‘Losing hope’: India’s Covid-19 meltdown exposes new front in digital divide

A security guard puts up a notice informing the non-availability of beds for patients in a private hospital amid Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in India. — AFP

LUCKNOW/MUMBAI: As India’s daily coronavirus cases set global records, people desperately searching for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders are finding help on social media. But for others like Ruby Yadav, who has never heard of Twitter, time and hope is running out.

Travelling by rickshaw, Yadav and her mother – who is seriously ill with Covid-19 – have been turned away by nearly a dozen public hospitals in the northern city of Lucknow this week as the country’s health system crumbles.