Virus aid goes underground

Taking matters into their own hands: A volunteer filling an oxygen tank in Mandalay. — Reuters

For a week, 21-year-old student Phoe Thar has been out by dawn to gather oxygen cylinders from the homes of coronavirus sufferers in Mandalay.

He and fellow volunteers line the tanks up outside charities for filling and returning, trying to save lives in a country whose health system has largely collapsed since a Feb 1 takeover and which now faces its worst surge of Covid-19 infections.