832 died, according to the Ministry of Health of India. In the capital New Delhi, 27 temporary crematoriums were built at the Sarai Kale Khan crematorium. Dozens of other rigs are being added in a nearby park. Officials are also looking for more space near the city’s Yamuna River, according to the Guardian. Trees in the park were cut down to make a pyre. Photo: Reuters. Experts fear the actual number of cases in India could be up to 30 times higher, which is more than half a billion cases, according to CNN. The country’s daily death toll is expected to continue to rise through mid-May, according to predictive models from the University of Washington Medical Metrology and Evaluation Institute in the United States. The death toll could reach more than 13,000 a day, more than four times the current daily death toll, according to projections. Photo: Reuters. Jitender Singh Shanty is doing more than 100 cremations a day at a crematory in east New Delhi. “If more bodies are received, we will cremate the streets. There are no more vacancies here, ”said Shanty. Photo: Reuters. An employee in protective clothing is digging a grave to bury the victim of Covid-19’s death in Gauhati, India. Photo: AP. In city cemeteries such as New Delhi, which records the highest number of illnesses each day, ambulances line up waiting for the body to be cremated. The burial place was slowly shrinking in the cities, the flames burning through the night. Photo: Getty. India’s “fall” is believed to have stemmed from many causes such as lack of preparation, neglect of epidemic prevention, lack of medical equipment, and a rapidly spreading new strain. Photo: Reuters. “No New Delhi has ever seen such a scene. The bodies of 5-year-old children, 15-year-olds, and 25-year-old youth were burned. Even newlyweds are the same. It’s heartbreaking, ”Jitender Singh Shunty, a nonprofit medical provider, told Reuters. In the photo is a mass cremation of the victims of Covid-19 death that took place at a site in New Delhi, India on April 22. Photo: Reuters. Crowds of people also play a huge role in the spread of the virus in India. Blockade and quarantine restrictions are believed to have been lifted too soon in the world’s second most populous country. Residents are allowed to organize major parades. Hindu festivals attract tens of millions of pilgrims. These people often gather in cramped locations without protection. Pictured is the scene of Indians dancing during the Holi Spring Festival in Prayagraj city, Uttar Pradesh state on March 29. Photo: AP. Millions of voters still vote in the final stages of elections in West Bengal state, despite the record-rising deaths and infections caused by Covid-19. In the photo is the scene of people waiting in line to vote at the polls on April 29. Photo: AFP. Countries have already begun to take measures to help India. The White House on April 28 said it would provide $ 100 million in aid to India, including 1,000 medical oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and one million Covid-19 rapid test kits. The US is lifting a ban on sending raw materials abroad, enabling India to produce more AstraZeneca vaccines. Photo: AP. The 105-year-old man ‘defeated’ Covid-19 in India Dhenu Umaji Chavan (105) and his wife (95) contracted Covid-19 in March. Both were discharged earlier this month after being treated at a hospital in Maharashtra state.

The body of the patient Covid-19 is piled up in a crematory in New Delhi, where every four minutes, someone dies from a pandemic. Someone brought the body and left it. At the Ghazipur village crematory in eastern New Delhi, bodies were brought, one after the other. The amount of bodies was so great that ambulances and trucks transporting the dead blocked an entire road, Guardian described on April 30. Before the pandemic happened, in Ghazipur crematory staff’s memory, there was only one time that it was filled with space in a day. But now, sometime early in the morning, this place has received 150 bodies, while the maximum capacity is 38 bodies. Crematorial staff have to expand the scope of operations to parking lots but also cannot meet all demand. In the Indian capital, the second wave of Covid-19 infections is still raging with no sign of slowing down. On April 30, Delhi recorded a record number of 395 deaths and 24,235 new infections. Across India, the total number of new infections during the day was unprecedentedly high with 386,693 cases. Someone brought the body and left it Cremators in India are rushing to increase their capacity to handle 1,000 cremations a day. It is at these cremations that the destruction of Covid-19 in Delhi is being most evident. In 30 years of helping cremate the dead, Sunil Kumar Sharma, head of the Ghazipur village crematorium, said she had never thought of such a scene. “Too many people died. I have a feeling if this situation continues, there will be no one in Delhi, ”Sharma said. Normally, the body of a Covid-19 patient must be handled according to a rigorous procedure. But according to Sharma, corpses from hospitals are often not covered with protective cloths, putting cremators at risk of exposure. Some families even try to hide the death of a loved one from Covid-19. “The situation here is terrible and terrible,” said Mr. Sharma. “We have to work 20 hours a day, very tiring. My spirit seemed to have broken at the surroundings. Now there are people who bring the body and leave it, so we have to perform the ceremony to save some face for the deceased. According to the Hindu and Sikh beliefs of the Indians, a person cannot enter the door of heaven if their body is cremated without the watcher’s presence and keeping the fire on the pyre. Every day, Sharma’s crematorium consumes 60 tons of wood. “Every night, I worry about how to dispose of the body delivered tomorrow,” Mr. Sharma said. “What if it is beyond our capabilities?”. Suffering covers everywhere With thousands of recently cremated bodies, the air around Ghazipur crematorium was thick black smoke. Scattered around the ash-gray crematoriums left the day before were some offerings: mangoes, pomegranates, and orange flowers. On a nearby ambulance, a woman in a dark green sari was mumbling her prayers. In the car with her was the body of her husband, who had just died that morning because of Covid-19. The widow tried to place a red handshake on her husband’s body but was gently pushed away by a man in a protective suit to transport the body. The air around Ghazipur crematorium was thick black smoke from thousands of recent cremations. Photo: Shutterstock. Another man, Ajay Gupta, cried bitterly while the body of his brother, Ram, was placed on the crematorium. Just last week, Ram received treatment from the hospital for breathing problems. Ram’s illness had been in remission at first. I can even video call you from the hospital bed. But when the hospital ran out of oxygen, Ram did not survive. “Just a few days ago the nurse told us he would be fine,” Gupta said. Gupta is also a victim of the emerging black market in Delhi. It sells oxygen and drugs like Remdesivir to desperate families like Gupta at exorbitant prices. According to Gupta, after listening to the doctor, he used the last coin to buy Remdesivir for his brother at the black market for 630,000 rupees (about 8,500 USD), 10 times higher than normal. However, the effectiveness of Remdesivir Covid-19 is still questionable. “I felt like everything had collapsed,” Gupta said. Relatives wearing medical protective clothing deliver the body of a patient recently lost from Covid-19 in the crematory village of Ghazipur, east of Delhi. Photo: Shutterstock. Krishnan Pal, 48, who sells snacks in Delhi, is also one of those who died after repeatedly being rejected by the hospital due to overload. Pal cousin Kai Charan Kashap said they knocked on the doors of every hospital in Delhi but were unable to find an empty bed. After that, Pal was transported by his family to Agra, a city in the adjacent state of Uttar Pradesh. The hospital here still has empty beds but there is no oxygen left. In the end, Pal died on his way to Bareilly, a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh. “People are dying in the middle of the street because they can’t breathe,” said Kashap in a choked sob while waiting for his brother’s body to be transported from the morgue. Vaccine is seen as the way out of the crisis Many believe that the vaccine is the only long-term way to help India get out of the corona virus crisis. But on April 30, authorities in some parts of Delhi said plans to vaccinate people aged 18 and over had been delayed indefinitely due to lack of supply. The announcement comes just a day before the expanded immunization program is scheduled to be rolled out in Indian courts. Shortages such as in the capital Delhi are also common across this South Asian country. An immunization center in Mumbai posted “no vaccinations for the next three days” on April 30. Photo: Reuters. Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal said authorities would inject the vaccine “as soon as possible”. But some private clinics in Delhi said the vaccine is not expected to arrive for at least another month or even two. During that time, the crematory and cemetery in Delhi will continue to suffer the deadly pressure that engulfs the city every day. At the Ghazipur crematory, after sunset, all crematoriums will be lit up at the same time. Flames flared in the screams of heat and pain. Tomb diggers work non-stop in India Tomb diggers work 24 hours a day to bury those who have died from Covid-19. Their shift did not stop amid the second wave of Covid-19 in India.

From England, more than 8,000 km away from home and 5 time zones, Anuja Vakil struggled for 12 days to manage and care for his father who was in critical condition. Mr. Jatin Bhagat is fighting Covid-19 at a hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat state, in western India. Ms. Vakil felt that her father was very lucky because he was finally hospitalized for treatment. The number of new infections and deaths caused by Covid-19 in India has increased continuously, making the overseas Indian community extremely concerned about their loved ones. Photo: Reuters. Before that, Vakil had to call everywhere to find a bed for special care for his father. Followed by the defiant costs, only hoping to get the therapeutic injection. Finally there were countless hours of phone calls with doctors, family and friends to resolve procedural issues. “I pray for my father every day,” Ms. Vakil said. The helplessness is halfway around the world India is currently in the serious Covid-19 crisis, the number of new infections daily for nearly two weeks has been continuously over 300,000, even up to 400,000 today. This number is expected to continue to increase, along with the common pain and anxiety of the Indian community around the world. According to UN figures in 2020, about 17 million Indians are far from home, and millions more have relatives in India. Accordingly, overseas Indians are considered the largest overseas community in the world. In the latest census in America, the country has about 4.8 million people of Indian descent. From afar, they watched in horror as their homeland was devastated by disease every day, heavier than any other country since the attack of Covid-19. For many people, their pain is accompanied by the greatest fear of their hearts: being unable to be around, not being able to help loved ones in times of need most. Anuja Vakil, who lives in England, has had to scurry to take care of her critical father a hospital bed in her hometown in India. Photo: New York Times. Indians all over the world are working diligently to find ways to help sick loved ones back home. Many people and organizations even collect money to buy oxygen generators, connect those who need care with their doctors, and use social media to share resources. Aid from the overseas Indian community is starting to arrive in India, with government aid from the UK, the US, Germany, Australia, among other countries. However, the return to relatives is very difficult. Ms. Vakil tries to focus on these positives. She said the Indians in her neighborhood in London were very enthusiastic to help. Some of her friends in New York also had relatives sick. She and they both try to revive the spirit of the family by daily video calling. Father Vakil couldn’t speak because he had to breathe, but he always nodded in response when she spoke. She could see the small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes every time she tried to make him laugh. Though he wanted to go home to take care of his father directly instead of talking on the screen, Vakil seemed unable to. “My sister told me to go home, but she didn’t understand it was very difficult,” Vakil said. The Indian community lives in large numbers in Southall, England. Photo: New York Times. India was added to Britain’s “red list” last week. This means that nearly all direct flights from the UK to India are suspended. Some people returning to the UK from India are subject to compulsory quarantine for 10 days at the expense of expensive hotels. On May 1, the US said it would begin to restrict movement to India. Travel restrictions, high costs, work obligations and the fear of getting a virus have left many people unable to return. As Covid-19 infections continued to rise, many people reported painful conversations with friends and family at home. They were helpless as they watched the horrors unfold in their homeland halfway around the world. “Every time I call back, someone dies” Jyoti Minocha, a writer and teacher living in Fairfax, Virginia, USA, is concerned about her mother and sister in New Delhi. She lost a cousin. Currently, she calls every day to find out about the situation of her relatives. “The street is as quiet as a ghost, my sister said. The only sound one can hear is the ambulance siren, ”Ms. Minocha said. “I talk to my mother almost every day,” said Ansh Sachdeva, 23, a student at the University of Bolton in northwest England. But every time I call back, I hear that someone dies, someone is infected ”. The Indian member of a Sikh church in Southall, London, provided thousands of meals a week to the community during the outbreak in England. Photo: New York Times. Sachdeva says in the New Delhi neighborhood where his family lives, not a single family is without sick people. He returned to India in November 2020 to help look after his parents and grandparents. Then they became infected. Now, I worry they will re-infect. More worryingly, travel restrictions could prevent him from returning if that happens. In January, Sachdeva’s mother also expressed concern when he returned to England. At that time, the country was experiencing the second wave of Covid-19. “For them then, the Covid-19 in India had ended.” But not! Many Indians abroad anxiously watch over their homeland as the government allows sports competitions in crowded stadiums, crowded election campaigns, and the attractive Kumbh Mela festival. millions of people participate. Following the brief joy after defeating the first wave of Covid-19, the number of infections began to increase exponentially. In England, the Indian community seems to be able to feel the pain of the people. In a residential store in Harrow – a community in northwest London inhabited by native Indians, two employees painfully recounted they had just lost loved ones last week. Harmeet Gill, 31, was born and raised in London, but had a paternal background in the northern Indian state of Punjab, also experiencing the same pain. His family is still extremely close and regularly in contact with relatives in India. “It was a double blow. We went through the Covid-19 crisis here, and we thought ‘Well, at least India is protected’. They are very anti-epidemic, ”said Gill. Harmeet Gill had a few relatives who died in his hometown because of Covid-19. Photo: New York Times. Then a little while later, bad news came. On April 26, his uncle in India passed away because of Covid-19. His aunt was hospitalized on April 29. Shortly before the second outbreak, his whole family had to return to India to mourn an uncle, the head of the family. “It is impotence. It shouldn’t have happened this way, ”he said. Gill, a volunteer at a Sikh temple in London, commented: “The terrifying scale of the pandemic shows that we have been paralyzed by it.” The temple was a center of aid during the UK’s plague, offering thousands of meals a week. Now, members at the temple are now looking for ways to help their homeland. Indian doctors living abroad also provide medical expertise and advice to dozens of friends and family members. Many people wake up early to respond to text messages asking for help, and some even call video counseling. The chaplain’s account of the funeral for 150 Covid-19 patients before cremation Every day, Hindu cleric RamKaran Mishra performs a funeral for about 150 people who have died from Covid-19 at the Ghazipur crematory facility east of New Delhi, India.

Rajni Gill woke up with a mild fever in mid-April, the first sign that she had Covid-19. Within a few days, she had difficulty breathing and was nearly unconscious at the hospital. Desperate to be unable to arrange for Gill’s plasma treatment, her sister posted a plea on social media: “I am looking for a plasma donor for the sister who is hospitalized in Noida. She is blood type B and 43 years old “. Fortunately, the message quickly spread on Twitter and appeared on the phone of Mr. Srinivas BV, an opposition politician in nearby Delhi. He claimed to be a voluntary blood donor and went to help this Covid-19 patient. Internet cries for help spread “like wildfire” India’s health care system has been on the brink of collapse as the country records a record increase every day. Desperate, relatives and friends of the infected people have to send messages for help on social networks. Thousands of people are dying from Covid-19 in India every day. Photo: New York Times. Some people need medical oxygen, which is almost impossible to find in the capital, Delhi. Others are on the hunt for high-priced drugs on the black market, or extremely scarce ventilators. And many of those pleas received a response. The prayers for help reached all walks of life in India, from engineers, lawyers, NGO workers, workers, politicians, doctors and even tuk drivers- tuk. Online networks to help victims of Covid-19 are formed in many of the most remote places. Mr. Srinivas, 38 years old, who donated blood to patient Covid-19 in this story is also among these. As chairman of the youth union of the opposition Indian Congress Party, in early 2020, when the first pandemic struck and India had to blockade, Mr. Srinivas summoned the young volunteers. All over the country distributes food to trapped migrants along with more than 10 million masks. Srinivas said calls for help on social media began to spread “like wildfire”. So he created the hashtag #SOSIYC so that everyone could connect with his Indian Youth Congress. How online networks work India’s online help networks rely on tools and algorithms commonly used in social media marketing. Families of victims will tag with large followers to amplify their message. Meanwhile, volunteer organizers use keywords to filter requests. Abhishek Murarka, who works in finance in Mumbai, decided he needed to do more than share his Twitter posts. He began searching for “verified”, “confirmed” and “available” on Twitter to follow potential supporters like Mr. Srinivas’s team. He posted an 84-second video explaining his tricks so others can use. Hundreds of miles away, 20-year-old Praveen Mishra studied Murarka’s way and applied his own filters to search for hospital beds, oxygen and medicine. He was able to give a special medicine to a patient in Delhi after confirming that it was available in Hyderabad. Some people are even exploiting resources around the world. Nikhil Jois and his team checked and contacted charities providing oxygen, food and tampons. He shortened the list to just over a dozen organizations, then asked companies in India to stick the list on their apps or websites so that Indians could easily access it. help. “The best part of social media is that you trust strangers,” said Jois. Nikhil Jois checked aid organizations and called for donations to victims of Covid-19. Photo: Nikhil Jois. Social media is the only way to seek help However, putting your trust in social media isn’t always a good idea. Several well-known accounts offer shoddy or exorbitant prices to desperate patients. Even joking and deceiving vulnerable people can cause many conflicts of hatred. But with India in crisis and moving not a safe option, social media is the only way for some people to seek help. Aditya Jain, who lives in the capital Delhi, recently issued a call on Twitter. He felt helpless because his aunt and uncle, who lived about 200 km away in Agra, were struggling over a blockade. His aunt has spinal disease, and his uncle, a diabetic, is on dialysis every week. Unable to go out, they only ate one meal a day. They are unable to take care of themselves and cannot even bathe themselves. Through LinkedIn, he found an organization that caters to seniors and filled out a form, providing their names and locations. The next morning, the volunteers showed up in front of his aunt’s house with breakfast and adult diapers. “Social media is like a gift from heaven to us,” said Jain emotionally. But not everyone is as lucky as Jain and Miss Gill. Mr. Srinivas said his organization receives at least 10,000 messages on Twitter every day. However, for every 100 requests, he can usually only help from 30 to 40 people due to lack of manpower and material resources. A volunteer teaches a family member how to use an oxygen tank. Photo: Srinivas BV Ms. Mahua Ray Chaudhuri used to “frantically” tag Mr. Srinivas while searching for oxygen for her ailing father. His team found some, but that was not enough: There were no more ICU beds for patients in the hospital. “At least I could find oxygen for my dad, and he didn’t die of suffocation,” Ms. Chaudhuri said. “This help from these strangers on Twitter is like a relief to our pandemic mind and soul.” The chaplain’s account of the funeral for 150 Covid-19 patients before cremation Every day, Hindu cleric RamKaran Mishra performs a funeral for about 150 people who have died from Covid-19 at the Ghazipur crematory facility east of New Delhi, India.

Last week, India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan affirmed that the Covid-19 death rate in this country is “at the lowest in the world”. The statement of the head of the medical industry is in stark contrast to the series of shocking images and stories of cremations burned day and night due to overloaded bodies, patients dying on the road due to lack of breathing. gas, according Guardian . Question of concealing data of the dead? Official records of the Indian authorities show that the number of people infected and fatal has increased continuously. On May 1, the South Asian country experienced another record-breaking day with 401,993 new cases and 3,523 deaths from Covid-19. But health experts have the same view that the official number does not fully reflect the size of the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 in India. At this time, because medical facilities are overloaded and lack medical supplies, many patients cannot be hospitalized and die at home, even without adequate testing. Meanwhile, the local authorities were accused of not making accurate statistics, even hiding the actual death toll in the area where they were responsible. Relatives stand by when the dead body is cremated. Photo: Reuters. In the past month, in the city of Karnataka, Bangalore – where the number of infections has been among the fastest growing in the country – the number of corpses registered for cremation with Covid-19 is twice as high as the number of deaths recorded by the authorities. The information concealment charge is particularly notable in Uttar Pradesh, where the state government is governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party. Adityanath, governor of Uttar Pradesh, insisted that the state had no shortage of oxygen, and threatened to prosecute anyone who spread panic information. Authorities Uttar Pradesh denied allegations of information hiding. The truss burned day and night In the Muzaffarnagar city of Uttar Pradesh state, data are available from the weekly newspaper Observer The collection revealed the discrepancy between the local authorities’ death statistics and the number of bodies cremated at city cremation facilities and cemeteries. Official data recorded only 10 deaths from Covid-19 in the last four days of April. But according to Ajay Kumar Agarwal, owner of a city cremation facility, that is only an odd number compared to the bodies burned. burned at this facility every day. “Normally we cremate 3 bodies per day. But in the past 10 days, the number of cremated bodies has increased many times. There are days 18, some days 20, then 22 and 25. In the past 10 days, not yet.” we have less than 12 bodies every day, 90% of which are corona deaths, “said Agarwal. Mr. Agarwal’s cremation facility only had seven crematoriums, so the staff had to cremate the body on the ground. Some of the bodies were sent to another facility 35 kilometers from the city. The pyre burned day and night in India. Photo: Reuters. Mr. Agarwal accused local authorities of publishing “inaccurate” data, denying the possibility that the city has experienced no days, or that only one or two people died of Covid-19 in the past week. . “The authorities have not released the exact death figures. I don’t understand why they are hiding it. Maybe they don’t want people to panic,” Agarwal said. Similar comments were made by Sanjay Mittal, an employee at another cremation facility in Muzaffarnagar. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. We set the crematorium on fire from dawn to dusk,” Mittal said. Before the pandemic, Mittal’s cremation facility handled about 5 bodies a day. But on April 27, they received 21 bodies. On April 28, the number of bodies decreased to 15, before once again increasing to 19 on April 29. “It is noon now, and we have already got 12 bodies. I don’t know how much more will it be by the end of the day,” Mittal said on April 30. The number of bodies taken for burial has also increased sharply in the Muslim cemetery in Muzaffarnagar. “Before the corona virus, we buried 2-3 bodies a week, but now it is 6-7 bodies a day. Only three of them come from the hospital, the rest are either dead at home or not tested,” Mr. Abdul Quadir, curator, said. Government data show that Muzaffarnagar has a very low rate of testing. On April 27, the whole city did not conduct tests. On April 29, only 561 people were tested, all positive for corona virus. The actual number of deaths could be 3 times higher An unnamed doctor from the Medical Association in Uttar Pradesh state said that many people die from pneumonia, pulmonary fibrosis – typical symptoms of severe form Covid-19. “We have to accept that the death toll from corona virus is much higher than the official statistics. The bodies we see at the crematorium are mostly self-medicating at home, and they die.” The number of deaths like this is very high, but most of them have not been recorded. The rate of testing here is much lower than the need, “the doctor said. Murad Banaji, the mathematician who modeled the plague in India, said the numerous streams of evidence suggest that the understatement of deaths from disease is a serious problem. This expert believes that the number of deaths in India is at least 3 times higher than the official statistics. The conclusion is based on calculations from major cities like Mumbai, where during the first outbreak of the epidemic he calculated the number of “excess deaths” compared to the annual number of deaths. Mass cremation area in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters. This calculation could put the number of Covid-19 deaths in Mumbai from 13,000 to about 21,000. Banaji stressed that in less developed rural areas, such as in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with limited medical facilities, Covid-19 deaths are not recorded “perhaps much larger than in cities like Mumbai “. The consequences of inaccurate statistics on the number of deaths can be very serious. It will affect the effective allocation of resources, limiting the ability to develop a suitable immunization strategy to help prevent future outbreaks. “If we don’t have data to understand what’s going on in the current pandemic, how can India prepare for the future?” Mr. Banaji said. The chaplain’s account of the funeral for 150 Covid-19 patients before cremation Every day, Hindu cleric RamKaran Mishra performs a funeral for about 150 people who have died from Covid-19 at the Ghazipur crematory facility east of New Delhi, India.

COVID-19 patients must share a bed at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, New Delhi, India. Photo: Reuters Are there oxygen scarcity in hospitals? The current emergency scarcity is not because India has run out of oxygen. The main problem is that the oxygen does not get to the hospital in time. The delay was due to the very remote location of the oxygen production facilities, the large redistribution network and partly due to the government’s “bad scheme”. Over the course of the past week, several hospitals in the capital New Delhi, which are incapable of meeting a large demand for oxygen, have called for an urgent supply of oxygen. However, at the same time, the epidemic situation in the neighboring New Delhi states such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana was also very bad, the number of hospitalized patients was overloaded, making factories have to give priority to meeting demand. local bridge. Therefore, hospitals in the capital have to order factories further from the industrial zones in the east of India. Why is the oxygen delivery delayed? Industrial oxygen production plants that serve the Indian capital are located in seven different states. Some factories are more than 1,000 kilometers from New Delhi. A vehicle transports oxygen outside an oxygen plant in Ghaziabad, a suburb of New Delhi, India. Photo: Reuters Due to the flammable nature of this material, all shipments of liquefied oxygen must be transported in special storage tanks, with detailed transportation plans to ensure timely deliveries, the source bear the name said. Over the past few days, as the interstate medical oxygen scramble in India worsens, some local authorities have disrupted the oxygen delivery to meet their local needs. before. As a result, Delhi received only 177 tons of pure oxygen on April 21, instead of 378 tons as allocated. However, some local sources said that hospitals in New Delhi have ordered without including the time to transport oxygen across many states by land. “It won’t happen if states plan and order two to three weeks earlier,” the source said. The Delhi government also did not respond to the plan to buy oxygen. Does India have enough oxygen production capacity? Medical personnel check oxygen tanks at a temporary quarantine facility in New Delhi. Photo: Bloomberg India’s daily production capacity can amount to at least 7,100 tons of oxygen, including for industrial purposes. This is enough to meet current demand. This week, the Government of India has decided to allocate 6,822 tons of liquid oxygen per day to the 20 states most affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. This is larger than the total demand of the localities with 6,785 tons, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Office said. On April 12, the amount of oxygen required by the health sector was only about 3,842 tons, just over half of the allotted oxygen, when the cases had not yet risen sharply. According to the Office of the Prime Minister of India, the oxygen capacity of India has increased by 3,300 tons in just a few days thanks to the shift of production of steel mills and industrial units to the medical sector. What will India do to deal with the oxygen crisis? Relatives funnel a victim who died of COVID-19 in a cemetery in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters. The government has mobilized Indian cargo ships to transport oxygen tanks from the factory to locations in most urgent need. In partnership with industrial gas corporation Linde India (LIND.NS) and many other companies, India is also using Air Force cargo jets to deliver empty tanks to production plants. Then, these tanks are refilled again and returned by road. In addition, the Indian armed forces are importing 23 mobile oxygen production machines from Germany to prepare for a worse situation. Many other industries are also reported to be supporting pure oxygen in hospitals. India’s multidisciplinary Tata group has imported 24 specialized containers for the transportation of liquid oxygen. An employee dismantles the oxygen tank from the car down to feed it into an oxygen pump plant. Photo: Reuters The government also issued an order to convert argon and nitrogen storage tanks for medical oxygen transportation. However, experts predict that India will face an increasing trend of daily cases in the next few weeks. Therefore, the country will have to increase production and distribution of these special types of medical supplies in the coming days.

A continuous red-fire manual cremation in India. Photo: Reuters For the fourth day in a row, on April 25, India set a global record for the number of new infections, stemming from a new virus variant sweeping, overwhelming every effort by the populous nation. world number 2. According to AP, the report of the Indian Ministry of Health on April 25 recorded 349,691 new cases, bringing the total number of cases in this country to over 16.9 million cases, the second most in the world after the US. In addition, there were 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing the number of COVID-19 deaths in India to 192,311. Experts say that the actual death toll could be much greater, since it does not include suspected cases, and many deaths from COVID-19 are attributed to underlying medical conditions. . The Indian crisis is most evident in cemeteries, cremations and cremations, or in heartbreaking images of a series of suffocating patients on their way to a hospital due to lack of oxygen. India set a world record for the fourth consecutive day with the number of new infections reaching nearly 350,000 people. Photo: Reuters Cremation sites in the Indian capital New Delhi are running out of space and fiery cremation rigs lit up all night in other heavily affected cities. In the city center of Bhopal, a number of cremators have increased their capacity from a few dozen bodies to over 50 a day. However, bodies awaiting cremation still have to wait. At the city’s Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematorium, workers said they cremated more than 110 people on April 24, although figures from the city government of 1.8 million people only report the total number of deaths. because COVID-19 that day was 10 people. Mamtesh Sharma, a location official, said: “The virus is devouring the people of our city like a monster.” Watch the video of the painful scene of disinfection and cremation of the body of the COVID-19 victim in India (Source: Sky news) The massive influx of bodies has forced cremators to skip all the personal rituals and rituals that Hindus believe will help liberate souls. “We burned the bodies as soon as we arrived,” said Mr. Sharma. It was as if we were in the middle of a war. A monk rushed out of the cremation area of ​​COVID-19’s body after the ceremony. Photo: Getty Images Cremation of the body of COVID-19 victim with firewood in New Delhi on April 24. Photo: Reuters A grave digger at the largest Muslim cemetery in New Delhi, where 1,000 people have been buried during the pandemic, said more bodies are now being moved than last year and that the site will soon run out of space. The situation is equally dire at hospitals that are already packed with patients. People desperately wait in line to die, sometimes they stop breathing in the outer streets while waiting to see a doctor. Indian health officials are currently looking to expand intensive care areas and increase oxygen supplies. Patient COVID-19 was taken to a hospital in New Delhi. Photo: AFP A manual cremation ground for victims of COVID-19 in New Delhi. Photo: Getty Images Hospitals and patient families themselves struggle to procure the scarce medical equipment that is being sold at exponentially increasing prices. The crisis contradicted the government’s statement that “no one in the country will be left without oxygen,” in an April 24 statement by Indian Attorney General Tushar Mehta before the Supreme Court of Delhi. The crisis of the new COVID-19 wave is a huge failure for a country that only in January, Prime Minister Modi declared victory over the epidemic and is proud to be the “pharmacy of the world” – home global vaccine production, which is a model for other developing countries. Off guard against the spike in infections, the federal government has asked industrialists to increase production of oxygen and other drugs that are in short supply. However, health experts say India has a whole year to prepare, but they have not. People wait in line to pump more oxygen into the tank, to save patient COVID-19. Photo: DailyMail Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina (USA), said the Indian government had “reacted very passively to this situation instead of actively”. Ms. Kuppalli said that the government should be using 2020, when the virus is better controlled, to prepare plans to tackle in the event of an outbreak, while at the same time “stockpiling drugs and developing relationships. Public-private partnerships to support the production of essential resources in the event of such a situation ”. “Most importantly, they should look at what’s going on in other parts of the world and understand that the possibility of India in a similar situation is only a matter of time,” said Ms. Kuppalli. Associate Professor Kuppalli called the Indian government’s early statements on pandemic victory a “mistake”, as it encouraged people to relax prevention measures when they should have continued to adhere to it. strict spacing, wear masks and avoid crowds. People waiting to be vaccinated against COVID in Mumbai, India Photo: AP Containers of oxygen were transported on board, delivered to India. Photo: Reuters Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing criticism for allowing Hindu festivals and massive election rallies, which experts suspect has contributed to the speed of the spread. of the virus. In such an election rally just two weeks ago, Modi could barely hide his joy when declaring to supporters in the state of West Bengal: “I have never seen such a large crowd.” . At that time, SARS-CoV-2 had begun to strike again and experts warned that a fatal increase was inevitable. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on April 25 that the US was “deeply concerned” about a serious COVID-19 outbreak in India. “We are working around the clock to deploy more supplies and support to our friends and partners in India as they bravely fight this pandemic,” said Mr. Sullivan on Twitter. Neighboring Pakistan also expressed support for people in India. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it offered to provide relief assistance including breathing apparatus, oxygen supply unit, digital X-ray machine, personal protective equipment (PPE) and related items.

The relative of a Covid-19 patient died in a collapse in a graveyard in Jammu, India. Photo: AP Pictures spread dizzying on social networks and television showed relatives of patients desperately asking for oxygen outside hospitals, or crying on the streets because a loved one with Covid-19 died while waiting. treated. ABC News cites a woman who fell in love with her brother’s death at the age of 50 after being rejected by two hospitals and died of oxygen without a replacement vessel. The woman mourns the death of a member of her family from Covid-19 outside a crematory in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters India has just set a global record for the fifth consecutive day of new infections, mainly due to a new variant of SARS ‑ CoV ‑ 2. The shock wave denied any early claims about the pandemic victory that the officials of this country had made. According to Worldometers website, the number of corona virus infections in India in the past 24 hours was 354,531 people, bringing the total number of cases nationwide to more than 17.3 million. The number of deaths due to the epidemic rose to 195,116, an increase of 2,806 from a day earlier. The number of deaths can be very large, as the above statistics do not include suspected fatal cases. Medical staff taking care of a Covid-19 patient in Virar, near Mumbai. Photo: AP The current health crisis in India is most evident in overcrowded graveyards and crematoria, and in images of patients dying on the road from lack of oxygen. Burial sites in the capital New Delhi are full. The crematoriums in many cities burned nonstop day and night. In the central city of Bhopal, some crematoriums have to increase their capacity, but the list of corpses waiting for is growing longer. At the Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematory in a city of 1.8 million people, workers said they cremated more than 110 people on April 24. A Covid-19 patient cremation ground in New Delhi. Photo: AP “The virus is devouring the people of our city like a monster” – ABC News quoted an official named Mamtesh Sharma with sorrow. The influx of bodies brought in has caused cremators to bypass procedures and rituals for Hindu devotees. “We just cremated the bodies, as if we were in a war,” said Mr. Sharma. And in New Delhi’s largest Muslim cemetery, the body was so overfilled that the curator’s manager, Mohammad Shameem, was concerned that “we would run out of burial sites soon.” A Covid-19 patient cremation ground in New Delhi. Photo: AP The situation in hospitals was no less grim. The patients were so desperate to wait for treatment that they were lying on the street, looking forward to seeing a doctor. Indian health officials are trying to expand emergency spots and provide more oxygen but supplies are running out, while they are struggling to buy already scarce medical equipment. What’s happening in India right now is a huge setback for a country, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi just declared a pandemic victory in January, and is proud to be “the pharmacy of the world.” world “, the global producer of the vaccine, and is seen as a model for other developing countries in the prevention of Covid-19. People wait for the Covid-19 vaccine in Mumbai. Photo: AP Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina, said the Indian government should have used the past year, when the disease was well controlled, to store medicine and developing systems to cope with the risk of a new pandemic. “Most importantly they should observe what is going on in many other parts of the world and understand that it is only a matter of time before they fall into a similar situation,” Kuppalli said. Instead, the Indian government’s early victory statements encouraged people to relax while they should have continued to strictly adhere to anti-epidemic measures such as wearing masks and not crowding. Thanh Hao

Meanwhile, health officials are looking to increase special-care beds and oxygen reserves. Not only relatives of patients, but also hospitals find all kinds of ways to buy medical equipment, even on the black market. Social media sites and television news are filled with images of relatives of Covid-19 patients struggling to find oxygen sources outside hospitals or crying on the streets when their loved ones die. while waiting for treatment. Family members mourning when patient Covid-19’s death is taken to the crematorium in Jammu, India. Photo: AP “It’s like we’re in the middle of a war.” Video recorded by The Caravan Magazine shows a woman crying after the death of her 50-year-old brother. This man was rejected by 2 hospitals [do đã quá tải và không còn chỗ] and died waiting to be taken to the 3rd hospital. The patient’s oxygen tank was exhausted and had no reserves. April 25 is the fourth consecutive day that India has broken a global record for the number of Covid-19 cases recorded per day, mainly due to a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As of the morning of April 26, India recorded 17,306,300 cases of Covid-19, of which 195,116 died and is currently the second largest epidemic area in the world, after the United States. Besides the heartbreaking image of exhausted patients on the way to the hospital due to lack of oxygen is a terrible picture in cemeteries and crematoria. The funeral homes in New Delhi are full of seats. The fire that cremated the victim of Covid-19 turned red in the night sky in the most affected cities. In the central Indian city of Bhopal, some funeral homes have increased their capacity to more than 50 crematoriums, but many bodies still have to wait hours and hours for their turn. Social networking sites and television news were filled with images of families crying when their loved ones died. Photo: AP At the Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat city crematory, workers said that on April 24 alone, they cremated more than 110 people. “The virus is devouring the people of our city like a monster. We cremated the bodies as soon as they arrived. It was as if we were in the middle of a war, ”said Mamtesh Sharma, a Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat city official. Refugees in the largest Muslim cemetery in New Delhi, where 1,000 people are buried during the Covid-19 pandemic, say more people have been brought there than last year. “I’m afraid we will run out of space very quickly,” said Mohammad Shameem. Crisis has been predicted The federal government has demanded that the industry increase oxygen production and other medications are scarce. Health experts say India had a year to prepare for this inevitable scenario, but they did not. Dr Krutika Kuppalli, an assistant professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of South Carolina Medical, said that the Indian government should have taken advantage of 2020, when the epidemic was still under control, to anticipate storage of medicines and the development of new wave risk coping systems. The source of medical oxygen in India is running out. Photo: AP Instead, early declarations of victory over the Covid-19 pandemic left citizens letting go of precaution at a time when they should have continued to practice social distance, wear masks and avoid them. crowded people. Indian officials are facing criticism for allowing Hindu festivals as well as large-scale election campaigns to be held while experts have warned such activities will cause translation. The disease spreads rapidly. “They should have looked at what was happening in some parts of the world and understood that sooner or later they would be in a similar situation,” said Kuppalli. Currently, countries around the world are actively sending aid to India to help this country cope with the “Covid-19 tsunami”. The US says it will soon send stockpiling oxygen, test kits, medications, personal protective equipment and raw materials to India for the Covid-19 vaccine production. He also decided to send to India the necessary medical supplies and equipment, along with 600 ventilators and mobile oxygen generators. The first shipment departed from the UK on April 25 and will arrive in India on April 27.

But all hospitals are full. “We couldn’t find a hospital bed for him, but I couldn’t take him home, after all, under this condition”, Naharshetivar responded to local television, wearing a towel instead of a mask. They drove industriously for 24 hours. “He’s running out of oxygen.” He looked at his father. After 24 hours driving his father from hospital to hospital, Naharshetivar didn’t know how much longer he could do this. He looked urgently into the camera camera of the TV station and pleaded: “If I can’t give my father a hospital bed, is there a doctor that only needs to give him a shot? Can you help my father die painlessly?” People cremate those who have died because of COVID-19. (Photo: Getty) More than 1,200 kilometers away from the capital New Delhi, many COVID-19 patients die on stretchers outside the hospital overnight. Relatives tried to bring them in but could not make it in time. In Western Gujarat, a man cried painfully next to the body of his family – a cancer patient had just been tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and died in a parking lot when the hospital was overloaded. Some people argue and blame each other. Horrifying scenes are unfolding in hospitals and clinics across India. The country’s health system struggled as the number of COVID-19 cases skyrocketed. On April 22, India confirmed nearly 315,000 new infections in 24 hours – the highest number of cases per day in the world. In the following days, the record constantly being “shattered” in the epidemic is like a “tsunami” that can make anyone unlucky to fall. The disruption of the medical system brings with it fears that law and order will also wobble: oxygen trucks must move under police protection to deal with looting. The black market for selling medical equipment is “vibrant”. Vaccine theft was stolen from a hospital warehouse in Haryana but returned it with an apology. Police say the thief may have been planning to steal anti-virus drugs – drugs are also in serious shortage in this country. Some Indians have a self-sufficient inventory of oxygen at home, thinking that even trying to go to the hospital won’t do any good. Social media is full of desperate calls for help from bed seekers, oxygen, antivirals, vaccines. One longtime journalist even tweeted directly about his oxygen depletion levels until his death. The body of a person who died from COVID-19 was taken to the cremation site. (Photo: Getty) “I’ve never felt so hopeless or helpless”, Dr. Trupti Gilada said on Facebook. She cries while squatting in her car outside the Mumbai hospital, where she works. “We are seeing young people as well. We have a 35-year-old on mechanical ventilation. Please pray for our patients.” Vertical chart On the charts, the sudden increase in the number of cases in India is almost erect, rather than an ascending curve. This bewildered development hit the heads of Indians not long after their cases plunged to a record low in February. Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, epidemiologist and public health specialist working on a technical team that advises the Indian government on COVID-19, said: “Here many people, from the general public to the policymakers, are convinced that India will not have a second wave. Unfortunately, they have let their guard down. It is clear that society is open – tourism. , local elections, religious gatherings, weddings – have led to super contagious events. And the emergence of variations has also certainly increased this pace. “ The number of daily COVID-19 cases in India, the chart starts to “climb up” from mid-March 2021. (Source: Times of India) Last month, the Indian Ministry of Health announced it had detected 771 variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the country, including a “collection” of variants identified first in the UK, South. African and Brazilian, as well as the new variant is called “double mutation”. In that variant, Indian scientists say they are working on two mutations that could increase the virus’s infectivity and help it avoid vaccines. Fears are heightened when Indian media reported fully vaccinated people who are still ill, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 88. He was hospitalized for COVID-19 almost three weeks after a second dose of vaccine on April 3. As of April 20, his condition had stabilized. However, experts say concerns about the reduced efficacy of the vaccine have yet to be scientifically proven. It is not clear how sick people were, or what of the hundreds of SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating throughout India. The country’s Ministry of Health said it has so far distributed 132 million doses of vaccine to a population of nearly 1.4 billion people. That means less than 10% of India’s population has received one dose and less than 2% have received 2 doses. On April 20, the Indian government released data showing that only 0.03% or 0.04% of fully vaccinated people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. India has been using two vaccines with high efficacy rates in clinical trials: Oxford – AstraZeneca and another produced by Indian company Bharat Biotech. Cruel record Bodies were piled up in the morgue. The crematorium is not running at full capacity. According to official data, the number of new cases in India on April 25 increased by 352,991. However, this may not be the complete number, according to NPR . The number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in India also broke the record, 2,104 people on April 22, and 2,812 people on April 25, not to mention many deaths outside the hospital and not being tested. “The second wave of COVID-19 comes like a storm”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. The Indian government announced it would extend the vaccination population from May 1 to anyone over 18 years old. But in early April, hundreds of clinics across the country ran out of vaccines. Many people who came to the appointment saw signs posted at the hospital gates indicating the vaccination room was closed. It was a shock to the nation that prides itself on being the world’s largest producer of vaccines. India once exported COVID-19 vaccine, but now there are not enough vaccines for domestic use. (Illustration) Unlike the first phase, on January 20, Prime Minister Modi ruled out the possibility of continuing to block the country and told the states that blockade should only be used as a last resort. His government is facing criticism for allowing large numbers of events to unfold during the epidemic. In March 2020, when the number of cases was relatively low in India, Modi imposed the largest national blockade in the world. Residents are only notified 4 hours in advance. And the economic costs are staggering: India’s economy slumped by nearly 24%, migrant workers starved to death on the streets. This week, amid new restrictions imposed in the capital Delhi, one of the main bus stops here is once again filled with migrant workers, as they try to escape the city to return home. Social distance continues to become a luxury.

Seemapuri cremation site blazed as cases of the SARS-CoV-2 virus increased dramatically in New Delhi, India. Photo: Indian Photo Agency According to The Guardian (UK), the COVID-19 “tsunami” that swept through India is causing the number of cases and deaths in this country to increase exponentially. Cremators across the capital New Delhi are struggling to process the increasing number of bodies brought in. Many families of victims of COVID-19 deaths have to wait up to 20 hours to cremate each body because the crematoriums are full. In New Delhi, photos taken on April 27 show smoke rising from dozens of crematoriums in a parking lot that has been turned into a temporary cremation site. Elsewhere, workers had to build temporary crematoriums on vacant land outside crematoria. In addition, parks and many other empty spaces were also utilized. Workers build a temporary crematorium in a park on the grounds of a crematorium in New Delhi Photo: Getty Images “People are dying, dying out,” said Jitender Singh Shanty, who coordinates more than 100 cremations a day at a site east of the city. If more bodies were received, we would cremate the streets. There are no more vacancies here. We never thought we would see such horrible scenes ”. Worker building temporary crematorium in New Delhi Photo: Getty Images Previously, the BBC (UK) also reported that Indian officials had requested to cut trees in the park for firewood to cremate COVID-19 victims. The staff at the cremation site also had to work harder than usual. They were so busy that family members of the COVID-19 victims had to come in to help, like bringing firewood to a funeral pyre. Lines of corpses of COVID-19 victims await cremation at the Subhash Nagar crematory, in New Delhi on April 27. Photo: ANI At the Sarai Kale Khan cremation site in New Delhi, staff are handling approximately 60-70 bodies a day. This facility was originally capable of handling only 22 bodies. As a result, 27 new crematoriums have been built at this crematorium and dozens more are being added in a nearby park. Officials are also looking for more space near the city’s Yamuna River, as the COVID-19 death toll is expected to be even higher. Geeta Colony Cremation Site in New Delhi, India. Photo: India Today An employee at the Sarai Kale Khan crematorium shared that they were operating continuously from early morning to midnight. The Ghazipur crematorium in East Delhi had to build an additional 20 crematoriums in the parking lot. The situation is similarly tense, according to NDTV, about 25 other cremation and burial sites in the city. Sarai Kale Khan cremation site built 70 new crematoriums on the hideout when large numbers of corpses came here every day. Photo: India Today In the past 24 hours, India set a world record for new infections again, with 362,902 cases, while there were 3,285 new deaths, according to worldometers statistics site. According to CNN, India has recorded a total of more than 17.9 million cases of COVID since the outbreak of the pandemic, but the real number, according to experts, could be 30 times higher, which means that half a billion cases. Health officials and scientists in India have long warned that COVID-19 infections and reported deaths were negligible for a number of reasons, including poor infrastructure. , human error and low testing rate. India has pledged to provide emergency medical assistance amid overcrowded hospitals that continue to be unable to accommodate more patients due to a lack of beds and oxygen supplies. The country also imported 20 frozen vehicles and sent them to the states in an effort to address the shortage of oxygen vehicles. Many countries around the world, including the UK, Germany and the US, have also pledged to provide emergency medical aid to India in the context of the country’s health system struggling with COVID cases. -19 spike.

As India suffers from the world’s worst corona virus crisis, our New Delhi chiefs describe the fear of living in the midst of a pandemic spreading at large scale and speed. so. The crematoriums piled up the bodies, as if a war had just happened. Fire burns day and night. Many places held mass cremations, with dozens of people at the same time. And, at night, in some areas of New Delhi, the sky was blazing with flames. The sick person, without a bed, must lie down on the ground. Photo: New York Times. I waited for my turn to become infected Sickness and death were everywhere. Dozens of homes in my neighborhood have people infected. One of my colleagues is sick. My son’s teacher is also sick. The neighbor is two houses on the right side: Um. The two houses on the left: Um. “I don’t know what kind of illness I have,” said a good friend of mine who was in the hospital. “Just taking a breath and you will …”, his voice fades, unable to finish the sentence because he is too tired. He barely has a decent bed. And the medicine that the doctor prescribed for him is not in India. I was sitting in my house waiting for my turn to get sick. That is the feeling it is in New Delhi, as the world’s worst Covid-19 crisis is happening all around us. It’s out there, I’m here, and I feel as if it’s only a matter of time before I get sick. India is recording more infections every day, sometimes up to 350,000, more than any other country since the beginning of the pandemic, and that’s just the official numbers. Most experts believe that this number is lower than reality. The crematorium was overloaded, many bodies were waiting for their turn. Photo: New York Times. New Delhi, the vast capital of India’s 20 million people, is suffering from a huge spurt. A few days ago, the positive rate reached a staggering 36%. This means that more than a third of people tested are infected. A month ago, this figure was less than 3%. The disease spread so quickly that hospitals were completely flooded with sick people. Thousands of people were turned away. Medicine is exhausted. The same goes for lifesaving oxygen. Patients are trapped in long, tangled lines at the hospital gate or at home. They were gasping for breath, literally. Although New Delhi was blocked, the epidemic was still raging. Doctors across this city and some of Delhi’s top politicians are giving desperate SOS calls, both on social media and on TV, to beg for oxygen, medicine, and help. . It was as if war had just happened in India Experts have always warned that Covid-19 could devastate India completely. The country is vast with about 1.4 billion people, densely populated, and in many places, its inhabitants are still very poor. What we are witnessing is very different from last year, in the first wave of India. Then there is the fear of the unknown. Now we know. We know the overall disease, its size, its speed. We know how frightening this second wave is, it hits everyone at once. The outdoor collective cremation ground is constantly red and fiery. Photo: New York Times. What we feared in the first wave of last year is now coming to the fore: the disruption, the fall, the realization that so many people will die. As a foreign reporter for nearly 20 years, I traveled around war zones, was kidnapped in Iraq and sent to jail in many places. But this pandemic is worrisome in another way. There is no way to know if I, my wife, and two children are among those with mild illness and then recover well, or if we will be exhausted. And if we get really sick, where do we go? The intensive care areas are full. The entrance to many hospitals has been closed. A new strain here has a “double mutation” that can cause a lot of harm. Science has yet to delve into it, but as far as we know, one mutation makes the virus more contagious, and the other makes it partially resistant to the vaccine. Doctors are quite scared. I talked to a few people and they said that I had the vaccine twice but still got very sick. A Covid-19 patient is waiting to be hospitalized in South Delhi, April 24. Photo: New York Times. So what can we do? Personally, I try to stay optimistic, believing it to be one of the best immune system boosters. However, in reality, I find myself lazily walking indoors, cooking for the children in a lethargic state, feeling like both my mind and body are dough like wet powder. I’m afraid of checking my phone because I miss a text message telling my other friend that my friend is seriously ill, or worse. I am sure millions of people feel the same way. I began to visualize the symptoms: Did I have a sore throat? What is that headache? Is my condition worse today than yesterday? A part of where I live, South Delhi, is now blocked. Like many other places, we had a strict blockade last year. But now, the doctors here are warning us that the virus is more contagious and we have a lot less chance of getting help than the last wave. Therefore, many of us are frightened when we step outside, as if there is poison in the air and everyone is afraid of breathing. No one wears a mask, not even the police Delhi is plunged into hardships and dangers, but the situation is still getting worse. Epidemiologists say the number will continue to grow, possibly up to 500,000 new infections per day nationwide, and up to one million Indians will die from Covid-19 until August. It should not be like this. India was anti-epidemic well up until a few weeks ago, at least on the surface. The country closed its doors, experienced the first wave, then reopened. The mortality rate here is very low (at least according to official statistics). Last winter, life almost returned to normal. I was out for the news in January and February, driving through towns in Central India. Nobody – I mean, no one, not even the police – wear a mask. This is as if the country is telling itself: “It’s okay, we have it under control”, despite the wave of a second wave. But now, not many people dare to think like that anymore. Relatives of a Covid-19 victim were performing a religious ceremony during the funeral on April 24. Photo: New York Times. Many in India are also upset with the speed of the vaccination campaign. Less than 10% of the population has received one dose, and only 1.6% are fully vaccinated, even though India is producing two vaccines. “Catastrophic catastrophe” Here, as elsewhere, the rich are less affected by a crisis. But this time it was different. A friend of mine, well connected, asked all the people he knew to help his friend, a severe Covid-19 patient. His friend is dead. No one can help him in hospital. The patient is paralyzed. “I tried everything to get him a bed, but we couldn’t. Everything is chaotic, ”my friend said, his emotions still intact. “This is a disaster. This is murder ”. Every day, I ventured out to buy food because no one delivered it. I wear two masks completely and stay as far away from others as possible. Almost every day passed, a family of 4 of us all withered from inside. We try to play together, try not to talk about the people who just got sick, or the people running around town looking for help, and they probably won’t find it. Sometimes we just sat quietly in the living room, looking out at the sweet figs and palms. Through the open window, on long, hot, quiet afternoons, we can only hear two languages: the sound of an ambulance. And birds. ‘The dead cannot leave peacefully in New Delhi either’ India is suffering from a serious shortage of medical equipment and oxygen in the context of a rapidly increasing number of Covid-19 cases. The patient’s family had to wait languidly for the cremation.

Railroad Minister Piyush Goyal said the government was directing an increase in express trains carrying medical oxygen to New Delhi to meet shortages in hospitals. The Air Force has also been deployed to help transport manpower and medical supplies, such as oxygen tanks, to the areas needed. Pictured are empty oxygen tanks transported by transport aircraft C-17 and IL-76 to the production plant. Photo: ANI. The convoy of tank trucks went to the supply plant to refill liquid medical oxygen, amid a wave of Covid-19 spreading across India. In the past 24 hours, India continued to record a record number of new infections: 354,531 – the highest level in the world and also the highest in this country ever. Photo: Reuters. The lack of oxygen in New Delhi hospitals has many causes. The industrial oxygen production plants that mainly serve the Indian capital are located in seven different states. In addition, due to the flammable nature of this material, all liquid oxidation shipments must be transported in specialized tanks; So it takes a long time to plan the shipping. Some localities even make it difficult to transport oxygen first, to meet local demand. Photo: Reuters. Vans carrying oxygen tanks are waiting outside the factory in Ghaziabad, a suburb of New Delhi, India, on April 22. A high court in the capital on April 24 warned that anyone would “hang” from obstructing the circulation of oxygen supplies. On Twitter, one person described the scene of a police car escorting an oxygen tank “a scene no one thought they would ever see in life. More precious than gold”. Photo: Reuters. A view of cashew around an oxygen factory in Ghaziabad, upstate of New Delhi, India. Factories across the country are operating at full capacity amid the spread of the disease. However, the supply is not enough to meet demand. India is importing 23 mobile oxygen production plants from Germany. Each facility can produce 2,400 liters of oxygen per hour. Photo: Reuters. A driver stood next to an empty tank truck, waiting for his turn to recharge with liquid oxygen. Many places in the capital New Delhi and across the country refuse to accept more patients due to lack of beds and oxygen. Photo: Reuters. A worker loads empty oxygen tanks on a truck to the filling station. On April 25, many countries around the world, including the US, France and the UK, said they would support India by providing raw materials for vaccine production, as well as ventilators, test kits and protective equipment. available. Photo: Reuters. An employee is refilling the oxygen tank to transport to the localities. The lack of treatment beds for Covid-19 patients, lack of oxygen for breathing machines, and lack of medical staff … have made the epidemic situation in India worse. Photo: AP.

India is facing the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the world in recent weeks. An ambulance carrying patients queued for admission to the state Covid-19 hospital in Ahmedabad City, Gujarat state, April 22. (Photo: AP) Medical staff assist in bringing patients of Covid-19 into hospital in Ahmedabad City. (Photo: AP) Last Friday, hospitals in the capital New Delhi signaled for help to the government when the supply of oxygen was only enough to use for a few hours. (Photo: AP) India’s hospital system falls into a shortage of hospital beds and medical oxygen when there are hundreds of thousands of new infections every day. This South Asian country can produce at least 7,100 tons of oxygen / day, including the amount of oxygen for industry. In theory, with the above mentioned output, India could meet the current oxygen demand. The main problem is that medical oxygen is not delivered in time to the hospital to save the patient. This delay stemmed from the location of the production units and distribution systems. (Photo: AP) Medical staff removed the patient from the scene of the fire at Vijay Vallabh Hospital for Covid-19 treatment in Virar, near Mumbai, April 23. Thirteen patients died from the incident. (Photo: AP) People queue for medical oxygen refills in New Delhi. On April 21, at least 24 people with Covid-19 disease in western India died after running out of oxygen supplies supplied to their breathing apparatus. (Photo: AP) To address the serious shortage of medical oxygen, the Indian government has mobilized the country’s railway industry to organize high-speed trains that carry oxygen from steel mills to areas where the epidemiology is most critical. Over the past 24 hours, these special trains have transported nearly 150 tons of oxygen. (Photo: AP) The government also uses Indian Air Force cargo planes to transport empty containers to production centers. After being filled with oxygen, the tank will be transported to localities by road. The Indian armed forces are importing 23 German oxygen-producing mobile devices. In addition, the government has ordered the conversion of argon and nitrogen storage tanks into oxygen tanks. According to experts, in the coming days, the number of cases in India will continue to increase strongly, the country will have to solve two problems of oxygen production and distribution simultaneously. (Photo: Xinhua) According to the latest statistics, the state of Maharashtra accounts for 27% of India’s 2.5 million Covid-19 cases that have not been cured and 33% of India’s more than 190,000 deaths. Mumbai City plans to build 16 facilities in 12 hospitals in the area to produce oxygen from the air. It is estimated that this plan will require a cost of 12 million USD. (Photo: AP) Residents wait for the Covid-19 vaccine at an immunization center in Mumbai, April 24. According to experts, along with increasing supplies of medical oxygen, drugs and other medical supplies, boosting Covid-19 vaccination will help India get out of the current dangerous wave. India has the strength of one of the most vaccine-producing countries in the world. According to the ANI news agency, India will start the third phase of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign on May 1, with all 18 years of age and older. Residents can register for the vaccination from April 28. According to India’s Health Ministry data released yesterday, the country has injected 138,379,832 million doses of vaccine since the start of vaccination on January 16. (Photo: AP)

Empty oxygen tanks were transported to production plants by Indian Air Force C-17 and IL-76 transports. (Photo: ANI) By all means, day and night, the Government of India is working hard to produce and transport as much medical oxygen as possible to areas severely affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, including the capital New Delhi and the states in the West and South. The country’s Supreme Court even allowed the operation of a copper production complex in the state of Tamil Nadu, which has been suspended, only for the purpose of bringing back an industrial oxygen production plant located there. production to meet current urgent needs. However, severe shortages and even depletion of oxygen still occur in hotspots of disease. So the reason is why? A cargo train transports liquid oxygen vehicles from Visakhapatnam city, Andhra Pradesh state to Maharashtra state – India’s largest Covid-19 epidemic zone. (Photo: ANI) Hospital has depleted medical oxygen? The current emergency scarcity is not that Indian hospitals have run out of oxygen. Is that oxygen being delivered to these locations in time? The delay in delivering this product originated from the location of the manufacturing plant. In the capital New Delhi, for example, over the past week, many hospitals that do not have the capacity to meet their own medical oxygen needs have struggled to find emergency supplies. However, at the same time, the epidemic situation in neighboring New Delhi such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also progressed too badly. local demand in advance. As a result, hospitals in New Delhi have to place orders from factories further away in industrial zones in eastern India. Oxygen storage tanks in a hospital warehouse in New Delhi. (Photo: ANI) New problem arises again Industrial oxygen production plants serving the Indian capital are located in seven different states. Some factories are more than 1,000 kilometers from New Delhi. Due to the flammable nature of this material, all liquefied oxygen shipments must be transported in special storage tanks, with detailed shipping plans to ensure on-time delivery. And over the past few days, when the demand for medical oxygen in India has peaked, localities have acted to make it difficult to transport oxygen to meet the local demand first. Because of these moves, New Delhi received only 177 tons of pure oxygen on April 21, instead of 378 tons as allocated. However, some local sources claim that hospitals in New Delhi have made it difficult for themselves to order goods without taking into account the time it takes to transport oxygen across many states by road. “The problem did not arise if they calculated and ordered from 2-3 weeks ago.” This source told the Economic Times. The New Delhi government also did not respond to questions about the planning. A Covid-19 patient had to breathe oxygen while waiting to be placed in a hospital bed at LNJP Hospital, New Delhi. (Photo: ANI) India has enough capacity to produce oxygen for medical purposes India’s daily oxygen production capacity can amount to as little as 7,100 tons, including for industrial purposes. This amount is sufficient to meet the current demand. This week, the Government of India decided to allocate 6,822 tons of liquid oxygen per day to the 20 states most affected by Covid-19. This amount is larger than the total demand of these localities, which is 6,785 tons. Thus, the demand for oxygen for health care in India has nearly doubled in just one week. On April 12, the amount of oxygen required by the health sector was only about 3,842 tons. According to the Office of the Prime Minister of India, India’s oxygen capacity has increased by 3,300 tons in just a few days by shifting resources for steel production and industry to the medical sector. All of which are intended to serve Covid-19 patients The logistics of transporting oxygen is a priority at the moment. The Indian government has mobilized freight trains to move liquid oxygen tanks from the factory to localities in urgent need. The country uses Air Force cargo jets to transfer empty tanks to the factory. Then these oxygen tanks are refilled again and returned by road. In addition, the Indian military is importing 23 mobile oxygen production machines from Germany to prepare for the worse situation. Many industries are also reported to be supporting pure oxygen in hospitals. Tata multidisciplinary corporation of India has imported 24 specialized containers to transport liquid oxygen. The government has also ordered the conversion of argon and nitrogen storage tanks for medical oxygen transport. However, according to experts, with the increasing rate of SARS-CoV-2 virus infections as in the past days with more than 300,000 people per day, the demand for oxygen for medical purposes will continue to escalate. India needs to prepare to increase production and distribution of this particular type of medical supplies in the coming days.

The Nigambodh Ghat Crematorium in New Delhi, India. Photo: Getty Images According to CNN (USA), a crematorium in the state of Uttar Pradesh is in a similar situation, with the number of bodies brought to cremation fivefold in recent weeks, as the 2nd wave of COVID-19s. booming in India. “We had to work day and night, at 100% capacity, to cremate bodies in time,” said Kamlesh Sailor, chairman of the Kurukshetra Cremation Facility Executive Trust in Surat City, Gujarat State. west India, said. Data difference As India’s health system is on the brink of collapse, several major cities have recorded far greater numbers of bodies sent to cremation and burial compared to deaths due to COVID-19. official father. On April 18, India recorded a record 273,810 cases of COVID-19 and 1,619 deaths. As of April 20, the total number of COVID-19 cases of this country has exceeded 15.5 million, second only to the US. A front line employee cremates a man who died of COVID-19 at a crematorium in the Indian suburbs of Mumbai. Photo: Reuters Reliable data is central to the government’s pandemic response, experts say. Without reliable data collection, the preparation of hospital beds and medical essentials will be extremely difficult. But Indian government officials say the disparity in mortality data could be caused by many factors, including an overly prudent body handling process. Many bodies are still cremated according to COVID-19, even if they are only 0.1% likely to be positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, a health official said. “Many hospitalized patients were in critical condition and died before testing. There are cases where patients died before admission, we don’t know if they have COVID-19 or not”, the official said to be anonymous. Ms. Bhramar Mukherjee, Professor of Epidemiology and Biological Statistics at the University of Michigan, said there are many areas in India where accurate data cannot be collected. “Things are messed up. It feels like no one understands this situation, it’s annoying,” said Ms. Mukherjee. The crematorium is operating at full capacity The crematorium of patients COVID-19 in Surat broke out. Photo: AFP In Surat, the second largest city in the state of Gujarat, the crematorium Kurukshetra and Umra processed more than 100 bodies a day according to COVID-19 regulations last week. The number of bodies cremated is much higher than the daily death toll, according to the city’s official record of about 25 people. Mr. Prashant Kabrawala, representative of Narayan Trust, Ashwinikumar crematorial company, refused to provide the number of bodies cremated in accordance with COVID-19 regulations. However, he says the number has tripled in recent weeks. “I have never seen so many cremated bodies in the last years, even during the outbreak of the plague in 1994 and the flood of 2006,” Kabrawala said. A Government spokesperson for India in Gujarat declined to respond to a request for comment. India is not the only country that is skeptical of the SARS-CoV-2 virus statistical data. But documents and staff testimonies at cremations show that the disparity in officially reported deaths in India is much higher than in other countries. Professor Mukherjee’s study on the first wave of epidemics in India showed that the number of viral infections was 11 times more than officially reported, which is similar to research in other countries. Besides, the number of deaths in this country is actually 2-5 times higher than the reported data, far exceeding the global average. A relative of COVID-19 victim leans sadly against a glass window at a crematory in New Delhi. Photo: Getty In Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, data from Baikunthdham, the largest cremation facility for people with COVID-19, found that the number of corpses disposed of in April was twice as high as the number of deaths. Death from COVID-19 is recognized by the government. These figures do not take into account other burial facilities, or cases where COVID-19 victims were buried according to Muslim custom – the community makes up a quarter of Lucknow’s population. The number of bodies cremated under COVID-19 regulations has increased fivefold in recent weeks, said Azad, manager of the Baikunthdham facility. “We work day and night. The crematorium is constantly on fire, but many bodies are still waiting in line,” Azad said. People pray before burying the COVID-19 victims at a cemetery in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters Cremations are many times greater than the COVID-19 mortality data also recorded in many other parts of India. In just four days of April, two cremation facilities in Bhopal – the capital of Madhya Pradesh state, central India – recorded 187 bodies cremated according to COVID-19. Meanwhile, the number of deaths from COVID-19 officially announced by the authorities was only 5. Last week, the local Sandesh newspaper reported 63 bodies were taken to a hospital for patients with COVID-19 in the city of Ahmedabad. But that same day, the city authorities counted only 20 people who died from COVID-19. The Lancet Medical Journal says less than a quarter of all deaths in India are medically confirmed, especially in rural areas. This means that the actual COVID-19 mortality in many other Indian states may not be counted. “Most of the deaths are not reported so it is impossible to calculate,” said Ms. Mukherjee.

A day of bad air pollution recorded in New Delhi in January 2021 – Photo: AFP Chiang Rai is one of Thailand’s most beautiful provinces, with undulating hills, forests, elephant camps and top quality agricultural products. At the northernmost point of Chiang Rai is the confluence of the majestic Mekong River, which flows down from China and the Ruak River. Located on a nearby mountain slope, Anantara Golden Triangle Resort is one of a number of 5-star resorts attracting hikers, elephant lovers and landscape lovers. However, last week, only a few rooms here had guests staying. According to Nikkei Aisa, it was not the Covid-19 epidemic, but the haze in the dry season every year, making the scenery not only lose its breathtaking appearance but also toxic. The concentration of PM2.5 – fine dust with a diameter of less than 2.5 μm in the air – measured here on April 4 is nearly 400 micrograms / m3 of air, nearly 40 times higher than the safety level of the group. World Health Organization (WHO). Tourists wearing masks in Chiang Mai, Thailand in April 2019. For at least 15 years, this region has recorded many days with the highest PM2.5 in the world. Dust covered the northern provinces of Thailand. For at least the past 15 years, Chiang Mai, the neighboring province of Chiang Rai, has seen many days with the highest PM2.5 in the world. Unlike many parts of Asia, the air pollution crisis in northern Thailand was not caused by factories, cheap fuels and transportation, but from fires caused by intentional burning and burning agricultural by-products. “ENTRANCE DAY” OF ASIA Thailand’s green north, which has no industrial zones, is now at the heart of the global air pollution crisis. As recommended by the World Health Organization, the safe level of PM2.5 concentrations averaged 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air annually. Currently, however, less than 8% of the world’s population can breathe that safe atmosphere. And nowhere in the world has this index worse than Asia. According to the Swiss air quality technology firm IQAir, in the ranking of the worst air pollution cities in the world last year, the top 148 cities were all in the Asia-Pacific region. Thailand’s city of Chiang Rai was covered in smoke from forest fires and straw burning in 2019 – Photo: Getty Images According to a study published in the Journal of Cardiology Research in 2015, the air pollution death rate has caused nearly 8.8 million deaths globally, of which nearly 6.5 million are in Europe. ASIAN. This is becoming one of the most serious public health risks globally, even more so than cigarettes. In terms of health threats, the response to air pollution and the Covid-19 epidemic is completely different. Because, while a huge public budget is allocated to control the spread of the disease, addressing air pollution has remained largely flat. However, the annual number of deaths due to dust is many times higher than that of the more than 300,000 deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic last year in Asia, according to data compiled on worldometers.info. For many years, health agencies have raised the alarm about air quality in Asia. China’s so-called “doomsday atmosphere” has set off a decade of alarming about the serious health effects of air pollution. This situation has gradually improved thanks to strict Beijing measures. Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are now replacing China with the worst air quality in the world. “The world has turned its back on cigarettes, but now it has to deal with ‘new cigarettes’ – the toxic air that billions of people breathe every day,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “No country, rich or poor, can escape air pollution. This is a silent public health emergency.” A coal-fired power plant of Huaneng Shandong Rui Group is owned by the Chinese government in Sahiwal, Pakistan – Photo: Getty Images One of the reasons that Asia is hit hard by air pollution is its high population density. Top 4 countries with the most population density in the world have 3 Asian representatives: China, India and Indonesia. The total population of these three countries is 3.1 billion, accounting for about 39.2% of the global population. INDONESIA: SWEETS In Indonesia, fires caused by forest clearing are the cause of serious pollution. Seven out of 10 ASEAN countries were affected by haze caused by burning fires in Indonesia, according to a Greenpeace report. In particular, Singapore and Malaysia were most affected. The report, released after two decades of research, says the haze “causes widespread health problems including lung and cardiovascular disease”. In 2015, scientists at Harvard and Columbia Universities (USA) estimated that haze caused about 100,000 premature deaths in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. According to estimates of the World Bank (WB), the haze caused more than 16 billion USD in damage to the Indonesian economy. In February, Mr. Mohammad Mahfud MD, Indonesia’s Security Minister, said the total area affected by forest fires last year was nearly 300,000 hectares. This figure, although improved compared to 2019, is still 5 times larger than the area of ​​the capital Jakarta. In 2019, about 1.6 million hectares of forests in Indonesia were burned, leaving at least 900,000 people with respiratory problems. Economic loss of the eight affected provinces is 5.2 billion USD. INDIA AND PAKISTAN: GENERAL POINT OF CONTAMINATION According to IQAir 2020, in terms of PM2.5 fine dust concentration, the air quality in the Indian city of Delhi has improved by about 15% compared to 2019 thanks to nationwide blockade measures to prevent Covid-19 epidemics. . However, this is still the city with the worst pollution levels in the world. By 2020, air pollution is estimated to have killed some 54,000 people in the Indian capital, causing $ 8.1 billion in damages – or 13 percent of Delhi’s GDP, according to Greenpeace and IQAir. The (avoidable) air pollution deaths in Mumbai and Bangalore cities are 25,000 and 12,000, respectively. Smoke enveloped the Indian Gate in New Delhi on December 25, 2018 – Photo: Nikkei Asia India has 22 representatives in the top 30 most polluted cities in the world. Despite improving over the past few years, the country’s air pollution remains at a “dangerously high level”, according to a Greenpeace report. The annual average PM2.5 concentration of Delhi is 84.1 micrograms / m3 of air. For comparison, Beijing’s figures are 37.5, Seoul 20.9, Paris 12.2 and London 9.6. India and Pakistan have something in common about pollution: Vehicle dust. IQAir ranks Pakistan as the second most polluted country in the world and is estimated that about 20% of deaths in the country are related to air pollution. Malik Amin Aslam, Pakistan’s climate change minister, said 40 percent of the haze in the country was caused by vehicle emissions. Some other causes are industrial emissions and crop burning around the Lahore region and the border in India. “In Pakistan, the use of dirty fuels has exacerbated air pollution,” said Ahmad Rafay Alam, environmental lawyer at Lahore and Yale World Fellow. To mitigate the air pollution crisis, the Pakistani government has set a target to increase the sales of electric vehicles to about 30% of total vehicle sales by 2020, while also requiring the import of only fuels that meet Euro-V standards. . However, Mr. Ahmad Rafay Alam said that the fuel and electric vehicle import policy exists only on paper because the government has not taken practical steps to implement them. VIETNAM: THE PRICE OF GROWTH? According to GlobalData’s forecast, Vietnam is the most growing economy in ASEAN with real GDP growth of 8.5% this year. However, with this growth, concerns about the environment are increasing. According to a Q&M survey of nearly 800 people aged 18-49, 79% of respondents said that air pollution is their biggest environmental concern. 84% consider environmental problems to be more serious in 2020. According to official data, Vietnam lost about 10.8-13.2 billion USD per year due to air pollution. The Global Alliance for Health and Pollution estimated 50,232 people died from air pollution in Vietnam in 2017. Motorcyclists in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2019. In a recent survey, 79% of Vietnamese respondents said that air pollution is their biggest environmental concern – Photo: EPA PM2.5 concentrations around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City hit a particularly high level in November and December 2020. Facing this situation, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has directed the local government to install an additional air monitoring system. Last January, the Prime Minister also issued a directive on air pollution control. The government recommends that people close windows, wear outdoor masks and wash their noses with salt water for both the young and the elderly. CHINA: DETERMINATION MEASURES China is ranked 14th out of 106 countries for IQAir’s 2020 air pollution level. However, this ranking has improved significantly compared to previous years when the country’s average PM2.5 concentration fell from 41.2 micrograms / m3 of air in 2018 to 34.7 last year (albeit still). 3 times the WHO safety standard). Over the past few years, China has taken drastic measures at the government level to clean up the atmosphere. Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a carbon neutral goal by 2060. Last January, China’s National Energy Administration was warned by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment for its negligence in controlling coal production. This is a rare reprimand in China’s state agencies. According to Nikkei Asia, China only really started to tackle its air pollution problem drastically in 2013, when coal could meet two-thirds of domestic electricity demand. China currently leads the world in solar power development at a significantly reduced cost relative to the world. The country’s electric vehicle and battery sectors also lead the world. Drastic measures by China in recent years include relocating polluting old factories. Earlier last year, 46 factories in Hebei province, near Beijing, were relocated to reduce industrial pollution, especially from steel, cement and glass production. The Forbidden City in Beijing was covered in smog in 2018 – Photo: Nikkei Asia However, not all solutions to China’s air pollution are environmentally friendly. The country’s push to build hydroelectricity to reduce coal use has raised environmental concerns in many Southeast Asian countries.

India is one of the worst affected countries, with many areas often covered in smog with dangerous particles of dust floating around. The Lancet Medical Journal’s “Global Burden of Disease” study estimates that pollution caused about 1.7 million premature deaths in India in 2019 – almost 18 percent of all deaths. in this country. New Delhi capital sinks in air pollution – Photo: AFP Based on this study, a new analysis by consulting firm Dalberg Advisors shows that air pollution reduces productivity, reduces consumer and tourist spending, costs Indian businesses $ 95 billion. each year, equivalent to 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. Director of Dalberg Asia – Gaurav Gupta said: “Clean air is a prerequisite for businesses to thrive. Industry leaders should take more ownership and become advocates of the movement for cleaner air. According to a report by the Clean Air Fund, a charity, the estimated number of years of work lost due to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths is estimated to have cost India’s economy $ 44 billion in 2019 because air pollution. In addition, Dalberg says the effects of pollution on the health of Indian workers cost them 1.4 billion sick days a year, or about $ 6 billion in lost revenue.

India ‘broke the game’ in the second wave of Covid-19 India is being devastated by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. In just 24 hours, the number of deaths due to the country’s pandemic reached 2,000 people and more than 300,000 new cases. Every night, fire blazed brightly on the banks of the Ganges River. Not the flames of traditional Hindu festivals, they are the cremations of the bodies of the victims who died for Covid-19, a horrifying symbol of the unprecedented humanitarian tragedy taking place in India. Degree. From urban to rural areas, patients die in the despair of relatives, because they cannot find an empty hospital bed. The supply of oxygen and medicine was depleted, leading to countless cases of robbery of medical supplies from the hospital. At cremation facilities, crematoriums are always red for 24 hours, but countless dead bodies are still waiting in line, according to the report. Financial Times . Staff at a cremation facility in New Delhi. Photo: AFP. The epidemic wave is unprecedented The grim reality has sparked a flame of public anger over the authorities’ preparations. Just two months ago, India appeared to have successfully controlled the epidemic. However, as of April 22, India broke the world record for the number of new infections per day with 312,732 virus-positive cases. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata party allegedly put political interests above public health after holding a series of large-scale rallies, as well as allowing a Kumbh Mela festival of millions to be held. attendees in the midst of the second epidemic wave. A new strain is suspected of being behind the current wave of terrible epidemics, leading experts to fear India is on a path similar to Brazil – a country where the health system and economy have been brought down by the corona virus. down. “The health system is not well prepared for this epidemic wave. A lot of people in government across the country are not thinking of this new wave of epidemics. Some miraculously they assume we are already.” over the pandemic, “said Srinath Reddy, chairman of the Indian Community Health Foundation. Although the mortality rate is still relatively low, other indicators are pointing to a worsening crisis. Both the number of new infections and the positive rate are growing at the fastest rates in the world. The rate of infection increased from 3% last month to 16% now. Relatives kneel and cry beside the body of a patient who has died of Covid-19. Photo: AP. In the capital New Delhi, there are more new infections every day than in any other city. Every 5 days, the number of Covid-19 cases doubles. In many areas, the number of infected people outstrips the hospital’s ability to service. In the city of Nagpur, the proportion of patients requiring intensive care is 353 people per million people, higher than anywhere in Europe. Meanwhile, in the financial capital Mumbai, the rate is 194 patients per million population. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that many deaths from Covid-19 have not been fully counted. According to media reports in seven counties in the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, at least 1,833 bodies have been cremated with Covid-19 in recent days. However, only 228 deaths from Covid-19 have been officially recorded. In the Jamnagar district in Gujarat, 100 people died of Covid-19, but only one case has been officially reported. People died everywhere The state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people, is one of the poorest states in India. The situation in the capital Lucknow shows that India’s medical infrastructure is on the brink of collapse. Local media said that at King George’s College of Medicine alone, up to 50 patients lined up for a hospital bed. Shivi Shah is a resident of Lucknow. When her brother was positive for corona virus last week, Shah decided to send his parents to his home to avoid the worst scenario. But it was all too late, for both Shah and father. After only 3 days, her father began to lose his eyesight. 45 minutes after the emergency call, an ambulance arrived at the Shah’s house, but the car was not equipped with enough medical equipment to treat her father. The man later died on the way to the hospital. The cremation facility staff members hand-clasped the dead body of Covid-19 before placing it in the crematorium. Photo: Daily News. Unable to find a place to bury his father’s body, Shah continued to receive bad news about his mother. Her mother passed away just a few hours later in her sleep. By this time, both the Shah and his son had a fever, they were waiting for the results of the Covid-19 test. “None of us have ever seen tragedy and death like what’s happening. The situation is much worse now than last year, so many people die on the street, or die in their own homes, before. was seen by a doctor or got the test results, “said Seema Shukla, a nurse at the Sanjay Gandhi Medical Institute in Lucknow. “From early morning to midnight, my phone rang continuously. My relatives and friends desperately begged for help, they needed everything, ventilators, hospital beds, nurses, oxygen tanks, medicine. men, “said Shukla. Officials warn a new strain of strain is likely to be the cause of the current wave of epidemics, strain B.1.617 was first discovered in India in March. Scientists are doing more research on this strain, suspecting it is more contagious and resistant to vaccines. Jeffrey Barrett, an expert from the Wellcome Sanger Genetic Research Institute, said the number of cases in India gave a very dark picture, but scientists are still uncertain whether the B.1.617 strain is. is the cause or not. Up to this point, experts have mostly criticized a part of the unconscious population and the complacent, subjective attitude of the Indian government for leading to a bad spread in the second wave of epidemics. Vineeta Bal, an expert from the National Institute of Immunology in India, says the cause of the current crisis has even deeper roots. The collapse of the health system is the result of years of government neglect to public health infrastructure, Bal said. Over the years, India’s health spending has lagged far behind the world average. “The problem is not only the current government but also the public health system for the past 50 years. The situation will not be resolved in a single year of crisis. The health system has been left indifferent. very, many years, “said Mrs. Bal. Santosh Kumar, son of party leader Bharatiya Janata in Lucknow, said he was isolated at home with his family. All four members of Mr. Kumar’s family have Covid-19. “The whole system has collapsed. The rest of the government here are in quarantine. People have to find out for themselves what medicines they can take and what they can do to save themselves”, Mr. Kumar said.

New York Times sent reporters to cremations across India and found that the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 was higher than official figures. According to experts, Indian politicians and health officials missed many cases, both unintentional and intentional. The victim’s family also contributes to conceal the disease status of the deceased, making the situation even more complicated. “This is a data disaster,” says epidemiologist Bhramar Mukherjee from the University of Michigan. “From all modeling calculations done, we believe that the actual number of deaths is 2 to 5 times higher than reported”. The actual situation of the cremation ground In a cremation ground in the city of Ahmedabad, capital of the state of Gujarat, western India, fire was lit night and day to serve the cremation of the dead. Mr. Suresh Bhai, an employee here, said he had never seen so many deaths. However, in the section of cause of death on the file, he did not enter Covid-19. “Oops, sick, sick, sick …”, Mr. Suresh said. “That’s what we write.” Indian people pray after the death of a loved one caused by Covid-19. Photo: The New York Times. Mr. Suresh said that this order was issued by his superiors. These people declined to comment on the incident. Cremation is an important part of Hindu farewell rituals. This is considered an act to help the soul be released from the body. The staff at the cremation site said they felt exhausted. These employees also shared that they have never seen so many deaths at the same time today. In the industrial city of Surat, Gujarat state, some of the iron frames used for cremation have melted due to overuse. In the city of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh state, the authorities had to make use of the park to cremate the body. The price of subjectivity Not long ago, India seemed to be on the right track in the prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic, when cases and deaths were under control. Facing this achievement, both Indian officials and people proved subjective and did not continue to take measures to prevent epidemics. But the worst has only just begun. The number of more than 300,000 new infections a day exceeds the capacity of the Indian health sector. The beds are seriously overloaded. A hospital bed with dozens of people lined up for use. There was a time when hospitals in the capital New Delhi only had enough oxygen for a few hours. Cremation of the dead in India. Photo: The New York TImes. Countless Indians are on social media pleading for beds, medicine and oxygen to breathe. The cremations were red and red regardless of day and night. There were times when dozens of bodies were cremated at once. Meanwhile, India’s vaccination campaign is having problems. Only 10% of people in this country get at least one vaccine, even though India is the leading manufacturer of vaccines in the world. According to the Washington Post , the rate of people who have had two injections in India is only 1.4%. Medical experts believe that part of the cause comes from the mutant virus strain B.1.617. This is called a “double mutation” strain, which carries the mutation of two other mutant viruses. This makes B.1.617 both more contagious and more difficult to control than conventional viruses. “Cremation sites have never been so crowded” Residents of Bhopal city, Madhya Pradesh state, say cremations have never been so crowded. Bhopal officials recorded 41 deaths related to the Covid-19 outbreak in mid-April 13 days. New York Times At the city’s crematorium and cemetery for victims of Covid-19, the death toll amounted to more than 1,000 during that same period. “Many deaths have not been recorded. This number is increasing, ”said Dr. GCGautam, a cardiologist in Bhopal. According to him, the government did so because it did not want to create a wave of panic among the people. A similar situation was observed in Lucknow and Mirzapur, the main cities of Uttar Pradesh state. In the state of Gujarat, the local Sandesh newspaper pointed out that the number of deaths per day is about 610, many times higher than the 73-121 number announced by the government. The rapid increase in the number of deaths caused the cremation grounds to become crowded. Photo: The New York TImes. There are many reasons leading to this situation. Subjectively, according to epidemiologist Bhramar Mukherjee from the University of Michigan, some families do not want to have to bury their loved ones with the strict process of handling the bodies of Covid-19 patients. Objectively, some states are said to have received requests from the central government, where they have to slightly reduce the numbers from reality. In addition, even in the pre-pandemic years, only about a fifth of deaths have been forensically examined. This means that the cause of death of the majority of Indians is not recorded in official records. For his part, Mr. Suresh Bhai continued to work diligently. “Every day, my cemetery has to deal with 15-20 patients of Covid-19 who have died,” he said amid the flare of the flames. India ‘broke the game’ in the second wave of Covid-19 India is being devastated by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. In just 24 hours, the number of deaths due to the country’s pandemic reached 2,000 people and more than 300,000 new cases.

Actual casualties are 2-5 times higher The second wave of Covid-19 in India quickly pushed the country into a total crisis, overloading hospitals, depleting oxygen supplies, desperate lines of people not being treated by doctors and there is evidence that the actual death toll is much higher than officially reported, according to the New York Times. Every day the Government of India records more than tens of thousands of new infections – a world record high – more new cases than any other country to date. However, experts say those numbers, no matter how staggering, represent only a small fraction of the true spread of the pandemic that puts the country in a state of emergency. Millions of people dare not even step out the door for fear of spreading the disease. Indian people mourn in front of a cremation site. Photo: NYT The sudden increase in new infections in recent weeks, with a newer variant, is raising suspicions about the actual number of deaths from India’s Covid-19 – currently reported to be 200,000. , with more than 2,000 people dying every day. Investigations from cremation facilities across the country revealed a large number of deaths from Covid-19 far exceeding the official figure. According to analysts, politicians and hospital managers can reduce this number. “It was a complete data massacre,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has followed India closely. “From all the models we have done, we believe that the actual death toll is 2 to 5 times what is reported.” At one of the major cremation sites in Ahmedabad, a city in the state of Gujarat, western India, flames blazed through the night sky, burning 24 hours a day, like an industrial factory never. Turn off. On April 24, Indian officials reported nearly 350,000 new infections, while the number of deaths continued to increase. At a hospital in New Delhi, doctors said 20 patients in critical condition died after oxygen pressure dropped. Doctors claim that severe oxygen scarcity is the cause of the soaring death toll. In Bhopal, a large city in central India, where the disaster of gas leaks in the 1980s caused thousands of deaths, residents said this was the “busiest” time in cremation zones. since that disaster. Over the course of 13 days in mid-April, Bhopal officials reported 41 deaths related to Covid-19. But a survey by the New York Times found the number of deaths at the same time to more than 1,000. A similar phenomenon took place in Lucknow and Mirzapur – major cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh – and across Gujarat, during the same time period, authorities reported between 73 and 121 Covid-related deaths. -19 per day. But detailed figures compiled by one of Gujarat’s leading newspapers – Sandesh – indicate that the number is many times higher, around 610 people per day. What’s happening in India? Months ago, India appeared to have effective epidemic control. After the stern blockade orders that prevented the first outbreak from being eased, India no longer recorded a large number of cases. Officials and citizens have begun to be subjective and act as if the worst days are over. Now, countless Indians have been forced to go to social media to send an emergency (SOS) calling to give them bed, medicine or “some oxygen to breathe”. At the same time, India’s Covid-19 vaccine campaign is also facing difficulties. Less than 10% of Indians have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, even though the country is the world’s leading producer of the vaccine. Severe Indian needs have had a ripple effect around the world, especially in poorer countries. The country had planned to export millions of doses of vaccine but so far this has stopped completely due to severe shortage of vaccines in the country. This also affects when some countries have to divert imports from other countries Doctors are concerned, this terrible wave originated from the emergence of a virus variant “double mutation” – B.1.617. This variant contains genetic mutations found in two other uncontrolled versions of the SARS-CoV2 virus. One of the mutations included in the highly contagious variant was the cause of California (USA) struggles earlier this year. The other mutation is similar to the one found in South Africa and is thought to make the virus more resistant to the vaccine. However, scientists warn that it is too early to know for certain how dangerous the new variant emerging in India is. The results can be worst when combined with the ability to spread faster and more difficult to control. This is worrying scientists across the globe as high-rate vaccinated countries are easing and starting to be subjective. Because of the failures in India, Brazil and elsewhere that there is a risk that the virus could mutate to “beat” existing vaccines.

Bodies piled up in cremators and mass burial sites across India are raising fears that the number of deaths caused by the second Covid-19 wave in the country is many times higher than figures are officially published. Relatives mourn a patient who has just died of Covid-19 in New Delhi, India. Photo: Reuters Medical services and other essential services across India nearly collapsed when the second wave of Covid-19 swept through the country at frightening speeds in mid-March. The cemeteries ran out of space. The hospital refused to accept patients because of being overloaded, and the families desperately asked for help on social networks On April 22, India broke the record for the number of new cases per day globally with 314,835 new cases. With nearly 16 million people infected with Covid-19, India is the second most severely affected country in the world, behind only the US. The outbreak of the 2nd Covid-19 wave in India not only risks its economic recovery, but also affects the global war against epidemics. “Things are out of control,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Research in New Delhi. There is no oxygen. It is very difficult to find a hospital bed. Can’t get tested. You have to wait more than a week. The health system almost collapsed. Earlier on April 21, at least 22 Covd-19 patients being treated with a ventilator died while waiting for oxygen supplies, a senior official in Nashik district in Maharashtra state, India said. Faced with a serious shortage of medical supplies in hospitals across the country, local and state governments have urged the federal government to provide more oxygen and medicine. On April 21, President Modi announced the plan to supply 100,000 oxygen cylinders nationwide, build a new oxygen production plant and set up hospitals exclusively for Covid-19 patients. But experts fear that the plan was launched too late and the number is too little in the context of virus-infected patients struggling every day with “death” and the continuation of mass gatherings. causing the virus to spread faster and more strongly. Urgent cries for help on social networks With so few options available, many families have been calling for help via social media. Anil Tiwari, 34, lost his beloved father in November 2020 due to the Covid-19 translation. Last week, his mother also tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She has been admitted to hospital treatment but needs to be in a special care bed (ICU). Due to the lack of ICU beds in the hospital, Anil Tiwari pleaded for help on her Twitter page: “Please save my mother. I love her more than anything. After days of relentless efforts, including calling the city government to be placed on the waiting list, Tiwari’s mother was finally given an ICU bed. But what she needed right now was oxygen – something that the hospital was lacking. “She can still walk, but always find it hard to breathe,” said Tiwari. Demand for Remdesivir for Covid-19 and its medicinal ingredients skyrocketed in the second wave of Covid-19, forcing the Indian government to temporarily ban drug exports to increase supplies. market connection. The government has allowed hospitals to use the drug in emergencies, although the Health Organization (WHO) previously said, there is no evidence that Remdesivir reduces the risk of death in infected individuals. Covid-19 heavy. Abhijeet Kumar, a 20-year-old college student, used Twitter to donate medical bills for his 52-year-old uncle, who is hospitalized in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. “The injections are very expensive. They say it costs between 12,000 and 15,000 rupees (about 160 to 200 USD). He had two doses but needed a third and we could not afford it. My uncle works as a plumber, ”said Abhijeet Kumar. Some states in India said that high demand while limited supply has enabled the “black market” to scream high prices for Remdesivir and some similar drugs. Even nurses and doctors are working hard to find beds and treatment options for their loved ones, said Parkar, a pulmonologist in Mumbai. Indian Mistakes and A Warning to the World Although most attention has been on the new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that appeared in India recently, experts believe that the cause of the new Covid-19 outbreak is It can stem from social behaviors, weaknesses in the health system and a number of policy mistakes in the country. Indian officials may have been too subjective to believe that the worst has fallen behind when the number of Covid-19 cases began to decline in September 2020. The number of cases fell for 30 weeks in a row before starting to increase in mid-February and breaking out in mid-March. According to some experts, India did not seize the opportunity to consolidate its infrastructure. health care and immunization campaign intensification. “The authorities have not provided a long-term overview of the pandemic,” said Dr. Vineeta Bal, an immune system researcher at the National Institute of Immunology in India. Suggestions to upgrade the health system, such as building the capacity of hospitals or hiring an epidemiologist to monitor virus growth, have been ignored, she said. Currently, the Indian authorities are trying to restore many emergency measures that were removed when the number of cases decreased. India could have avoided a shortage of oxygen – something Latin America and Africa experienced a year ago if it converted its industrial oxygen production system into a network of supplies. medical. However, many facilities have returned to provide oxygen to industries and hospitals in this country are facing severe hypoxia. Analysts said that India will face a great challenge in preventing the health system from collapsing until enough people are vaccinated to achieve community immunity. Although India halted vaccine exports in March to meet domestic needs, it is not clear whether the country’s vaccine makers will be able to speed up production. “Vaccination is one way to slow the spread of the virus, but it depends on production speed and availability of vaccine doses,” said Srinath Reddy, president of the Indian Community Health Foundation. . In addition, the Indian government has also received criticism for not pausing major religious festivals, such as the Kumbh Mela bleaching festival on the banks of the Ganges River or election events. Many experts believe that the activities of gathering people have caused the number of cases to explode more strongly./.

The fire at a hospital in the Virar area of ​​Mumbai suburbs occurred two days after 24 patients using the COVID-19 ventilator died from an oxygen leak at a hospital in Nashik, another city in the state Maharashtra. At the time of the fire, about 90 patients were being treated in the hospital, some patients needing oxygen were transferred to nearby hospitals. Dilip Shah, CEO of Vijay Vallabh Hospital, said the fire in the intensive care unit on the second floor had been extinguished. Cause of the fire is currently under investigation. The fire came as the state of Maharashtra, hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, is struggling with skyrocketing infections. 314,835 COVID-19 cases recorded in India on Thursday brought the total number of cases in the country since the pandemic began to 15.9 million, second only to the United States. This is also the 7th consecutive day that India has recorded a number of new cases above 200,000. The COVID-19 pandemic had gone badly and put the health system in this country at risk of collapse. Hospitals are overloaded with patients and a serious shortage of manpower. Many hospitals in the western and northern regions of India, including the capital New Delhi, announced that the supply of oxygen was about to be depleted. Sponsorship news

Health experts fear that the double strain is gradually invading the country of 1.3 billion people, making the Covid-19 wave more dangerous than ever. On April 17, according SCMP, India has recorded a total of 14.2 million SARS-CoV-2 infections, ranking 2nd globally and more than 174,300 deaths. Since mid-March, the Covid-19 epidemic in India suddenly became complicated again because of the emergence of a double-strain. “Dual mutants” Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), said that the dual-strain in India is falling into the interest of experts. “Two of the mutations it possesses have been found in other strains in the world,” added Maria. According to the expert, this makes the double variant in India possible to increase transmission, reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine. The second wave of Covid-19 threatens to destroy all of the country’s anti-epidemic efforts, despite harsh measures. The double-strain variant, B.1.617, was first detected in India with 2 mutants E484Q and L452R at the same time. Migrant workers crowded on a bus to their homeland when New Delhi was frozen in March 2020. Photo: AP. Viruses are always changing, it’s part of evolutionary biology. Some mutations weaken the virus, but others allow it to multiply, thrive, or spread faster. According to the Outbreak – a data site using the GISAID global storage system – the popularity of this double strain has increased by 52% compared to genetically sequenced samples in almost January. According to Anurag Agrawal, director of the Indian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, after the Geomomics Institute for genetic sequencing, some districts of the state of Maharashtra, the epicenter of the current wave, the rate of double-mutation infection increased. to more than 60%. B.1.617 appeared in patient samples in 10 states of India. Mr. Agrawal predicts that this number will be increased by two key mutations that make it infectious, immune-resistant. Rakesh Mishra, director of the Center for Cell and Molecular Biology, based in Hyderabad, responsible for the nCoV genome project, warns: “This strain spreads faster than any other found. before. Sooner or later, it will become a popular strain of all India ”, According to Mr. Agrawal, the characteristics of the double strain variable are being investigated and analyzed by experts. The L452R mutation once made the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic in the US wobbly. The L452R mutation increased viral transmission by 20% and antibody efficiency by 50%, he said. “Variant B. 1.617 has all the signs of a very dangerous virus. We have to do everything we can to identify the spread and stop it, ”said William A. Haseltine, former professor of Harvard Medical School, USA, wrote on Forbes on April 12. According to the Outbreak, B.1.617 detected in at least 10 countries and territories, including UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand. The funeral system in India is overcrowded because of a record high number of deaths. Photo: Anadolu Agency. “There are corpses everywhere” According to the VICE , in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, videos of the huge number of cremated bodies spread at breakneck speed. It is like wildfire. On April 15, a reporter of the company The Print describes this horrifying scene as “corpses everywhere”, “every 10 minutes a body must be cremated”. Not only were the bodies that had died because Covid-19 needed cremation, but the cemeteries in India were overrun with the dead. An employee at Baikunth Dham shared with The Print: “We are overworked. After the holiday season, the number of deaths began to increase. I haven’t taken a break since last year. Every day, nearly 60-65 bodies are brought here. Pointing his finger towards the injured leg, the person added: “I had an accident but I can’t rest. The number of people who died lately is not a normal number. Many people have to wait 5-6 hours for it. Their relatives were cremated in turn. Before that, the average number was about 20-25 bodies. ” However, no one can determine whether all these deaths were due to Covid-19 or something else. An Indian woman is given the Covid-19 vaccine. Photo: Reuters. A shortage of hospital beds and pre-treatment deaths are common in India – similar to what happened in Brazil or the US recently. There is also a critical shortage of drugs used urgently during the Covid-19 pandemic, Remdesivir and Tocilizumab. People have to go to the black market to find medicine. Apart from Lucknow, cemeteries in other cities are also overloaded. In Bhopal, central India, some cremation facilities report they receive 40 bodies a day. In the capital New Delhi, a cremation site received more than 400 deaths from Covid-19 in the first 13 days of April. In the city of Gujarat, western India, a man has to wait 12 hours for his brother. in the past, the victim died of Covid-19, and was allowed to go to his final resting place. The big problem facing India is that the vaccination rate is too low. From February 16 to April 16, the number of people vaccinated in this country was 14.9 million, accounting for only 1.1% of the population. Many experts warn that at the current rate of immunization, it could take India up to 10 years to fully cover 70% of the population.