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.

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