Oxygen on Taobao: how Chinese and Indian expats are sending life-saving Covid-19 equipment to help combat India’s second wave

As India is engulfed by a second wave, Chinese are helping Indian expats source oxygen concentrators from factories or Taobao and send them home

China is the world’s biggest manufacturer of oxygen concentrators, but deteriorating ties between Beijing and New Delhi means sourcing them has become complicated

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Ritwick Ghosh has lived in mainland China for over a decade, and is using his Mandarin language skills to act as a facilitator between Chinese suppliers and people in India. Photo: Handout

Published: 12:30pm, 8 May 2021Updated: 11:22am, 10 May 2021

The death toll began to pile up in Ritwick Ghosh’s social circle back in India. First a college friend succumbed to Covid-19, then a close friend’s sister, then another lost a family member. “As long as there is no name or face, it is just a statistic,” he said from Shanghai. “The moment there is a name and a face, it is no longer a statistic.”

Ghosh works for one of the biggest investment funds in China and has lived in the mainland for over a decade. Over the past 10 days, as the devastating second wave of the pandemic sweeps through his homeland, he has been familiarising himself with oxygen concentrators – machines that relieve the stress from the lungs and have the potential to save lives.

“Think of it as an air purifier,” Ghosh said. “Until now I did not even know what the optimum level of oxygen concentration should be in our blood.”

Across India, the demand for medical oxygen continues unabated, with hospitals putting out SOS messages for supplies and people taking to social media to plead for oxygen to keep loved ones alive.

Oxygen concentrators have therefore become sought-after devices as they can be operated from home and can aid those who have saturation levels between 88 and 92. Experts say one concentrator could service three patients per month.