India’s second wave of Covid-19 has been marked by a grave oxygen crisis. More than 500 patients have died just in hospitals because of a shortage of the life-saving gas. Some of these deaths could have been prevented had the country vaccinated its people at a faster clip, data suggests.
On the evening of May 14, the oxygen crisis reached Imphal, Manipur, where a leading private hospital suspended admission of new patients because it had run out of medical oxygen amid a Covid-19 surge in the state.
At the time, the official caseload in the state with a population of 31 lakh was just over 5,500 cases. Its overall oxygen requirement that evening, according to the state’s health secretary V Vumlunmang, was nearly 900 D-type cylinders.
Not too far away, Tripura, a considerably more populated state with 40 lakh people, was reporting fewer Covid-19 cases at 4,230. Strikingly, its oxygen requirement was in the range of just 100-115 D-type cylinders.
In other words,…