Why did India fall into an oxygen crisis in the second ‘COVID-19 tsunami’?

By air, rail and land, day and night, India is making efforts to transport large amounts of medical oxygen to hospitals in the capital Delhi and other areas severely affected by the ‘tidal wave’. god ‘COVID-19.

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.