India's underfunded health system is on the brink of collapse as the world's worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation. This week the number of recorded cases passed 300,000 a day, along with more than 2,000 deaths - which is close to twice the daily deaths India experienced during the first peak of the virus between July and September 2020.

Hospitals in Delhi have now issued SOS alerts on Friday, saying they had only a few hours’ supply of oxygen left and pleading for government help, while social media was flooded with requests for oxygen cylinders, shared by people seeking urgent care for their relatives.

India, the world's second most populous nation, has confirmed 16 million cases so far, second only to the US. The country's real death toll from the virus is thought to be significantly higher than official figures, amid reports of some state governments fudging data, and crematorium equipment in some states melting due to the constant heat of fires burning day and night.

• Rural doctors braced for ‘devastating’ second wave as India’s workers flee cities
  
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As Covid cases spike, countryside physicians say hospital space is scarce while most infections go unreported

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Scenes of migrant workers massing at bus and train stations, fleeing lockdowns in Indian cities for their villages, are ominous to doctors in the country’s hinterlands.

They know that many of those in the crowds will be returning with Covid-19 strains that are ravaging urban India, leading to record numbers of daily infections this week and the country’s highest daily death tolls since the virus emerged. In parts of rural West Bengal state, where politicians were holding mass election rallies until late this week, the surge has already started.

As a global record for new Covid cases is set in India, hospitals are running out of vital supplies

• ‘The system has collapsed’: India’s descent into Covid hell

Hospitals in parts of India are using social media to beg for help finding oxygen and key equipment as the country’s second Covid-19 wave continues to build, breaking global records for the most infections detected in a single day.

Only two months ago, some in the vast country of more than 1.3billion people were celebrating what they thought was the end of Covid-19 after six successive months of falling caseloads. Most of the remaining restrictions on social life were removed and people again flocked to markets, cricket stadiums and religious festivals.

Analysis: India’s surveillance of the virus missed its real prevalence earlier this year

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The blindspots in India’s response to its second, devastating wave of coronavirus infections serve as a stark warning to other countries.

In retrospect it was clear that the figures for new infections that India was reporting in January and February were probably too good to be true, with a country of more than 1.3 billion people seeing its caseload drop from its first peak last year of over 100,000 cases a day to under 10,000.

At least 22 patients have died in a western Indian hospital after their oxygen supply was interrupted. The leak was plugged by the fire service within 15 minutes, but there was disruption in the Zakir Hussain Hospital in Nashik, a city in Maharashtra state, that is the worst-hit by the latest surge in coronavirus cases in India. Television showed images of people with empty oxygen cylinders crowding refilling facilities as they scrambled to save stricken relatives in hospital.

• ‘The system has collapsed’: India’s descent into Covid hell
  
• Why is India seeing such a huge surge in Covid-19 cases?