Who Will Come To The Rescue?

AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria has been saying that lack of Covid-appropriate behaviour and mutation of the virus are the two key reasons behind the rapid spread of corona virus infections in India. Whereas the public may not fully understand the technicalities of mutation of virus, one thing they surely do is the double speak about covid appropriate behaviour - one set for the dispensation and another for the masses. What happens when the arbiters themselves willingly violate the norms? Doesn’t the story of the ‘Great Fire’ of Rome and our unfolding Covid story have an eerie resemblance? “Fiddling while Rome burns” is an accusation that has been levelled at many politicians with varying degrees of fairness. 

The Active cases are mounting. So are the deaths. There are shortages everywhere, be it vaccines or hospital beds or ventilators or oxygen cylinders or burial space or pyre space, you name it and there are shortages. Never in the history of the land, have we seen such pathetic state of our hospitals as we are now seeing. The government hospitals being what they are, even the private hospitals are found wanting. The healthcare has been pushed back as never before. More than 3.5 lakh cases and nearing 2800 deaths reported every day may look small, if the prediction of Dr Bhramar Mukherjee, chair, biostatistics at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, of 5 lakh cases, 25,000 hospitalisations and 3,000-4,000 deaths every day in two weeks’ time, is to be believed. At a personal level it is extremely distressing to see every single day at least two deaths and five looking for a Covid bed received as WhatsApp messages about people known to us. What can the people expect now? The poll promises, assurances that the shortages will be made good sound hollow day by day. Unmistakably, the human psyche is being shaken to the core.  

It is also baffling as to why the Medical Council of India allowed setting up hospitals without their own oxygen plants. A PSA oxygen plant that can supply 24 cylinders worth of gas per day costs just about Rs 33 lakh to set up and can be completed in a couple of weeks. A 240-bed hospital would require about 550 LPM oxygen. Further, 40 ICU beds, ordinarily use oxygen worth about Rs 5 lakh per month. That black-marketing of life saving drugs and life sustaining oxygen is rampant even in major cities is a sad commentary on the prevailing value system in the society. Even lifesaving drugs like Remdesivir, Fabiflu and Tocilizumab have vanished from pharmaceutical stores and hospitals. The High Court in Delhi, rapping the knuckles and driving some sense into the administration may bring back some faith in these stressed times in a system that is slowly losing ground. 

Come to think of it, the entire might of the government be it the Centre or the State, is in the poll bound States, as if the very survival is dependent on winning, at a time when the pandemic is raging. The economy is stuttering. Migrant workers leaving station is once again becoming the norm. States are in a virtual lockdown condition. There is all round distress. Are governments not responsible to their people? What is the role of the journalists both decorated and those waiting in line to be decorated? The only news that makes rounds 24x7 on every channel is the most acerbic diatribe of leaders in Bengal or Assam or the other States. The debates only centre round, who ordered firing that killed five or who leaked tapes or who tapped phones, or who triggered riots or when and how Didi would meet her nemesis or when and how the Centre could be taught a lesson. What ‘Dharma’ is this that we are now following? Kumbh Mela, one of the most important Hindu celebrations, in Haridwar in Uttarakhand was a disaster waiting to happen. Similar was with Ramazan crowds. Everyone worth the administration in the government knew that there would be massive crowds in millions congregating to offer prayers. The fleeting visuals on the TV screens only prove the point. It took a most unfortunate death of a seer for the second largest ‘Akhada’ to withdraw from any further participation. Could the administrations not have planned for this eventuality, not by bragging on the precautions taken this time round, but by completely calling off those events? 

As if this was not enough, a great capital, both financial and human has been invested in seeing that the election machine is kept running. The massive rallies that can give any leader a hormonal kick even in normal times, were all pointers to equally massive disasters that were waiting to happen. Social distancing was a mockery on public display. Did the powers that be, think that Covid would not make a foray in such large gatherings or that it would also be as timid as the people cheering the leaders in the political ‘akhadas’ on the streets? Can even the most uneducated say that these election rallies in the four States and the Union territory will not add to the Covid mayhem? Will the politicians without an exception own up the potential health emergency that they have so willingly and wittingly created? Even as the Virus was spreading with an eerie agenda of its own, saner voices were seeking to club the remaining part of the elections spread as it were, over the next fortnight, but no one would pay heed. 

It is alarming that the positivity rate (actual active cases much higher than reported), has been increasing over the past 3 weeks. Should not the political parties call off public rallies and go virtual? Every one of us is working online from home. Our children are learning online. Our teachers are teaching online. Is it way too much to ask our Honourable Courts to intervene on a PIL and render all rallies virtual? Can the government not have an effective Covid Strategy in place? Let me suggest a strategy. Strict 15-day countrywide lockdown so the positivity rate comes down, linking all vaccination data to Aadhar data, carrying out aggressive RT PCR testing through Test Melas within societies, colonies, schools or even colleges, home quarantining those testing positive, proactively vaccinating all, ramping up all sources of vaccines, creating massive temporary healthcare centres with help from the armed forces and operating them with para medical staff and seeking people cooperation on personal hygiene. Simple remedies like drinking hot water, steam inhalation, gargling with a mouth wash often, being away from refrigerated food for at least a month can all be useful. 

Yes, the Governments are doing their bit and expect the people to follow suit. People too must support all initiatives of the governments. But people being people, will only follow their masters. The masters must set the benchmarks. “Fiddling while Rome burns”, cannot be the norm or else the visuals of burning bodies that fill our drawing rooms can get even more frightening. “Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.” Said Egon Schiele, an Australian painter. Let’s light them to live, not burn them to death.