By Albert Thyrniang
So now all eyes are on India. The country is battling the‘tsunami’of the highly contagious and deadly COVID-19 second wave. The “double mutant” virus has made many countries ban flights from India. International televisions and news agencies are reporting on patients gasping for breath in front of overwhelmed hospitals due to acute shortage of oxygen. Relatives are shown rushing their COVID affected relatives from hospital to hospital only to fail to find a space. The casualties in trolleys and wooden rickshaws; the mass cremation; the doctors and health workers who weep and cry at their helplessness are such a sad commentary on the current situation in India. The humungous surge of cases, the daily exponential rise of new cases, the accounted and unaccounted deaths, are now seen across continents. The grim reality is beyond description. The health system is crumbling before our eyes. There has been nothing like this before, elderly persons testify.
The centre of one of the world’s super powers, Delhi has no more bed in hospitals. What a shameful irony! There is no more oxygen. The Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal had to beg all Chief Ministers for spare oxygen. There is vaccine shortage in the ‘pharmacy of the world’. Vaccination is the best bet to beat the virus but only 10% of the Indian population received the jab. The desired destination of 60% – 70% is a distant dream. The condition will continue to be dire even as we pride ourselves as vaccine ‘supplier’ to the world.
Who is responsible for this scary second wave? The other day a caption in Facebook read, “You are responsible for the second wave… NOT China!” We could point fingers at China for the source of the Novel Coronavirus, later named COVID-19 by WHO. We may blame the communist country for the delayed alert. We may even entertain the conspiracy theory that Chinese scientists manufactured the ‘Wuhan’ virus. The disease originated in China and spread the world over in months. But the second wave is partly due to callousness.
India knew that the second wave would arrive. We saw the UK battling the worst coronavirus pandemic with the second wave wreaking more havoc than the first. We fail to learn lessons. We have failed to prevent the disaster of 2021. We have failed because the country’s political leadership was in euphoria when cases started dropping. We recall how since late last year, politicians, policy makers and the ‘paid’ media were in jubilation at beating the virus. Only in early March India’s health minister Harsh Vardhan declared that the country had seen the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. He and others sang praises of the Prime Minster for leading the way to beat the virus. They thought India is no UK.
In less than a month we see visuals of hospitals overflowing with two patients sharing beds in corridors and lobbies. We hear reports of frantic calls for beds, medicines, oxygen, essential drugs and tests. The devastating second wave has forced badly hit cities into fresh lockdowns. The daily fresh cases and deaths continue to break their own records. The country is in the grips of a public health emergency.
How do we prevent COVID when election rallies and road shows with lakhs of attendees were organised in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry? We know very well that no physical distancing is possible in such mass gatherings. How do we stop the virus when the top leadership flouts basic medical protocols? The Prime Minister himself addressed mammoth crowds. Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, and all political leaders campaigned via huge assemblies. Seeing these huge congregations it is natural for the rest of us to discard social distancing and wearing of masks. The Prime Minister was seen without a mask in election rallies but wearing it neatly in online meetings. The credibility to exhort the public to observe COVID protocols is weakened. No wonder the ravage surge in the country. When the Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma remarked that masks are no longer needed, there is no more authority left. The election rallies were the super spreaders. The political leadership is responsible. Winning election is more valuable than preventing the fatal pandemic.
After the election gatherings came the festivals! In festivities too social distancing is easily violated. But these celebrations had to be given permission because election campaigns of huge crowds were allowed. We even saw the world’sbiggest human assembly, the Kumbh Mela. The 55 day, once in 12 year event that would witness 100 million people taking a dip at the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, was subsequently called off but the damage had been done. The first day itself attracted 10 million devotees. Surely the Kumbh was a far superior spreader than the Tablighi Jamaat!
There are also allegations that the central government acted too little and too late on the vaccine front. The US, UK and the European Union booked vaccines much ahead of India. The Indian government did not fund vaccine producing institutes unlike the countries mentioned above. UK spent £12 billion, the US$ 1.95 billion on Pfizer alone while India earmarked only Rs 35,000 crore for vaccine production in the budget. Just to put things in perspective the 36 Rafale fighter jets cost Rs. 59,000 crore. The government did not hesitate to pay Rs 4,632 crore for the Prime Minister’s state-of-the-art Boeing aircraft.
The central government ordered vaccines from manufacturers only in January this year and in insufficient numbers. The decision to allow manufactures to fix the price of vaccines instead of the government subsidising or giving it for free, the initial central government’s decision to acquire the vaccines and now the U turn permitting state governments to order directly from vaccine manufacturers has caused the country dearly.
In October last year, already late, the PM Cares funded 162 units of oxygen plans across India but only 33 were actually set up. State after state, including Delhi, failed to establish even a single unit. Only the other day the Modi government cleared the allocation of funds for installation of 551 oxygen generation plants across the country. Till the oxygen cylinders come to hospitals many more will have died. Three days ago the Centre exempted duty on import of COVID-19 vaccine, medical-grade oxygen and related equipment. But why only now? India is paying a high price for the Centre’s unpreparedness, lackadaisical attitude, laxity, failed policy and decision paralysis.
In Meghalaya too the infection rate is quite alarming. We are also awake to this second attack only after the GHADC elections. It is true that the red zone is Shillong, the capital city. The location of the hotspots does not matter. What we are arriving at is to pin-point the callous attitude and behaviours of responsible people which are also contagious like the virus.
We also saw political rallies, road shows and concerts during the elections in Garo Hills. The Chief Minster, Conrad Sangma himself is accused of violating COVID 19 protocols. In his posts on social media one could see crowds with no mask and social distancing. Seeing their Chief Minster the people in Shillong might have been influenced to excuse themselves from preventive measures. Our Chief Minister too is now seen with a mask in official functions. But his alleged violations have had negative impacts on his ‘subjects’. The authorities started imposing fines from people without masks in Police Bazaar. But why not on the Chief Minister?
During election campaigns magistrates and law enforcing personnel were present. Were they not instructed to keep a watch on COVID-19 protocols? Why did these officials not take action? Or why did they not report to the Chief Returning Officer? That is why someone queried, “Are there different COVID-19 rules for ordinary citizens and politicians?” Hope our ministers and politicians have read how the Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg was fined $2,352 (approximately Rs 1.75 lakh) for breaking social distancing rules while organising her birthday.
In the first spell of COVID-19 the sufferers were largely the poor. The sights of migrant workers walking hundreds of miles home are still fresh in our minds. This time too the critical patients in ambulances in long queues at hospitals; those who make frantic calls for a bed, medicines and oxygen; those who fill the hospital’s corridors and lobbies; the dead at overflowing mortuaries; the wailing relatives of the dead outside hospitals and Covid funerals at crowded cemeteries are the less privileged in this highly unequal country. The Prime Minister in his speech on April 20 disappointedly had nothing of substance to say to alleviate the sufferings of India’s poor. No announcement was made except informing that lockdowns would the last resort. Other than exhorting migrant workers to stay put and not to return to their villages, there was no assurance. His suggestion to the youth to form mohalla committees to educate people sounded hollow. It looks as if the Prime Minister is resigned to the fact that people have to fight the virus on their own as they have done so in the last fifteen months. In our backyard the common people pay fines while the rulers flout the rules.
What a point in history have we arrived at!