Shortage of firewood forces crematoria in India to think of alternatives.
Christian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
The new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 - first recorded, according to scientific research, in a market in the central region of Wuhan, in China - has increased the number of deaths in India due to this easily transmissible disease that, in just one week, has raised the number of contagions by 2 million 550 thousand people.
During the last 24 hours - as of today's cut-off by the country's health authorities - 382,146 cases of COVID-19 were counted; however, in India, the population believes that there are active cases up to three times more than the official figure. To this, it is also added to the fact that there are also deaths unreported by health authorities, as documented by BBC a week ago.
On the social networking site Twitter, users estimated more than 891,000 new cases on Tuesday, April 20, compared to the 352,000 officially reported; however, the first figure circulated on social networks was not confirmed or discarded by any media inside or outside India.
A month ago, it was estimated that 12 million people had the disease. Today, the number has grown by 45 percent, bringing the total number of cases to more than 20 million people.
Recently, it was announced that everyone over the age of 18 could be eligible for any of the vaccines against the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus; however, the country with the largest production and export of vaccines does not have enough doses to immunize its population.
Added to this is the problem of overcrowded hospitals, lack of beds in intensive care units to treat patients with severe cases of COVID-19. India has airlifted in shipments of medical oxygen tanks; however, doctors consistently report that medical oxygen stocks in hospitals are reaching critically low levels.
The Indian government urged the public to use face masks even in households where people who have been in contact with the outside world live, and to use them if it is suspected that someone in the household may have contracted the disease.
Sadly, the country reports a total of 226,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. A week ago, media around the world replicated the news that massive crematoria had been improvised in uninhabited lots that, so far, are working 24 hours a day.
With crematoria working day and night, given that the average in the last seven days is 3,572 deaths per day, the Asian country is also exhausting its firewood reserves.
The Hindustan Times reported The COVID-19 daily death toll has remained above 3,500 deaths per day ever since, with the number of COVID-19 victims remaining above 3,500 per day.
Now, not only is there a shortage of beds and medical oxygen in hospitals, or medicines needed to treat COVID-19 symptoms; but now, they are demanding the Forest Department to solve the latest problem in Delhi. Even, reports The Hindustan Times, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation has asked for a permit to be issued to use other fuels for crematorium pyres, so, in the face of a shortage of firewood, they are thinking of using dried dung.
Since the number of deaths has risen, crematoriums report that they have had to use, in just 24 hours, approximately 80,000 to 90,000 kilograms of firewood.
