India's coronavirus infections rose by 346,786 overnight, the Health Ministry said on Saturday, setting a new record for the third consecutive day, as overwhelmed hospitals in the densely-populated country begged for oxygen supplies, Reuters reported. India is in the grip of a rampaging second wave of the pandemic, hitting a rate of one COVID-19 death in just under every four minutes in Delhi as the capital's underfunded health system buckles. The government has deployed military planes and trains to get oxygen from the far corners of the country to Delhi. Television showed an oxygen truck arriving at Delhi's Batra hospital after it issued an SOS saying it had 90 minutes of oxygen left for its 260 patients. "Please help us get oxygen, there will be a tragedy here," Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a conference on Friday. The crisis is also being felt in other parts of the country, with several hospitals issuing public notices that they don't have medical oxygen. Local media reported fresh cases of people dying in the cities of Jaipur and Amritsar for lack of the gas. India surpassed the US record of 297,430 single-day infections anywhere in the world on Thursday, making it the global epicenter of a pandemic that is waning in many other countries. The Indian government had itself declared it had beaten back the coronavirus in February when new cases fell to all time lows. However, COVID-19 deaths across India rose by 2,624 over the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate for the country so far. Crematoriums across Delhi said they were full up and asked grieving families to wait. The country of around 1.3 billion has now recorded a total of 16.6 million cases, including 189,544 deaths. S. Korea records new COVID-19 infections In Seoul, South Korea's daily new virus cases neared 800 on Friday as growing untraceable cases, coupled with cluster infections, continued to hamper the country's virus fight against the pandemic, Yonhap reported. The country conditionally approved the use of COVID-19 self-test kits to beef up its testing capacity. The country reported 797 more COVID-19 cases, including 758 local infections, raising the total caseload to 117,458, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The daily caseload has been in the upward trend recently. The daily tally was in the 500s on Monday and Tuesday but jumped to the 700 range with 731 on Wednesday and 735 on Thursday, stoking concerns over another wave of the pandemic here. Untraceable cases accounted for 29 percent of all cases reported in the past two weeks, the highest ever. The country added three more deaths, raising the total to 1,811. The fatality rate was 1.54 percent. France reports 5,962 COVID patients in ICU In Paris, French health authorities reported that 5,962 people were in intensive care units with COVID-19 on Friday, 19 fewer than a day earlier, but the figure remains at a very high level as the country prepares to exit its third lockdown, Reuters reported. The total number of people in hospital with COVID-19 fell for a fourth consecutive day, by 196 to 30,438. France also reported 32,340 new confirmed cases, with the increase of 4.15% compared to last Friday the lowest week-on-week rise since mid-March. Russia reports 8,828 new COVID cases, 399 deaths In Moscow, Russia reported 8,828 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, including 2,541 in Moscow, which took the national tally to 4,753,789 since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reported. The coronavirus crisis center said 399 more deaths of coronavirus patients had been confirmed in the past 24 hours, taking the national death toll to 107,900. The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and reported a toll of more than 225,000 from April 2020 to February. Brazil records 2,914 deaths and 69,105 new infections In Brasilia, Brazil recorded 69,105 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), along with 2,914 deaths. The Brazilian Ministry of Health stated that the total number of cases infected with the virus reached 14,237,078 cases, while the total deaths reached 386,416 deaths. Egypt registers 884 new coronavirus cases In Cairo, Egypt recorded 884 confirmed cases of the new Corona virus, along with 45 deaths in the past 24 hours. The spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Health, Dr. Khaled Mujahid stated in a statement that the total number of cases infected with the virus reached 220,658, while the total deaths reached 12,959 deaths, indicating that the total number of similar cases of recovery reached 166,024 cases. — Agencies
