The Centre on Friday directed Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh to augment hospital beds, intensive care units and ventilators, signalled plans to import medical oxygen and pledged funds to ramp up Covid-19 vaccine production as India recorded over 217,000 new infections.

A senior public health expert tracking the country’s epidemic described those actions as similar to “digging a well after the house is on fire”.

Top central government bureaucrats asked officials from Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh to address deficiencies in hospital infrastructure that health officials believe are contributing to inadequate treatment and high numbers of deaths in these states.

The Union health ministry said Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh were the only states other than Maharashtra where the numbers of active Covid-19 patients now exceeded 100,000.

“Both are reporting very high numbers of daily new cases and high deaths,” the ministry said.

The seven-day average of daily new cases has spiked 105-fold over the past month in Uttar Pradesh, from 152 cases on March 15 to over 15,994 on April 15. In Chhattisgarh, the seven-day average has jumped 27-fold, from 476 to 12,800.

Shortages of intensive-care-unit facilities and oxygen-supported hospital beds have meant that many patients have lacked access to critical care services.

The health ministry said the states had been advised to increase hospital beds, plan for adequate oxygen supply, and curb mortality through early identification of positive cases and adherence to standard treatment guidelines.

The 217,353 new Covid-19 infections recorded on Friday have raised the country’s total of active patients by over 97,800 to 1.56 million, about 50 per cent higher than the peak count of about 1 million during the previous wave last September.

“It’s absolutely terrible, the numbers are overwhelming. My phone rings constantly for beds (that) we’re hardly able to provide,” a senior physician, who is also the medical superintendent at a leading hospital in New Delhi, told The Telegraph.

In Faridabad (Haryana), the family of a 69-year-old Covid-19 patient whose oxygen levels had fallen to dangerously low levels spent hours on Friday unsuccessfully seeking a hospital bed across the National Capital Region.

“We tried our best — doctors want to help but just can’t, there are just too many patients,” said Gita Nath, an acquaintance of the family.

The patient was eventually admitted to a hospital in Ballabhgarh, a town neighbouring Faridabad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met senior officials from the health ministry and other departments to review the nation’s oxygen supply status amid concerns that the demand for medical oxygen — now about 54 per cent of daily production — is likely to rise in the coming weeks.

The government said it was allowing industrial cylinders to be used for medical oxygen after due purging, and letting nitrogen and argon tankers ferry oxygen to overcome the potential shortage of tankers. Senior officials briefed Modi about efforts to import medical oxygen.

Health experts have blamed the Centre’s policy makers of failing to anticipate the surge despite the public laxity on personal precautions, pandemic fatigue among healthcare staff, inadequate control measures and congregations such as election rallies and the Kumbh Mela.

“When India’s cases had fallen, small clusters of infections should have been well-controlled. They were like sparks that needed to be extinguished as quickly as possible. Now the fire is everywhere,” a physician and public health expert said. “The actions now are like digging a well after the house is on fire.”

Money for vaccines

The Centre on Friday announced Rs 130 crore to ramp up the production of Covaxin, the home-grown Covid-19 vaccine, from the current capacity of 10 million doses per month to 70 million doses by July-August and 100 million doses by September.

The funds will go to Covaxin’s maker Bharat Biotech’s facilities in Hyderabad and Bangalore, the Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation in Mumbai, and two other vaccine-manufacturing units.

Experts tracking vaccine development have said India should have foreseen the need for vaccines and ramped up capacity months ago.

States seek vaccine doses

The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday announced it has no stock of Covid vaccines while chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting that 60 lakh doses be immediately sent.

The Odisha government has sought at least 25 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines in a single lot from the Centre.

Maharashtra has sought 40 to 45 lakh vaccine vials every week.