Oxygen Crisis: Fault of Free Market or Regulations?
India is currently in the middle of a second wave of COVID-19. The second wave has been far deadlier than the first in terms number of cases but also in terms of death rate. Our healthcare system has effectively collapsed and its weakness has been bared for all to see. Medical oxygen was one of the first items to get scarce.
A narrative seems to be forming that this scarcity of medical oxygen is due to lack of regulations and black marketeers selling oxygen at high prices and that freeing the market would lead to more hoarding and higher prices.