WHO raises alarm over declining oxygen supplies

The world is facing another major crisis as the World Health Organisation has raised the alarm that the planet is running out of oxygen supplies.

According to the Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, as COVID-19 cases race towards the 10 million mark, the demand for oxygen is outstripping supplies.

He said as global cases are rising by about one million cases per week, there is an increasing oxygen demand to 88,000 large cylinders per day, or 620,000 cubic metres of oxygen.

According to Johns Hopkins data, global cases stand at 9.4 million on Thursday morning with 4.7m recoveries and 482,000 deaths.

Worldometers.info, which also tracks the infections gave a higher figure of 9,543,163 cases, with 485,294 deaths. Recoveries, according to the data site are 5,187,645.

The United States is the world’s grim leader with 2,462,708 cases and 124,282 deaths. Brazil comes second with 1,192,474 cases and a death toll of 53,874.