(AP) — Some residents of Mexico City are spending the new year in lines waiting to refill oxygen canisters for relatives suffering from COVID-19.
The city of nine million has seen a surge in coronavirus infections and the city’s hospitals are 87% occupied, straining oxygen supplies. That has resulted in long lines and price hikes that make it hard or impossible for some to refill tanks that may last for only a few hours. With people afraid to go to hospitals and patients being treated at home, oxygen becomes a question of life and death.