> On the other hand, I’m not willing to fly to India just now. Not as much out of fear of Covid but because, if I happened to have, say, a heart attack, I clearly would be unable to get a hospital bed or an oxygen mask.
It's very region-dependent. Mumbai peaked in early April. 60%+ of O2 beds in Mumbai are vacant.
India did redirect industrial 02 production towards the hospitals. Part of the o2 shortage is zoning and logisticsz Delhi has zoning laws that ban manufacturing 02 within the city limits so all 02 has to be transported in.
> Because of the sudden surge in demand for medical oxygen, currently most of the industrial oxygen in India is undergoing an additional purification step, and then being diverted for medical use. A major challenge is getting this oxygen from factories in eastern and southern states to the northern and western states which are most struggling with supply. It takes hours to fill a tanker with the highly flammable liquid oxygen, and once on the road, these vehicles must follow a strict speed limit of no more than 25 mph as well as not travelling at night, to avoid road accidents.
Oxygen might not be flammable, but it is caustic. Plus, does the distinction of what is flammable really matter when spilled LOX is 'allowing' everything around it to combust at the slightest spark?
It's strange that oxygen cannot be transported at night. In Europe all the critical and big volume transports goes often at night (wind turbines parts, ship components etc.)
It would depend on infrastructure quality and traffic law adherence.
Lots of places around the world have really terrible roads and nonexistent or nearly entirely unenforced road laws. Places like that you might want to be careful to not drive an enormous tank of flaming death around when you’re not so sure you can see each of 500 pot holes, or an oncoming driver.
Basic infrastructure things are easily taken for granted.
You never have been to India or have never seen a video of a street in India. There are no streets as we in the western know. There is a road and traffic just everywhere and nobody cares about traffic rules. It‘s a dangerous place to live. [Maybe a bit exxagarated].
Otherwise you would know that this _may easily_ result in an accident and no-one wants to have a truck full of O2 to blow up in the night in the middle of nowhere. At least during the day „you see where you go“.
It's very region-dependent. Mumbai peaked in early April. 60%+ of O2 beds in Mumbai are vacant.