LUCKNOW: Sitting on the cusp of the
community spread stage, the second wave of
Covid-19 worsened in the city with over 5,000 new infections and 14 deaths in the past 24 hours.
The 5,433 cases took the number of active cases to 31,687 and soaring hospitalisations to nearly 3000, of whom the condition of 2,000 was serious or critical.
Families of some patients made desperate SOS calls to district administration for help. “Sir Urgent please Help.Oxygen level falling.Patient ko private hospital le gya jahan par help nahi mil rahi,” read of the text messages to an officer.
In another case, authorities allocated a bed to an elderly female Covid patient at a private hospital, but when her family called, the hospital told them that no beds were available.
The Integrated Covid Command Control Centre (ICCC) was also flooded with calls of desperate patients asking for ambulances to shift patients to hospitals.
Testing facilities also saw a huge rush. While government pathology labs are working 24X7, they still have 2-3 days backlog, private pathologies refused to take fresh samples after their quota was over. The situation has come to this level because 36,212 people have been infected in the 14 days of April, with an average of 2,586 daily. The surge also claimed the lives of 175 patients in the same period with average of 12 daily. About 7,517 patients also recovered in April - average 536 per day.