Before Covid-19 appeared, the Ganges River was once “flooded with corpses”. In 1918, when an influenza pandemic swept through India and killed an estimated 18 million people, the river’s waters filled with the smell of rotting corpses. This creepy scene is making a comeback because of a pandemic. The official death toll in India is reported to be more than 250,000, but experts say the real number is five times higher, according to Guardians. These bodies began to wash up on the banks of the sacred river, becoming a haunting symbol for the uncounted Covid-19 deaths. According to the Economist , these images also reveal the picture of Indian society with poor people struggling to cope with the pandemic and make a living. Relatives and relatives carry the body of a person who died of Covid-19 to be buried on the banks of the Ganges River. Photo: Shutterstock. No one sells firewood to cremate relatives On May 19, India continued to set a new record for the number of deaths in a day due to Covid-19: 4,529 people. This is the highest number of daily Covid-19 deaths of any country ever, surpassing the previous record in the US with 4,475 deaths in a day. To date, India has recorded more than 25 million cases and 275,000 deaths from Covid-19. However, there are no official statistics on the number of bodies discovered in the past two weeks in the open stretch of the Ganges that flows through the poor rural states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, or buried in shallow sandy graves along the riverbanks. in Uttar Pradesh. Through statistics, locals and journalists here put the number of more than 2,000 bodies. In the village of Gahmar in Uttar Pradesh, 15-year-old Raju Chaudhry, who works on a fishing boat, said he had recently seen “about 50 bodies being washed away every day, for many days”. There is no way to know if these people have Covid-19 or not, although Indian authorities have acknowledged some of the bodies as those who died from the pandemic. According to official figures released by the government, the death and infection rate of Covid-19 in Gahmar village is low. But Bhupendra Upadhyay, a priest here, said a lot of people have died in the past few weeks. Earthen vases hang from a banyan tree by the Ganges River in the village of Gahmar, each representing a person who has just died. Photo: Guardian. “I saw 30 to 35 bodies being brought into the river recently and drowned here. Many people drop dead bodies in the river because they have difficulty arranging cremation, because there are so many dead people,” he said. Upadhyay pointed to the trunk of the banyan tree where he was sitting. On the trunk, dozens of earthen pots are tied up. “Each of those vases represents a deceased person. Let’s see how many, just from the last 10 days,” he said. In the case of Shambhu Nath, his family had no difficulty in cremation, as villagers helped and attended the funeral. But after the second brother in the family died of Covid-19, they found themselves abandoned by their neighbors. “When we tried to buy firewood for our cremation, we were chased away. No one in the village could help us with the cremation because they suspected we had Covid-19. We couldn’t get the wood and didn’t know what else to do. , so we had to drown his body in the river. We did it at 11am the next morning, and only a close family came to offer condolences,” he said. What do corpses in the Ganges reveal? Sheet Economist An assessment of India’s covid-19 crisis, with images of corpses floating in the Ganges, reveals two things. One is the scale of the tragedy sweeping across the vast territory of India. In remote rural areas, far from city clinics, people are not being tested for Covid-19. Therefore, no cases or deaths were recorded. The officially published death toll is now a fraction of the true number. Economist identify. The second thing that the bodies in the Ganges reveal is that this wave of Covid-19 is ravaging the lives of the poor, who are already struggling to make ends meet. The poor are losing their jobs, starving to eat and falling victim to scams. Jammu and Kashmir State Disaster Response Force soldiers carry empty coffins to transport the bodies of people who died of Covid-19 on May 19. Photo: AP. “People borrow money to pay for medicines, or oxygen tanks, or pay extra fees for ambulance drivers because they have to carry Covid-19 patients. So they can’t afford to pay for cremation or funeral. ceremony,” Utpal Pathak, a local journalist, told Economist. After the first wave of Covid-19 swept through India in 2020, many local newspapers and research institutes tried to calculate the economic impact of the pandemic on the poor. Pew Research Institute estimates that as of January 2020, only 4.3% of Indians earn less than $2. A year later, that number had increased to 9.7%, or 134 million people. In-depth research by Azim Premji University in Bangalore shows that after the 2020 nationwide lockdown, about 230 million Indians slipped below the poverty line, which is set based on the minimum wage (about $45 a month). ). The university researchers also found that during the lockdown, 90% of the poor consumed less food. Six months later, their diets still haven’t returned to normal. In the past year, the income of Indian workers, including the lucky 10% who have a salaried job, has fallen by a third, according to the report. Economist. Shocked by the terrible impact of the pandemic and the blockade order in 2020, this year, the central government of India let the state and local governments to impose the blockade order on their own based on the actual situation. “Although the economy has not yet come to a complete standstill, the scale of this outbreak still leaves many families devastated.” Economist write. A worker helps cremate a body on the banks of the Ganges River. Photo: Getty. For many people, the biggest shock is the loss of family breadwinners. The Indian railway company has 1.2 million employees, but Covid-19 killed 1,952 employees here. In April, the state of Uttar Pradesh dispatched 1.2 million civil servants to work on local elections and counting votes. Report of Economist said this election was the cause of the large-scale outbreak. It is estimated that about 2,000 of the aforementioned civil servants died afterward, including 800 teachers. Each of those deaths cost their families weeks of grief and expensive treatment. Not to mention each person who died could have infected and made 20 others seriously ill. “In a normal year, one in 20 families is pushed into poverty due to high medical costs. What has happened in the last two months is understandable. Millions of wonderful Indian families Hope was forced to sell gold, pawn or borrow money. Economist write. In times of poverty, people are vulnerable to a variety of scams, such as healthcare workers demanding bribes to secure hospital admissions, purchasing counterfeit drugs, or even in some states, painted scams. on fire extinguishers to sell as oxygen tanks. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, who has been promoting an herbal “cure” for Covid-19, last week advised Indians to eat more dark chocolate with “more than 70% cocoa” to beat the stress of the pandemic. . 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.

VOCs include corona virus variants that are more dangerous than the original strains, with a higher potential for infection and lethality. WHO previously classified B.1.617 as a “strain variable” (VOI), a level of danger lower than that of the VOC. Variant B.1.617 was first discovered in the Vidarbha region of the Indian state of Maharashtra last December. B.1.617 contains 2 mutations L452R and E484Q, or “double mutation”. According to WHO, variant B.1.617 is already present in more than 20 countries. Malaysian soldiers and security personnel at a blockade to block the entrance of the capital Kuala Lumpur. Photo: Bloomberg Malaysia blockade nationwide for 3 weeks Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on May 10 announced that the country would again apply a nationwide blockade within three weeks. According to Reuters, Prime Minister Yassin said the decision to blockade from May 12 to June 7 is necessary, as the number of new infections and the emergence of corona virus variants are putting pressure on. public health system. “Malaysia is facing a third wave of Covid-19 that is likely to cause a national crisis,” explained Mr. Yassin. “Data and science continue to show gathering practices, which make it difficult to maintain social disparity, and the presence of people in confined spaces as the main cause of social disparity. spread of Covid-19 “. Malaysia’s Ministry of Health said on May 10 that the country had 3,807 new cases of Covid-19 infection, bringing the total number of cases to 444,484. The number of Covid-19 deaths increased by 17 to a total of 1,700. The Malaysian government has also introduced the Movement Control Order (MCO), which prohibits all activities with crowds such as weddings or dining at restaurants, closes schools, limits 3 to 1. car (including driver) … The body of a suspected Covid-19 washed up on the banks of the Ganges River At least 40 bodies were washed ashore on the banks of the Ganges section between the two Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. “The incident happened at the Ganges section in Buxar district, near the state border of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. We instructed authorities to dispose of the bodies by burial or cremation,” said Ashok Kumar, local official. , said May 10. Buxar district media said, the number of bodies washed ashore could reach about 100. Many of these are decomposing and may have been in the river for many days. Some officials are concerned that these may be the remains of victims recently passed away from Covid-19. Locals believe that the bodies were dropped into the river because the cremation area was overloaded or relatives of the dead could not afford firewood. “This is what really shocked us,” said Kameshwar Pandey, a person who lives near the riverbank. According to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU), on May 10, India recorded more than 366,000 new cases and nearly 3,800 deaths. To date, the country has recorded a total of more than 22.6 million cases and more than 246,000 deaths by Covid-19. Taiwan isolating China Airlines pilots Tran Thoi Chung, head of the Taiwanese health agency (China), said on May 10 that all pilots of the island’s largest airline would be quarantined for 14 days to prevent spread of Covid-19. Chung said the only way he could stop what he believed was a cluster of infections at China Airlines was to isolate all of the airline’s returning and returning pilots, Chung said. “This will have a big impact on China Airlines, for its passenger, cargo and crew flights. But for the safety of the entire community, we can’t help but make a decision. This, “he announced. China Airlines did not comment on the decision, although it has repeatedly said it will work with authorities to end Covid-19 infection, and increase vaccination of its employees, including both the pilot. Vietnamese-English

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.

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.

“We have to race against time, work at 100% capacity to cremate bodies in time,” said Kamlesh Sailor, president of the organization that operates a cremation facility in Surat City, Gujarat state. Data from cremation facilities, media to the government show that the number of people buried or cremated by major cities is much greater than the number of Covid-19 deaths recorded by the authorities. official health announcement, according to Reuters . The difference in the number of deaths Reliable data is central to every nation’s anti-pandemic efforts, experts say. Without reliable data, such as vaccine preparation and medical essentials supply are extremely difficult. On April 19, India recorded 273,810 new infections, along with 1,619 deaths. The total number of Covid-19 cases in India is now more than 15 million, ranking second only to the United States. But it is more likely that the above statistic is much lower than what is actually happening. The bodies are cremated according to Covid-19 defense regulations in India. Photo: Sentinel. Indian authorities say the discrepancy in death data could be caused by a variety of reasons. Many corpses are cremated according to the Covid-19 prevention “even if there is only a 0.1% chance that the person is positive for the virus,” said a health official. “There are many cases where patients are hospitalized in a very critical condition and die before being tested. There are cases where patients died prior to admission, we don’t know if they have Covid-19 or not”, the official said to be anonymous. There are many areas in India where reliable data cannot be collected, said Bhramar Mukherjee, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Michigan. “Things are messed up, I feel like no one understood the situation,” Mr. Mukherjee said. Surat is the second largest city in the state of Gujarat. At the cremation facilities Kurukshetra and Umra, more than 100 bodies are cremated every day according to Covid-19 regulations. This figure is four times higher than the official statistics of the number of people dying from Covid-19. Prashant Kabrawala, representative of the Narayan Trust, which runs the Ashwinikumar cremation facility, refused to provide the number of bodies cremated under anti-epidemic regulations. However, he says the number of cremations has tripled in recent weeks. “I’ve never seen so many cremated bodies over the years,” Kabrawala said. An Indian government spokesman in Gujarat declined to comment ahead of the difference in the number of deaths and cremations associated with the epidemic. India is not the only country where corona virus statistics have been questioned. But scientific literature and cremation staff testimony show that the disparity in officially reported deaths in India is much higher than in other countries. Professor Mukherjee’s study against the first wave of epidemics in India showed that the number of viral infections is 11 times more than officially reported, which is similar to research in other countries. However, the difference in officially reported deaths ranges from 2-5 times, much higher than the global average. The incinerator burned non-stop In Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, data from the largest cremation facility called Baikunthdham, which only processed the bodies of Covid-19 patients, showed that the number of bodies brought in was twice as high. The death of corona virus is reported by the government. That’s not to mention data from other cremation facilities, or cases of the Muslim customary burial – the community that makes up a quarter of Lucknow’s population. Azad, the Baikunthdham facility manager, said the number of bodies cremated under anti-epidemic regulations has increased fivefold in recent weeks. “We work day and night. The furnace is burning red continuously, but many bodies still have to line up,” Azad said. The state government of Uttar Pradesh declined to respond to a request for comment on Covid-19 death data. Cremations many times greater than the number of Covid-19 deaths have also been reported in many other parts of India. Cremation facility staff in New Delhi are exhausted from a work shift. Photo: QZ. In Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh, it was recorded during 4 days of April that 187 bodies had been cremated according to anti-epidemic regulations. However, the number of corona virus deaths officially announced by the authorities is only 5. Last week, the sheet Sandesh 63 bodies were reported to a hospital for Covid-19 patients only in the city of Ahmedabad. However, that same day, the city authorities only counted 20 people died from the corona virus. Medical Journal Lancet says less than 25% of all deaths in India are confirmed medically, meaning that the exact number of deaths from Covid-19 in many regions cannot be determined. “Most of the deaths are not reported, so it is impossible to have a reliable calculation,” said Professor Mukherjee.