India COVID-19 surge hits new record as oxygen runs short

NEW DELHI: India’s brutal new COVID-19 outbreak set new 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 295,000 new cases in 24 hours and 2,023 fatalities, among the world’s biggest daily totals of the pandemic and on a par with numbers seen in the United States in January.