By the Editor: Siddharth Sehgal
The Covid nightmare continues for India, the dead bodies floating in our rivers are revealing the grim reality of the crisis that is unfolding in the countryside and also that how underprepared our system was for this pandemic. Things were not in control earlier too but now this pandemic has reached areas where getting paracetamol can be considered a luxury, forget about the oxygen cylinder.
The thing about being a Covid patient in a typical Indian village is that the doctor, a qualified doctor, may not be available in the immediate vicinity and you may have to travel far away from your village to a city hospital that may already be overwhelmed with Covid patients load. Moreover, the availability of medicines is not an easy problem to solve in villages and tier-2 cities especially when black-marketing and shortage are rampant. Poverty, illiteracy, and lack of awareness about Covid will also add to the death toll in rural areas. No matter how much medical oxygen we have, we cannot take the needed supply to far corners of our country. That’s simply not possible logistically. So whether we like it or not, we have to prepare for a higher mortality rate in rural areas. Our best response is to get as many people tested for Covid in rural areas as possible and make available necessary medical and oxygen supplies to nodal hubs that can serve as a focal point to nearby villages and towns. We have to organize resources in such a way that in minimum possible resources we save maximum possible lives but given the way, our governments operate, let’s expect chaos and carnage.
Another aspect of responding to Covid is Vaccination but we don’t have enough vaccines for any given age group let alone everyone. In fact, from my own experience of getting the vaccine at a government vaccination center in UP after waiting for 6 hours straight is that the shortage is just one challenge in inoculating Indian citizens. Manufacturing, raw material, affordability, and timing is key. Be it open licensing, nationalization of vaccine manufacturers, or stealing from others, whatever should be our vaccine policy, we need to save lives and we need to do that fast. Then there is the decision of letting states compete for procuring vaccines on an open market. Nothing can be more ridiculous than this. Are we trying to let Pharma companies profit from our already distressed situation right under the noses of the Central government? The public of Bihar has promised free vaccines some months ago and now they on their own to get those much-needed vaccines. New Delhi’s decision is not making sense these days.
No political party or government should mistake that people will forget this. The pain, the anguish, the feeling of helplessness, and the loss of a dear one are not something that a person forgets easily. We as a country are living in a worst-case scenario and we are not seeing the light or the end of the tunnel. People are observing that our otherwise vocal Prime Minster is silent now. Running away from difficult questions will be seen as a sign of cowardice.
The world should be concerned too, the variants that mutated here have reached other countries. If India faces this crisis alone, the scenes of crematorium and graveyards will be seen in other parts of the world too. It should not always be about IP rights, patents, and profits. Our collective future depends on it. People around the world should request their governments to support the open licensing of vaccines, world leaders should not make the mistake that the Indian government has made, don’t start believing that the pandemic will not go away on its own.