India’s Oxygen Beds June 2021 Status Check: Live Covid dashboards, crowdsourcing help in corona war

Oxygen Bed in India in June 2021 Status Check: India’s war against Covid saw a brutal phase during the second wave of the coronavirus that wreaked havoc in the months of April and May. The absolute collapse of the Indian healthcare infrastructure saw many people going breathless. The Oxygen crisis sparked a massive outpouring of SOSs on social media. From film stars to major private and public companies, many institutions announced the setting up of oxygen bed facilities in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities. So, as India breathes again, what’s the status of the oxygen bed issue in the country? The answer is – it’s complicated! The core issue is the lack of an all-India level compilation of data of this nature. So, if you want to know how many oxygen beds are available in India right now, the only way to find out is to go hyperlocal way. Even the Union Health Ministry’s link of the Covid resources (self4society.mygov.in/covid-resources) is a crowdsourced initiative. Another point is that with the receding numbers of daily Covid cases, there are fewer verified oxygen bed leads or status available on Twitter. According to a report released by the Modi government last month, as of May 9, around 1.73lakh people were on Oxygen support across India.

In order to bring the most accurate picture, we checked the live dashboards announced by cities such as Delhi, Noida and some other states and cities. Here’s the June status check:

Delhi: The National Capital has a live, dedicated Covid dashboard – (coronabeds.jantasamvad.org/). One can see clearly see the sections labelled as Covid beds, Covid ICU beds, Oxygenbeds etc. All widgets are clickable and the data is updated regularly.

Gurugram: The local officials launched a site with all information about the Covid-related facilities –(covidggn.com/). It also features the option of WhatsApp chatbot. One needs to login with Aadhaar details to find out the status of the Oxygen beds in Millenium City.

Noida: The live tracker launched by the Noida authority is a simple chart – (gbncovidtracker.in/). The data was last updated on June 6.

Telangana: The state of Cyberabad has a pretty decent Covid19 dashboard – (health.telangana.gov.in/). On the homepage, there’s an option for checking the status of the Oxygen beds in the state. Once you click on that, like Delhi, there are colour-coded panels for general beds, Oxygen beds and ICU beds. When you click on the data of beds available, it takes you to a page with a list of all hospitals, beds available and last updated status also.

Mumbai: BMC’s data update is very fast, you can click here – (stopcoronavirus.mcgm.gov.in/assets/docs/Dashboard.pdf) to find out the latest details.

Bengaluru: The municipal authorities of Indias cyber hub also has a dedicated site for corona related news and updates – (bbmp.gov.in/covid19.html). There is no colour-coding but all required data is available on a single page. Takes time to load. Check internet speed before clicking on the site. Like these, there are several cities such as Thane, Chandigarh, Chennai, states such as Kerala that have a site or live dashboards.

If we talk about the Government of India, the Union Ministry of health provides a link of state wise list of Covid hospitals in the country – (mohfw.gov.in/pdf/StatewiseCovidHospitalslink19062020.pdf). This PDF has the links of the local chapters of the National Health Mission. Time-consuming, no real-time data available.

While this is not an exhaustive list, it will give you an idea of where to find the Covid beds. Other options include going the traditional way and check with your local hospital. Another problem is that there is no data on rural India. Plus, those who are not well-versed in digital grammar or basic internet connection may find it hard to look for such details. The only hope is that the officials have learnt their lessons from the second wave and India may be able to bear the impact of the third Covid wave with a lesser degree of devastation.