New Delhi extends coronavirus lockdown as India cases hit new record

NEW DELHI: India’s capital New Delhi on Sunday extended its lockdown, as the country’s Covid-19 crisis grew with infections and deaths hitting record highs.

The healthcare system has struggled to cope with the huge surge, with reports of severe oxygen and medicine shortages and patients’ families pleading for help on social media.

India recorded 349,691 fresh cases and 2,767 deaths in the last 24 hours — the highest since the start of the pandemic.

The northern megacity — home to 20 million people and the worst hit in India — had imposed a week-long lockdown on Monday.

“We have decided to extend the lockdown by one week,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said.

“The havoc of corona(virus) continues and there is no respite.”

Delhi on Saturday reported just over 24,000 new cases — with more than one-quarter of those tested returning positive results — and a record-high 357 deaths.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a monthly radio address Sunday that India had been shaken by a “storm” as he called on people to get vaccinated and not “get swayed by any rumour about the vaccines”.

The country has administered almost 141 million vaccine shots so far, but experts say the mass inoculation programme needs to be significantly stepped up in the nation of 1.3 billion people.

There has been growing criticism of Modi’s government over allegations it was caught underprepared ahead of the surge.

On Sunday, Twitter confirmed it withheld dozens of tweets critical of the crisis after a legal demand from New Delhi. “If (the content) is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only,” the social media giant said in a statement.

Some tweets included comments, including from regional opposition lawmakers, about the overwhelmed healthcare system.

The IT ministry told AFP it asked Twitter to remove 100 posts, adding that there was “the misuse of social media platforms by certain users to spread fake or misleading information and create panic about the Covid-19 situation in India”.