At a time when the country is facing a second wave of Covid-19, Algerians are giving in more and more to psychosis. On the Internet, there is a sharp increase in sales of oxygen cylinders. Average price, all the same, for eight hours of air: 105,000 Algerian dinars, or nearly 700 euros.
Since last week, Algeria is in turn in the middle of the second wave of Covid-19. “New warning in hospitals,” stressing that the number of patients is starting to increase again. Nearly 100 new hospitalizations are recorded every day, reviving fear within the population.
So some Algerians have decided to take matters into their own hands, reveals an article from the Casbah Tribune. Indeed, there is a rush on oxygen cylinders. A boon for some online sales platforms.
However, the prices displayed are not within the reach of everyone. You have to pay 105,000 Algerian dinars (689 euros) for a 3-liter bottle (which corresponds to 8 hours of inhalation), and the equivalent of 1,050 euros for a 5-liter bottle. This “biological right, which has become a golden business”, comments the news site.
Abundant on the Internet, lacking in hospitals
While in a few clicks a well-off Algerian can order a bottle of oxygen at home, in hospitals the Minister of Health, Abderrahmane Benbouzid, is obliged “to open an investigation, where there is a lack of oxygen”.
Doctor Mohamed Yousfi, head of the infectious diseases department in one of the hospitals in Algiers, recognizes the “many difficulties in caring for the sick”. “ Obsolete, lack of means”, the conditions of hospitalization are very precarious, underlines it.
The occupancy rate of beds has increased to “90% occupancy”, according to him, with around 100 new hospitalizations per day. Algeria has recorded some 75,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 2,000 deaths.
