Second Wave Of Coronavirus : Grim Situation, Helpless Governments

As India is reeling under a severe second wave of Corona pandemic, the celebrations of "Chaitra Navaratras" and Kumbh Mela in Hardwar have added to corona woes. The problem is India is the only GOD making country in the world with numbers running into millions. .As of now state after state are struggling to cope with the rising numbers but people are still not afraid of corona. India's two biggest states. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are among the worst affected in the country. Both union and state governments seem helpless in controlling the spread of corona.

People are dying like insects and wherever you look, you see ambulances, dead bodies and wailing people. Though official data put daily more than 2.6 lakh cases, but unofficial figures tell different stories. For example, on 15 April, Yogi govt's health bulletin said UP recorded 104 Covid deaths in 24 hrs. However, Lucknow alone saw 108 funerals that day, and this is just at crematoriums, The cemeteries figures are not included.

The city of Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh- officially reported only five deaths but as many as 84 bodies were cremated or buried, according to the Hindustan Times. On Sunday alone, 261,500 new infections were officially recorded. That’s more bad than the worst five days of the pandemic in December and early January.

Case counts are rising far more quickly. Average infection numbers over the past seven days have run at nearly three times the level two weeks ago. Higher caseloads are pushing medical facilities toward capacity. The health system itself is starting to crack. Vaccine stocks, hospital beds and even oxygen supplies are running short, leading to bitter fight between the states and the union government. In some places, the dead are being transported by truck because cities have run out of hearses. Elsewhere, crematoria have started to break down because of the sheer number of bodies being burned.

So India is now in the grips of a public health emergency. Social media feeds are full with videos of Covid funerals at crowded cemeteries, wailing relatives of the dead outside hospitals, long queues of ambulances carrying gasping patients, mortuaries overflowing with the dead, and patients, sometimes two-three to a bed, in corridors and lobbies of hospitals.

If things don’t change soon, the country will be facing 3,000 deaths a day — twice its current level, and 10 times what was being seen through most of this year, fear experts.

The spread of pandemic fastened after election commission announced key elections in five states where 186 million people were to vote for 824 seats. Beginning 27 March, the polls stretch over a month, and in the case of the state of West Bengal, it is being held in eight phases from March to End of April. Campaigning begun in full swing, with no safety protocols and social distancing.

In mid-March, the cricket board allowed more than 130,000 fans, mostly unmasked, to watch two international cricket games between India and England at the Narendra Modi stadium in Gujarat.

Within a month, India was in the grips of a devastating second wave of the virus and cities were facing fresh lock downs. By mid-April, the country was averaging more than 100,000 cases a day. On Sunday, India recorded more than 270,000 cases and over 1,600 deaths, both new single-day records. If the runway infection was not checked, India could be recording more than 2,300 deaths every day by first week of June, according to a report by The Lancet Covid-19 Commission.

Its not a time to indulge in blame game. Both federal and state govts will have to work together to pull the country out of the grim situation.

Jai Sri Ram.

(chander Sharma)