Virus-hit Indonesia orders oxygen for jammed hospitals

Virus-hit Indonesia orders oxygen for jammed hospitals

JAKARTA: Indonesia yesterday called for the nation's oxygen supplies to be sent to hospitals overflowing with coronavirus patients as fresh cases and deaths hit new records. Oxygen producers had been told to allocate their stocks to the medical sector as the country is battered by an unprecedented wave of infections driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, said senior minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

"We have enough oxygen supply, but demand is up three-to-four fold so there have been distribution gridlocks," he said. "There's supply from five oxygen producers and we've asked them to allocate 100 percent of their oxygen to the health sector," he added. Southeast Asia's worst-hit nation may turn to imports if supplies dry up, he added.

Apart from hospitals, the steel and mining industries are major buyers of mineral-rich Indonesia's oxygen supplies. An emergency refilling station was set up in central Jakarta, while rickshaw drivers in the city of Bandung delivered tanks to homes where virus patients were isolating. Yesterday, the country reported 29,745 new infections and 558 deaths, both daily records, after the government last week ordered fresh virus curbs in the hard-hit capital Jakarta, across Java and on holiday island Bali.

Mosques, parks, shopping malls and restaurants were