UP village takes to open-air Covid care under tree as locals die with no oxygen

With no doctors, oxygen or clinics, Mewla Gopalgarh village in Uttar Pradesh has set up a makeshift open-air Covid care facility to help patients.

In a village in northern India engulfed by Covid-19, the sick lie on cots under a tree, glucose drips hanging from a branch. Cows graze all around, while syringes and empty medicine packets are strewn on the ground. There is no doctor or health facility in Mewla Gopalgarh in Uttar Pradesh, a 90-minute drive from Delhi. There is a government hospital nearby but it has no available beds and the villagers say they cannot afford private clinics. Instead, village practitioners of alternative medicine have set up an open-air clinic where they distribute glucose and other remedies to patients with symptoms of Covid-19.