International aid arriving in India amid devastating COVID-19 outbreak
India is experiencing the world's worst COVID-19 outbreak, with a record 3,689 confirmed deaths and nearly 393,000 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours. To help, several foreign governments on Sunday pledged to send additional aid, including oxygen concentrators, ventilators, and N95 masks.
A new variant is spreading across India, where hospitals are running out of oxygen and supplies and crematoriums are running all day in order to keep up with demand. On Sunday, the United Kingdom said it will send 1,000 ventilators to India, on top of the 200 ventilators, 495 oxygen concentrators, and three oxygen generation units it vowed to deliver last week.
The United States promised to send $100 million worth of aid last week, including 15 million N95 masks, 1 million rapid diagnostic tests, and 1,100 refillable oxygen cylinders, and about half of the supplies arrived in New Delhi on Sunday. Around 28 tons of medical equipment from France also made it to India on Sunday, including oxygen generators and ventilators, and a second shipment of aid is already in the works, the Indian embassy in France said. On Saturday, a German military plane touched down in India carrying 120 ventilators and a team of 13 medical experts who will set up and operate mobile oxygen production units.
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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