Every day is getting more murderous. India recorded, Thursday, April 29, 3,645 deaths from Covid-19, or 350 more than the day before, a new threshold for this country overwhelmed by the epidemic outbreak, according to reports from the Indian Ministry of Health.
The country has recorded 204,832 deaths linked to Covid-19, but many experts believe the real toll is much higher. India has identified nearly 380,000 contaminations in the last twenty-four hours, and more than six million in the month of April alone.
This exponential upsurge, blamed in part on the new so-called Indian variant, as well as the gathering of crowds at political and religious events, has overwhelmed hospitals now short of beds, life-saving medicines and oxygen.
In an interview with the newspaper Indian Express, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor K. Vijay Raghavan, admitted that the government could have done more to prepare for this second wave. “The central government and state governments made tremendous efforts to strengthen hospital and health care infrastructure during the first wave (…), but when that wave declined, maybe it was gone. the same with the feeling of urgency to continue the work ”, did he declare.
However, “It is simply not possible to amplify the capacities of a public health system in one year to a level sufficient to cope with what we see today”, he added. The health crisis is particularly serious in New Delhi, where people are dying at the doors of crowded hospitals.
American aid
The United States on Wednesday announced the urgent dispatch of more than $ 100 million of equipment to fight the epidemic in India. These airborne supplies include nearly a million rapid screening tests, which detect SARS-CoV-2 infection within fifteen minutes.
The first military plane carrying these materials will arrive in New Delhi on Thursday, the White House said. This shipment will also include 100,000 N95 protective masks, intended for essential workers on the front line in the face of the pandemic.
Other flights planned by Washington will follow, which will bring oxygen therapy equipment and supplies to produce more than twenty million doses of vaccine.