India Succumbs
It was March 7, 2021. When the whole world was battling with the deadly second wave of SARS Coronavirus, Indian Union Health Minister said, "We are in the end game of the Covid-19 Pandemic in India". Weeks before this, in February, a resolution was passed by the BJP National Executive who declared a stirring victory against the virus. "It can be said with pride", it read, that "India not only defeated Covid under the able, sensible, committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi, but also infused in all its citizens the confidence to build an Atma Nirbhar Bharat". When I saw both these things in a context, a very famous hindi saying by Ram Dhari Singh 'Dinkar' came to my mind - "Jab naash manuj per chatha hai, pehle vivek mar jata hai".
India is not in the grips of a ridiculous Public Health Emergency. Social media feeds are choked with the demands of oxygen cylinders and plasma. The news media is filled with videos of Covid funerals at crowded cemeteries, wailing relatives of dead outside the hospitals, mortuaries flooding with dead bodies, long queues of ambulances carrying gasping patients, sometimes two on a single bed, in corridors and lobbies of Hospitals.
The only question rises is what really choked India?
India and the First Wave of Covid-19
When the coronavirus first hit India in the March of 2020, the whole country went into a chaos. The virus simply exposed the devastating healthcare system of India. There was no doubt that the country instantly needed a nationwide lockdown but the way it was implemented would be remembered by the generations to come. Like the demonetisation, this lockdown too was ridiculously planned by the Government of India which left all the people into a complete mess. In no time the health crisis became one of the biggest humanitarian crisis. Around 50 million people in poverty were left without any aid. The world with its naked eyes could see the ‘migrant labour crisis’ taking place in India. What really surprised me was that the government was more interested in 'Vande Bharat' than the 'Bharat ke bande '. All this brought a massive economic crisis with India's GDP growth rate falling to -7.3%, the lowest ever recorded. With this striked the ghosts of inflation, unemployment and joblessness.
This virus gave India a lot of reality checks. It succeeded in showcasing how much people really cared about the issue and how much gravity was there in the ongoing crisis for them. When the doctors and frontline workers, also known as the Covid Warriors, needed the basic resources to fight the pandemic the most, what The Prime Minister and the people of the country gave them were taali, thali, torches and lights! Soon the dust of the logic settled and the dalgona coffee found its way on the mobile screens of the people. The first wave of the Covid also showcased how populist politics could easily dominate over the science guided response in India. It was all about less communication and more Jingoism.
How India failed to stop the deadly second wave
During the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections, Narendra Modi while addressing a jam packed poll rally accused the then incumbent state government of opposition party of spending more on Kabristans (Muslim graveyards) and less on Shamshans (Hindu cremation grounds). He promised people of how if a Kabristan is constructed in a village than a Shamshan too would be constructed. Today when the shortage of oxygen, essential drugs, plasma are setting in, ques are lengthening from hospitals to pharmacies to crematoria, it is quite evident of how much in utilisation those Kabristans and Shamshans are. It is rightly said of how one must always be careful of what he wishes for.
The euphoria of beating the virus couldn't last long as India soon approached a deadly second wave. Since a peak of 93000 cases per day on average in mid-September of 2020 the infection rate steadily declined. By mid of February 2021 India was reporting an average of just 11000 cases per day. By mid of April, India started witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases with the country now nearing over 4 Lakhs positive cases per day. People say Indian system has collapsed but the fact is India hardly had anything on the name of system.
At a very early phase it became clear that the countries are going to be hit by the second wave of the virus. When US, UK, Brazil, France were busy battling the virus, India was getting prepared for yet another festival of democracy - The State Elections. Even after repetitive warnings from the experts, mammoth gatherings and large political rallies were organised from north to south and west to east which ridiculously destroyed the Covid-19 precautionary measures and protocols. This became the biggest reason for the surge of Coronavirus cases in India, especially in the poll bound states.
At this stage of my
life, with utmost confidence I can say that Indian people are obsessed with
their religions, traditions and large gatherings and inorder to follow it they
can reach to any extent. In 2020 it was the incident of Tablighi Jamaat which
made the headlines and to balance the sides it was the Holy Kumbh Fair in 2021.
The devotees who assembled at the ghats of Ganga soon became the super
spreaders of the virus across the country. They went to the Ganga to wash their
sins forgetting, gathering in the times of pandemic is itself a sin. The most
shameful part to it was that it was the State Government of Uttarakhand which
advertised and invited people in huge numbers for the festival.
Adding to it, faulty and bogus testing became another reason for the spread of virus in India. RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Test are the basic tests done to know the covid-19 results. From the beginning it was well proven that how the RT-PCR test were more promising and effective while Rapid Antigen test still reported false negatives at a certain amount. Slow and inefficient testing exposed a large population to the virus. If we see the measures countries like New Zealand, Australia and Israel followed in eliminating the crisis then it would be simply 'Slow to open approach' and 'Mass Vaccination Drives'. India failed to perform better on both the platforms.
Today India is detecting Triple Mutation where unlike the previous wave, people of younger age groups are getting most infected by the virus. The major thing of concern is that the virus has now paved its way into the rural India where 30% of positive people are now villagers. It is also the result of carelessness shown by the people in dealing with the virus before the pandemic was fully out of the country. Masks were dropped, gathering were on which in no time became the prime reason for the surge in cases.
Of all the above
factors, the thing which shook me the most was how inefficiently India
implemented its vaccination program. From one of the biggest producers of
vaccine in the world India has now became the importer of vaccine. This is a
direct shift from 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' to 'dependent on others Bharat'. Why
India exported most of the vaccines before vaccinating its own people is the
question most of the people today want to ask. Why there was monopoly of only
two vaccines (Covishield and Covaxin) in the Indian market when Sputnik,
Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson were already on the track in the
other parts of the globe. Most importantly why there was an illogical age limit
set when most of the people today getting infected are of lower age groups.
Lessons for future India
The second wave is not a natural calamity. It is a genocide committed by narrow, selfish minded people. Will they be made accountable for that? Questions need to be asked, but will there be any answers to them? No. They are not going to accept the failure or defeat. As soon as things will start going normal they will call it another masterstroke.
Today India spends only 1.25% of its GDP on healthcare sector. In basic hospitalisation service, the general standard lies 300 hospital beds per lakh population. India has just 50 beds per lakh people. India is now in company with poorest countries of the world with the rank of 155 among 167 countries. In the healthcare sector narration should be shifted from sickness to wellness of the whole society. An increased investment is the need of the hour. The role of local governments should be increased while better governance and administrative models should be bought in. In the medical sector the relationship with the private sector should be institutionalised for better outcomes. Most importantly political narratives should be kept aside and experts should be given a free hand to work on.
There will be a new morning. But will things change from here?
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