Over the past 24 hours, India recorded 323,144 new cases, slightly below a worldwide peak of 352,991 reached on Monday, with overrun hospitals turning away patients due to a shortage of beds and oxygen supplies.
“Please note that a huge fall in daily cases … is largely due to a heavy fall in testing,” Rijo M John, a professor and health economist at the Indian Institute of Management in the southern state of Kerala, said on Twitter.
“This should not be taken as an indication of falling cases, rather a matter of missing out on too many positive cases!”
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Over 1,000 COVID Deaths ‘Missing’ In Delhi: Reporthttps://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/delhi-coronavirus-deaths-over-1-000-covid-deaths-missing-in-delhi-data-reveal-civic-records-2422628An investigation by India’s NDTV network reveals the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 might be much higher than the official figures.
The channel says it visited the capital’s civic body and seven cremation grounds and found that at least 1,150 deaths did not make it to the official list.
Data collected from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s 26 crematoriums shows that 3,096 cremations of COVID-19 victims were conducted between April 18 and April 24, while the total deaths released by the Delhi government in the same time period show 1,938 deaths.
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Delhi has cremated so many COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to cut down trees in city parks to fuel the funeral pyreshttps://apnews.com/article/health-india-coronavirus-8788a4dadc2103ec30f40111dec92f15https://www.businessinsider.com/delhi-getting-requests-trees-funeral-pyres-covid-surge-2021-4NEW DELHI (AP) — Delhi has been cremating so many bodies of COVID-19 victims that authorities are getting requests to start cutting down trees in city parks for kindling, as a record surge of illness is collapsing India’s tattered health care system.
Outside graveyards in cities like Delhi, which currently has the highest daily cases, ambulance after ambulance waits in line to cremate the dead. Burial grounds are running out of space in many cities as glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night
In the central city of Bhopal, crematoriums have added pyres. One has been forced to skip the exhaustive rituals Hindus believe release the soul from the cycle of rebirth.
Overwhelmed crematoriums reflect the collapse of India’s already fragile health care system. Hospitals are unbearably full, with two or three patients to a bed in some cases. Officials are racing to add beds, ventilators and more oxygen to help the sick breathe.
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The Scroll website reported on April 18 that only 11 out of 50 planned oxygen generation plants had been set up across the country in eight months. In response, the Ministry of Health claimed 162 such plants were planned, of which 32 have been set up.
https://scroll.in/article/992537/india-is-running-out-of-oxygen-covid-19-patients-are-dying-because-the-government-wasted-time------------------------------------------
Photos show the deadly toll of Covid in India as coronavirus cases top 17 millionhttps://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/04/26/photos-show-the-deadly-toll-of-covid-in-india-as-coronavirus-cases-top-17-million.html--------------------------------------------
India's Richest People Are Fleeing On Private Jets as the Country Hits 350,000 COVID-19 Infections In Another Daily Global Recordhttps://www.businessinsider.com/super-rich-fleeing-india-country-records-new-daily-global-record-2021-4https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/airfares-soar-private-jets-in-demand-rich-indians-flee-the-country-fly-to-dubai-to-escape-covid-surge/articleshow/82228187.cmshttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/indians-charter-100-000-private-jets-to-beat-4am-coronavirus-travel-deadline-q276j6gms------------------------------------------------------
India’s Urban Affluent Hit By New Virus Wave After Dodging Firsthttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-23/india-s-urban-affluent-hit-by-new-virus-wave-after-dodging-firstIndia’s devastating new wave of infections appears to have landed on its urban affluent, a group whose lives are usually insulated from the country’s worst economic and social crises.
In Mumbai, India’s financial center, more than 170,000 households are in buildings that have been sealed by government authorities, which indicates the coronavirus is spreading rapidly among the city’s middle and upper middle classes. Official data show only 120,000 slum households are in areas demarcated as “containment zones,” despite the poor being packed in far more tightly.
“Most cases are coming from buildings and high rises and not slums,” Suresh Kakani, Mumbai’s deputy municipal commissioner, said by phone.
... Every essential to save a life is in short supply or available on the black market. Then there's the fear of the virus literally "at your door". Over the past week, three buildings in the gated complex where I live have become "containment zones", with entire skyscrapers sealed because of too many infections. The days and nights are filled with helplessness, anxiety and fear. The bad news is unrelenting.
With the so-called consuming class ravaged by the new wave, India’s growth is at risk because private consumption accounts for about 60% of India’s economy. The central bank’s consumer confidence survey is showing increasing pessimism on jobs and policy makers have said they stand ready to support growth in what is now the world’s epicenter of the pandemic.
“Times are such that people are seeking help from every quarter possible,” said Ajay Bagga, a retired banker and fund manager, who is helping vet claims on social media from groups purporting to supply the Covid treatment remdesivir. “Trader chatrooms are no more exclusive to market discussions. People are sharing information on hospital beds, oxygen supplies.”
The affluent cities of Mumbai and Pune account for almost 30% of Maharashtra state’s active cases while housing 14% of its population. Within Mumbai, more than 90% of all active cases this week are concentrated in high-rise buildings while only 10% come from the slums, according to an Indian Express analysis.
Comparable data isn’t available for other Indian cities but similar stories abound. Bankers are turning to Twitter to seek medical help for their friends and family, tycoons are advising people to keep their masks on even in the presence of trusted folks, and citizens who, until now, enjoyed levels of privilege unthinkable for the vast majority of Indians, are pleading for hospital beds and oxygen.
One reason why the second wave is hitting wealthier Indians hard is simply that they managed to avoid the first outbreak by sheltering at home when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a strict lockdown that devastated poorer communities.
The first wave coursed through India’s crowded slums quickly -- serological surveys conducted mid-2020 showed about half the population in Mumbai’s slums had antibodies compared with less than 20% for the rest of the city. This might now be providing a level of protection against the second, deadlier outbreak for disadvantaged populations.
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China's Airline Suspends Cargo Flights Bringing Medical Supplies To Indiahttps://www.ndtv.com/india-news/covid-19-chinas-airline-suspends-cargo-flights-bringing-medical-supplies-to-india-2422069China's state-run Sichuan Airlines has suspended all its cargo flights to India for 15 days, causing major disruption to private traders' efforts to procure the much-needed oxygen concentrators and other medical supplies from China despite Beijing offering "support and assistance" to the country to deal with the latest surge of COVID-19 cases.
The suspension of cargo flights came as a surprise to agents and freight forwarders who are frantically trying to procure the oxygen concentrators from China.
There are also complaints of Chinese manufacturers jacking up the prices by 35 to 40 per cent. The freight charges have been increased to over 20 per cent, Siddharth Sinha of Sino Global Logistics, a Shanghai-based freight forwarding company.
The suspension of the flights owing to the coronavirus situation in India is surprising as there is no crew change in India and the same crew flies the aircraft back, he said.
He told PTI here that the Sichuan Airlines decision to cancel flights has caused severe disruption to attempts by private traders in both the countries to secure quick supplies of the Oxygen concentrators to rush to India in view of the dire situation.
Now it becomes very challenging to rush the supplies as they have to be rerouted through Singapore and other countries through different airlines, which delays the much-needed supplies, he said.
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Rural Doctors Braced for ‘Devastating’ Second Wave as India’s Workers Flee Citieshttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/23/rural-doctors-braced-for-devastating-second-wave-as-indias-workers-flee-citiesScenes of migrant workers massing at bus and train stations, fleeing lockdowns in Indian cities for their villages, are ominous to doctors in the country’s hinterlands.
They know that many of those in the crowds will be returning with Covid-19 strains that are ravaging urban India, leading to record numbers of daily infections this week and the country’s highest daily death tolls since the virus emerged. In parts of rural West Bengal state, where politicians were holding mass election rallies until late this week, the surge has already started.
“Few hospitals in this region have vacant beds for patients right now, and some are refusing to admit patients, no matter how sick they are,” a physician at a government hospital in Birbhum, a district of 3.5 million people north of Kolkata, told the
Guardian on Friday. He asked not to be named, fearing reprisals from authorities.
“Where I am working, I have seen a three-fold increase in the number of patients reporting breathlessness and other Covid-related symptoms in the past two or three weeks.”
Surveys from the first wave showed that rural citizens in parts of Karnataka state had comparable levels of antibodies to their urban counterparts. Though they lived in less dense communities, fewer in the countryside were able to stop working and the virus found no shortage of hosts.
... Official statistics show monthly cases in Birbhum grew from 42 in February, to three times that many the following month, to 4,762 by 21 April. On their current trajectory, infections will surpass 13,000 by the end of the month, far beyond what the district’s 80 government hospitals and primary healthcare centres can treat.
The doctor in the government hospital said he reported every Covid-19 death in his institution to authorities, but that most of the sick in his area would never reach his facility.
“The actual number of infections in my area is five-to-10 times higher than what my hospital reports,” the doctor said.
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