INDIA and the COVID apocalypse

 

 

One year on and the COVID mayhem continues. This time it is INDIA that is bearing the brunt of it all because this new strain is far more deadly and infectious than the previous strains. It is spreading faster than ever and is infecting even young adults and kids. With daily reported cases crossing a record 400k and deaths crossing 4000 (actual numbers are way higher). It has become a living nightmare. The scale at which this second wave has hit the country is really shocking. It's like a Tsunami. People are queuing outside hospitals, pleading authorities to admit their loved ones but there's not enough beds/doctors to accommodate everybody. Everything is in short supply whether it is the medicines or hospital beds or oxygen tanks and ventilators. There's not enough ambulances to even ferry the sick or dead. Pictures of patients sharing the same bed, some even being treated on the floor or in the parking lots, piles of bodies burning in crematoriums/footpaths/playgrounds or waiting to be buried in cemeteries is really gut-wrenching, a repeat of what happened in Italy, New York and Brazil last year. What we are seeing today was predicted for INDIA last year during the first wave but we largely escaped it due to the strict lock downs. Given our large population and demographic we knew something like this would be catastrophic but we didn't take it seriously and ensured that the prediction came true.

Covid-19 has affected us all in some way or the other regardless of Race, Religion, Caste, Color, Political affiliation, Nationality etc. Nobody has ever witnessed such an horrific event in their lives. This pandemic has robbed people of the opportunity of a final farewell, stripping the dead of their dignity and has worsened the grief of the living. The Coronavirus situation in the country is very grim, much like a war zone. It has become a humanitarian crisis and has crippled the entire medical infrastructure which cannot tend to the massive influx of patients, many of whom are dying due to the lack of oxygen, medicines simply because there is not enough supply to meet the demand.
 
In such desperate times there are some people who have lost their humanity, morality, people who're trying to hoard life saving medicines, people who are selling fake medicines, some trying to exploit needy patients by selling them drugs at exorbitant prices, by charging insane amounts for ambulances to ferry people for a few kilometers. Families cannot do anything but heed into their demands since the lives of their loved ones are at stake. Desperation is driving people to trust anything in the hour of need and that seems to be fueling the black market. Such people must be brought to justice.

The oxygen crisis is pushing us into chaos, people are falling like flies, gasping for every single ounce of breath and choking to death. Many are dying on the streets while trying to find hospitals. It's a painful sight to watch for their loved ones. Many industrialists have come to the rescue and are diverting Industrial oxygen to hospitals to save the patients. Our Sikh community and many other expats across the globe have also stepped in to help the needy in any way they can. Some countries have also rallied some assistance but such ad hoc efforts while good are not enough to deal with the extraordinary scale of this crisis. The world has so far been going all alone on this. This pandemic needs a global coordinated response if this chaos has to end. INDIA is the perfect example of what can happen if this pandemic is not controlled in every country. Many places that have so far dodged the second wave are still vulnerable and they could get impacted if nothing is done soon.

One can say that the first wave caught us off guard but the second wave is our own doing. The declining number of cases gave a sense that we probably had achieved herd immunity, people didn't want to believe nor did the government that there would ever be a second wave. This created a narrative that we had successfully beaten COVID-19. The few voices that cautioned were not heeded to. We began opening up malls, offices, restaurants, relaxed social distancing norms, mask mandates, hell we even opened the world's largest cricket stadium to the public without any social distancing measures and hosted a couple of games with large crowds. Our leaders were quick to declare that INDIA had emerged victorious and was open for business.

It was up-to the government to keep tabs on the gathering of people and track the behavior of the virus and its several mutations. The UK strain was found back in October and reports of a deadly South African strain were doing rounds for months but nothing was done to ensure it was contained. Experts had been warning that a second wave was due but their calls were ignored. Although the second wave was imminent, its impact could have been reduced had proper measures been put in place. It has been our carelessness and the lack of commonsense from our leadership that has resulted in this disaster. We were all reckless and we let our guard down.

A lot of noise was made about the Tablighi jamaat last year as being a super spreader event. What about the farmers rally? (Yes, I may raise a few eyebrows here but even that had people in huge numbers although the govt/politicians were responsible for it), What about the several election rallies around the country? What about the Kumbh Mela? What about the other religious events? Aren't all of these super spreader events? Social distancing norms and mask mandates were and continue to be flouted in broad day light during these events and that has directly resulted in the chaos that we see today. There have been rallies after rallies from the beginning of this year in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal with the attendees in the thousands, nobody wearing a mask or practicing social distancing. 

 

"As far as I can see, in every direction, I can only see people and nothing else" were some wise words of wisdom that our chaukidar ji said on stage at a rally in Bengal on Apr 17. He even had tears in his eyes. We reported over 200k cases that day. Similar scenes ensued in rallies by Miss Banerjee, Mr. Gandhi and our other leaders. They're all to be blamed. The slogan "Jab tak dawai nahi tab tak dhilai nahi" seems to have been left incomplete. It should have been "Jab tak Dawai ya rally ya mela ya match nahi tab tak dhilai nahi". What's funny is that our PM addresses these massive rallies without wearing a mask but will be seen wearing a mask from the comfort of his room when he is talking to world leaders or chief ministers of other states as if open spaces with a crowd of thousands of people chanting without masks is safer than a room without anybody in it. The fact that even with rising cases the kumbh mela is going on speaks volumes about the arrogance of our leaders. Almost 9 million people thronged the Mahakumbh despite the rising cases. The government is turning a blind eye to this. Would they be mute for any other religious gathering? They are shying away from taking responsibility and dumping it on states. Its a national emergency and the centre should mobilize all its resources to try and control the situation.

While the immediate priority is saving the lives of those already sick, vaccinating the country is considered crucial to stop the virus from spreading. But, despite being home to the world's biggest vaccine producer, INDIA doesn't have enough doses, and there's no fast and simple way to make more. A lot of people argue that we gave away free vaccines to close to 80 countries while we had not vaccinated our own citizens. They probably are right. But the vaccine makers (SII) are contractually obligated to pharma giants that actually put money into the research and development of these vaccines. We as in the government didn't fund any research ourselves so they don't have much say. Covaxin (by Bharath Biotech) was developed internally in the country so we could choose to not export it. If you see the developed countries, they were the first ones to get their hands on the vaccines, almost getting more than they actually needed and pretty much wiped all of them from the market leaving nothing for the developing or poorer countries. While the rich countries were hoarding vaccines, INDIA led the world in distributing vaccines to poorer countries for FREE because we realize that this is not a local problem but a global problem. I do think we became complacent and thought Coronavirus was over which is why we started distributing it to other countries without stocking enough for our citizens. While the government has allowed people 18 years and over to start registering for vaccination, they also need to ensure that there is enough stock to vaccinate everybody. Given the sheer size of our population even if we vaccinate around 10 million people daily it would take more than 3 months for us to vaccinate a billion people with the first shot which I don't think is going to happen.

The world needs to provide all possible help whether its the medicines for the sick or raw materials to make vaccines or the vaccines itself. This is not a third world problem. The only reason we developed a vaccine within one year was because the rich countries were equally affected if not more than the poorer nations. They poured in billions of dollars to get the vaccine developed as soon as possible. If you compare it with outbreaks like Ebola or Swine flu or even SARS their vaccines are still under development. It shows where there is a will there is a way. If we put all our effort in then we can defeat major diseases easily. The world has already lost more than a 4-5 trillion dollars since the beginning of this pandemic and it is far from over. It's in the best interests and a moral responsibility of the world especially the rich countries to bring this under control.

Throughout the course of history, disease outbreaks have ravaged humanity, sometimes changing the course of history and, at times, signaling the end of entire civilizations. There have been many pandemics since times memorable but I would like to highlight the ones in the last 100 years. The Spanish flu started in the year 1918 and went on until 1920 through three waves killing almost 100 million people and infecting around 500 million. Then came the Asian flu of 1957 which claimed more than a million lives. AIDS which started in 1981 so far has claimed more than 35 million people though its not a pandemic any more. Swine flu that started around 2009 claimed almost 600k people. EBOLA that started in Africa in 2014 claimed more than 11k lives. SARS or the first strain of COVID was identified back in 2001-2002. It claimed around 8000 lives and the current COVID-19 pandemic so far has claimed more than 3 million lives and affected more than 160 million people globally and continues its rampage. What I am trying to say is that we had almost a century of learning's and experiences battling these deadly diseases and yet we continued to spend trillions of dollars into building weapons of mass destruction. How many of those weapons have saved lives? I get that we live in an uncertain world where radicalism persists, trust is hard to find which is why there is an arms race. But imagine if we'd spent all that money into health care or for the betterment of the world, we would not have wars or famines or even diseases. We would have a better world. I know that's not the reality we see today but this pandemic should be an eye opener for all of us.

We are exploiting our resources and our planet. In the name of development we are killing our forests, we are polluting our skies and seas. We keep disrupting diverse and delicate ecosystems thereby triggering a chain of events that lead to deadly viruses locked by nature to leave their natural hosts and infect us. We humans have created these epidemics and with our activities continue to release more and more deadly viruses into the world. Time has come to change our habits as we have only one world we call our home. There is no backup. We cannot keep playing god and destroying mother earth. Dinosaurs got extinct because of a large asteroid. The next extinction level event could be triggered by humans, the doomsday clock has never gone back and continues moving forward. If we continue exploiting our planet then we risk a chance of releasing something that is even deadlier than COVID-19 into the world. Remember, There is no tomorrow, There is only today.

As I end this long post I would like to again reiterate that I do not belong to any political party nor do I endorse one. I am not a Andh Bhakt, AAM Aadmi or a Pappu follower. I am just a common man expressing my common views.

Trying to share some important resources that might be of help.
For those desperately looking for hospitals or oxygen here's some links I found that are being actively updated for cities across INDIA with contact details of people/hospitals that you can reach out to

https://www.theuncutteam.com/resources

https://verifiedcovidleads.com/

https://external.sprinklr.com/insights/explorer/dashboard/601b9e214c7a6b689d76f493/tab/43?id=DASHBOARD_601b9e214c7a6b689d76f493&home=1&fbclid=IwAR0h_jye_5ESe_uf6FC52SbFpZnaCNq6_rvK2TIF2KsW7bClX-9gDv9Py3c


Many of us in the tech industry have been fortunate enough to have our jobs this pandemic. If you are doing good then I sincerely request you to donate to any organization of your choice to help the many who are in desperate need of help.

Sharing a few links below that I mostly contribute to but donate to whatever organizations/charities you can

https://milaap.org/
https://www.ketto.org/
https://www.impactguru.com/
https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/unicef-responding-covid-19-india
https://www.sewainternational.org/
https://www.giveindia.org/


We are resilient, No matter what the circumstances, no matter what the differences we all come together in times of crisis. Everyone joins the call for help and that's the beauty of INDIA. I know and I am certain that we will overcome this and come out stronger.  

To those who were taken too soon..

न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचि- न्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः । 

अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो- न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे ॥

The Spirit is neither born nor does it die at any time. It does not come into being or cease to exist. It is unborn, eternal, permanent, and primeval. The Spirit is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.

Praying for the well being and speedy recovery of those who are infected.

Remember, Difficult times never last. Together we can and we will. After every storm comes a rainbow.

“Hope is the only Hopeful thing, We can HOPE for!”

Stay inside, keep your distance from other people, keep your hands clean and off pretty much everything. 

Jai Hind _/\_

#MaunKiBaat #ChaukidarFailedUs #StayStrongINDIA #HelpINDIABreathe #INDIANeedsOxygen #INDIACovidCrisis #TogetherForINDIA #CoronavirusPandemic #OxygenEmergency #COVIDSecondWaveINDIA #Unite2FightCorona #SOSINDIA #StayAtHome #StaySafe #ViralApocalypse