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The political side of Coronavirus's second wave in India
Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment
- The story: The scale of funeral pyres that blaze on the banks of the Ganges, is a grim symbol of the ferocious Covid-19 wave sparking a health crisis and human tragedy in India that is far surpassing anything seen in 2020. Patients are dying while their families search in vain for hospital beds. Supplies of oxygen and medicines are running low, leading to robberies of drugs from hospitals. Crematoriums and burial grounds cannot cope with the sheer number of corpses.
- No preparations: The devastation has sparked outrage at the lack of preparation among officials who believed that the worst of the pandemic was over. Only in February 2021, India was revelling in its success of reining in the spread of the virus. Now it is reporting about 294,000 infections and 2,000 deaths a day! The prime minister, and his Bharatiya Janata Party, have been accused of prioritising domestic politics over public health by holding mass political rallies with thousands of people and allowing the Kumbh Mela, a vast religious festival attended by millions, to take place during the second wave.
- Brazilian way: With a new variant suspected of stoking the surge, experts fear that India is on the same trajectory as Brazil, where a more contagious strain of the virus has hammered the country’s healthcare system and economy. The health systems weren’t better prepared for it this time around. Many people in the administration across India did not expect that there would be a ‘this time around’! While India’s fatality rate remains relatively low, other metrics betray a deepening crisis. Both the number of new cases and the percentage of positive tests are climbing at the fastest rate in the world, with the latter jumping from 3 per cent last month to 16 per cent.
- Overwhelmed: The sick are overwhelming hospitals in many parts of the country. The rate of ICU patients in Nagpur at 353 per million is higher than it was anywhere in Europe during the pandemic. Mumbai, the financial capital, has 194 ICU patients per million. To meet surging demand, authorities have set up emergency coronavirus hospitals in banquet halls, train stations and hotels. India has taken emergency measures to secure oxygen supplies, boost production of drugs such as remdesivir and fast-track vaccine approvals. It has frozen vaccine exports, too, a decision that will have profound consequences for the developing world that is depending on Indian manufacturing for its jabs.
- Not mentioning the truth: Under-reporting of deaths seems rampant. Local news reports for seven districts across the states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar show that while at least 1,833 people are known to have died of Covid-19 in recent days, based mainly on cremations, only 228 have been officially reported. The situation in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, a state of 200m that is among India’s poorest, highlights how health infrastructure has been pushed to breaking point. Local media reported that at King George’s Medical University, there was a queue of 50 people per hospital bed. (In the evening of 21st April, the CM Yogi Adityanath issued an order that other than institutional supply of oxygen, no more oxygen would be allowed on individual basis).
- New variants: Officials are alarmed about the suspected role of new variants in driving the latest wave, particularly the B.1.617 strain first detected in India last month. Scientists are still trying to understand the variant, which has spread internationally, including to the UK, but some believe it is more infectious and vaccine evasive. Some say there was not yet sufficient evidence to make B.1.617 a variant of concern like those first discovered in South Africa or Brazil. Experts also blame complacency for India’s surge, both among those who rushed back to shopping centres and weddings, and the country’s leaders, including Modi, who have sparked outrage for their electioneering during the second wave. Yogi Adityanath, the BJP chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, was a star campaigner in the elections before testing positive for Covid-19 last week. Cases in West Bengal, where many election rallies were held, have jumped.
- Home Minister disagrees: Amit Shah, India’s home minister, told a newspaper that the PM and the government were “ready, fighting against [the virus] on every front . . . I am confident that we will have a victory over this”. But the roots of the crisis ran much deeper, exposing years of neglect of public health infrastructure. India’s spending on healthcare has long lagged behind global peers.
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