India's government, facing calls for a strict coronavirus lockdown to slow the devastating surge in infections, has been ordered by the country’s top court to submit a plan on meeting New Delhi hospitals’ oxygen requirements within a day.

India is experiencing a vast coronavirus outbreak, with 382,315 new confirmed cases and 3,780 reported deaths in the last 24 hours, in what is widely believed to be an undercount.

The Supreme Court decided against immediately punishing officials for failing to end a two-week erratic supply of oxygen to overstretched ­hospitals.

The presiding judge said, “Ultimately, putting officers in jail or hauling officers for contempt will not bring oxygen. Please tell us steps to solve this.”

The court stayed the contempt notice issued to the government by a lower New Delhi court for defying its order on supplying adequate oxygen to over 40 New Delhi hospitals.

On Tuesday India’s foreign minister pulled out of in-­person meetings at a Group of Seven gathering in London because of possible exposure to the coronavirus.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar tweeted he was “made aware yesterday evening of exposure to possible Covid positive cases.”

He added out of “abundant caution” he would attend yesterday’s meetings virtually.

Britain’s Foreign Office didn’t immediately confirm whether any delegates had tested positive.

Diplomats from the G-7 group of wealthy nations are meeting in London for their first face-to-face gathering in two years.

India is not a G-7 member but was invited along with South Korea, Australia and South Africa to attend the group’s meeting as a guest last night.

A German military cargo aircraft with a mobile oxygen production unit for India has departed  from an airport in northern Germany to help Indian hospitals that are overwhelmed with coronavirus pandemic patients.

The plane will have a layover in Abu Dhabi and is expected to arrive in India today.

“We’re proud to contribute significantly with our airlift in the global fight against the coronavirus,” German air force Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz told ­German news agency DPA.

“Air transports are a routine for us but we all know that the fight against this pandemic is about human lives and that every single life counts.”

A second cargo plane is expected to leave Wunstorf air base today.

 Meanwhile in Belgrade the Serbian government will offer money to people who have vaccinated as it seeks ways to boost the process.  Serbia has led the way in vaccination in the Balkan region, but interest has recently slumped.

The government said yesterday it will pay 3,000 dinars (€25) of state aid to everyone who received at least one vaccine dose by the end of May.

Previously, authorities have organised vaccination without an appointment and announced vaccination points in some shopping malls in Belgrade.

So far, around two million people have received at least one dose of Sinopharm, Pfizer, Sputnik V or AstraZeneca vaccines in the country of some seven
million people.

The government says “vaccination is the only way back to the life we remember before 2020 and the coronavirus ­pandemic.”