The virus ‘swallowed up’ people in India, and crematoriums burned day and night

Cremators and graveyards across India are overwhelmed by the Covid-19 ‘tsunami’ ripping through the country at frightening speed.
With a lack of medical oxygen supply, families had to take their loved ones with the virus to “knock on the door” of each hospital in the hope of having a vacancy.

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