Covid-19 Wrap-up | 15 more coronavirus patients die at top Goa hospital

Oxygen, the lack of it, continues to end lives in this country.

Fifteen more Covid-19 patients died at the Goa Medical College and Hospital in the early hours of Thursday, the state government told the Bombay High Court, two days after 26 Covid-19 patients had succumbed at the same facility.

The crisis claimed the life of a 33-year-old woman in Karnataka after she was abandoned by her ambulance driver and refused admission at several hospitals. A 70-year-old Covid-19 patient also reportedly died due to a lack of oxygen at a general hospital in Chitradurga district.

Raphael Koch, a retailer of medical devices in the small Swiss town of Wil, has been busy for the past two weeks fielding a flurry of phone calls. Most are from Indians or India-based companies looking for oxygen concentrators, with some even wanting as many as 500 at once.

A three-member committee appointed by the Karnataka High Court to probe the Chamarajanagar hospital tragedy stated in its report that all the 24 deaths on the intervening night of May 2-3 occurred due to a lack of oxygen. The report stated that between 11 pm on May 2 and the early hours of May 3, there was absolutely no oxygen at the district hospital, attached to the Chamarajanagar Institute of Medical Sciences. Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy charged that the Modi administration was "biased" against the state on supplying oxygen, which led to an immediate counter-attack from the BJP that accused the JD(S) leader of citing "wrong" facts.

After a bitter war over oxygen supply earlier this month, the Delhi government asked the Centre to reduce its oxygen quota due to the declining number of Covid-19 cases and subsequent hospitalisation and instead give it to needy states.

India reported 3.62 lakh new Covid-19 cases in a single day while 4,120 people died from the infection, according to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers D V Sadananda Gowda sought to know whether people in the government should hang themselves for their failure to produce vaccines as was directed by the court. A proposal to suspend intellectual property protection under the Patents Act for Covaxin, the home-made Covid-19 vaccine by Bharat Biotech, is under "serious consideration", he said.

A dialer tune message of the Centre asking people to get vaccinated was criticised by the Delhi High Court which said the "irritating" message was being played for "we don't know how long" asking people to get the jab when there was not enough vaccine.

After Bharat Biotech said it cannot supply more doses of Covaxin to Delhi, the city government wrote to the Serum Institute of India asking it to "come to its rescue", saying it has limited stock of Covishield for 18 to 44 years which will finish in one week.

Meanwhile, the Centre has decided to allow the import of any Covid-19 vaccine that is approved by the FDA and the WHO. More than 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines will likely be available in India between August and December this year, a top government advisor said. Russia's Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V will be available in the market from next week, according to the Centre.

The Health Ministry announced that the gap between the first and second doses of the Covidshield vaccine can be increased to 12-16 weeks from the existing six-eight weeks.

Several bodies, presumably of Covid-19 victims, floating in the River Ganga in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have attracted the attention of the National Human Rights Commission, which sought reports from the Centre and the state governments.

The Supreme Court told the Centre and states to consider the harsh realities faced by migrant workers and ameliorate their miseries that are caused by renewed restrictions imposed to tackle the pandemic's second wave.

The Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2021, scheduled on June 27, has been deferred and it will now be conducted on Oct. 10.