India Covid surge hits new record as oxygen runs short

People queue to enter the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus railway station to board trains, amidst the spread

India's brutal new Covid outbreak set records on Wednesday with more than 2,000 deaths in 24 hours as hospitals in New Delhi ran perilously low on oxygen. India has been in the grips of a second wave of infections blamed on lax government rules and a new ‘double mutant’ virus variant, adding almost 3.5 million new cases this month alone. Health ministry data on Wednesday showed a record 2,023 fatalities and 295,000 new cases in 24 hours, among the world's biggest daily case totals and on a par with numbers seen in the United States during a deadly surge in January. In an address to the nation on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the country of 1.3 billion people was ‘once again fighting a big fight’.