In the backdrop of acute shortage of medical oxygen in certain parts of the country due to unprecedented rise in Covid-19 cases, the government on Tuesday said it has imported 20 cryogenic tankers of 10 MT and 20 MT capacity and allocated them to states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, and Gujarat.

“The mapping of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) from the manufacturing plant to different states being a dynamic process and transportation of medical oxygen through cryogenic tankers becoming a bottleneck in making available LMO from the eastern part of the country to other parts, twenty cryogenic ISO containers of capacity 20 MT and 10 MT have been imported to augment the transportation of Oxygen,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, after a record high in the previous day, daily Covid-19 cases came down to 3,23,144 on Tuesday with 2,771 deaths till 8 am on Tuesday, according to the Health Ministry data. Monday, total daily cases stood at 3,52,991, up 8.4 per cent than the total cases reported in the last 24 hours. Cumulatively, India reported coronavirus cases at 1,76,36,307, out of which 28,82,204 were active cases; 1,45,56,209 were those who recovered and 197894 was the death toll.

The eight States of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Kerala cumulatively account for 69.1 per cent of India’s total active cases, the government said adding that the national cumulative fatality rate or CFR has been falling and currently stands at 1.12 per cent.

The government has so far administered 14,52,71,186 vaccines with 33,59,963 shots given in a single day till 8:00 AM in the morning. Meanwhile, from Wednesday, registrations for phase 3 vaccination drive for those above 18 years of age will open up on CoWin platform. The vaccines will be injected in the eligible candidates from May 1 to curtail the unrelenting spike in coronavirus cases.

India-US talk

On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a telephonic conversation with US President Joe Biden on the evolving Covid situation. Modi discussed about India’s ongoing efforts to contain the second wave of the pandemic and Biden offered his assistance in India’s endeavour to fight the deadly virus.

Besides that, AIIMs Director Randeep Guleria, urged people to use hospital amenities judiciously.

“Unnecessary panic is doing more harm than good. Covid positive patients with normal saturation and no symptoms also get panicky about getting oxygen and admission in hospital and get themselves admitted which leads to rush in hospitals. Due to all this, genuine patients suffer because they don’t get the proper treatment amid all of this,” Guleria said Monday at a press briefing of the Health Ministry here.

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