India virus patients suffocate from low oxygen amid surge

Indian authorities are scrambling to get medical oxygen to hospitals where COVID-19 patients are suffocating from low supplies

SRINAGAR, India -- Authorities scrambled anew Saturday to supply medical oxygen to Indian hospitals where COVID-19 patients were suffocating amid low supplies as the country with the world’s worst coronavirus surge set a new global daily record of infections for the third straight day. The 346,786 infections over the past day brought India’s total past 16 million, behind only the United States. The Health Ministry reported another 2,624 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India’s COVID-19 fatalities to 189,544. Hospitals in the capital, New Delhi, and some of the worst-hit states like Maharashtra reported being critically short of beds and oxygen. Families were waiting for days to cremate their loved ones at overburdened crematoriums, with many turning to makeshift facilities for last rites. “Every hospital is running out (of oxygen). We are running out,” Dr. Sudhanshu Bankata, executive director of Batra Hospital, a leading hospital in the capital, told New Delhi Television channel.