I am sure this is the one irony that has not escaped any citizen of India. As state after state announces lockdowns and curfews, we are all staring at the picture of the kumbh Mela going on in full swing, violating all norms of social distancing. Not to mention the election rallies in West Bengal. The politicians make these decisions, and it is the ordinary citizens that suffer. We are told that the lockdown could not have been avoided. Is that really the case? And what is worse, in some cases, the rules keep changing without even a day’s notice. After office-goers have left for work, suddenly at mid-day they get a notice that there will be a curfew from 10 pm, or in some cases as in Uttar Pradesh, from 8 pm that same evening. How do they rush back home in time without making prior arrangements? What about those who have the evening shifts? How can our politicians be so callous towards a population that’s hit the hardest during these Covid times, ie the salaried class?
Yes, there is a crisis. We have all heard and seen the horror stories of beds being unavailable, of lines of ambulances filled with patients inside waiting to be admitted, of vaccinations running out, of key medicines like Remdesivir being unavailable, of cremation grounds running out of wood. As a journalist, in one day I got three frantic calls. One from a friend asking me if I could “arrange” Remdesivir for his dad as the hospital he was admitted to had run out; the second from a doctor friend asking if I knew anyone who could help him get plasma for a patient; and the third incident happened when I went to the neighbourhood chemist where the customer (who it turns out was a doctor from a nearby hospital) was desperately waving a chit in front of the chemist saying he needed this “Covid medicine” but the chemist had no solution. As he told the doctor, “Daam toh baad mein negotiate karna, medicine black mein bhi nahin milega” (Forget negotiating the price, the medicine is not available even in the black market).
And try booking something as simple as a routine blood test. In the capital, the wait to get a Covid test done is at least four days (and then the additional wait for the results). But overstressed labs now cannot even handle routine blood tests. Once again as is what happened last year, routine and in some cases life-threatening ailments are being ignored to handle the Covid onslaught. Most labs have drive-in centres for Covid testing to take the pressure of house calls but while the timing of these is from 10 am onwards, the slots are all filled up by 10.02 am.
It is easy to blame the politicians and trust me they do deserve a fair share of the blame for not preparing for this second wave. We saw it in Europe, in the UK and even China so we should have expected this. And done the needful instead of opening up Kumbh Melas and other such super-spreader events. And what about the Election Commission that is still to crack down on rallies with crowds without masks being addressed by mask-less leaders on the dais. In fact, even as I write this, there is a plea to club all the remaining phases of the West Bengal polls in one phase, at the first available date and end this dangerous exercise. However, let’s see if this plea pricks the EC’s conscience.
Like I said, it is easy to blame the politicians—but what about the rest of us? In the midst of this rising second wave, we hear that parties are still taking place; in fact, the beginning of the second wave happened soon after the Holi festival (just as we saw a rise in cases after Diwali). In the capital itself, a young 35-year-old lawyer hosted a dinner after which all his 45 guests tested positive for Covid. The lawyer himself needs critical care as he didn’t make the vaccine age group.
Even those who have got their shots feel as if they have been given a magic wand to party. Now this is not the case as we all know now. Some doctors feel that because the virus is mutating so rapidly the vaccinations cannot handle the mutations; others claim that while the vaccine does not give you 100 percent protection it does make the attack milder. But the truth remains: A vaccine is not a “get out of Covid-free card. Double masks, hand sanitising and social distancing are. And please call off the rallies and mass religious gatherings. For the love of God, if not for the love of your fellow citizens this is a plea that needs to be heard by our vote-bank hungry politicians. It doesn’t matter what my religion is, I am making this prayer as a concerned citizen of India.