How did it all fall apart so spectacularly? Just a few months ago, our health minister sanguinely led us to believe we had overcome Covid-19, triumphantly declaring that “India has flattened the Covid graph.” Three months later those words ring hollow as India is at crisis point, its health infrastructure deficiencies ruthlessly exposed.
Hospital beds are impossible to come by even for the rich and powerful who find to their horror that wealth and status pose no obstacle to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Oxygen shortages and rationing, overflowing graveyards and crematoriums are not just nightmare scenarios from a dystopian future but very real, even in the country’s financial nerve centre, Mumbai. Essential drugs (and some deemed “essential”), like remdesivir and tocilizumab are impossible to get even at black market rates, and the number of cases across the country reached a tragic global milestone with 3,12,731 new infections recorded in a single day (1 in every 7 globally) taking India’s tally to 15 million cases with a death toll of 1,80,000.
What are the reasons for this disaster? Here are the four that I believe are most relevant.
1. Complacency: Indians let down their collective guard. Instead of being bombarded with messages exhorting us to be vigilant, we heard self-congratulatory declarations of victory from our leaders, now cruelly exposed as mere self-assured hubris. Let’s be honest, we seemed to be doing well at the start of the year not because of any great public health strategy but merely due to “luck” and the virus biding its time. And then the bad just got worse.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 23, 2021 من The Times of India Mumbai.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 23, 2021 من The Times of India Mumbai.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
US soccer scrubs Islamic emblem from Iran flag
The federation said in a statement Sunday that it decided to forego the official flag on social media accounts to show “support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights.”
Pyar Ke Saat Vachan Dharam Patnii begins on TV tonight
What happens when kismet takes over the lives of two couples belonging to two different sections of society?
Arijit serenades music lovers in Mumbai
Arijit Singh casts a spell with his voice
ARGENTINA LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY
Messi's Strike Rattles Mexico And Lusail, Brings Team Back From The Brink
Costa Rica come alive
Los Ticos Stun Japan With Late Fuller Winner
Morocco's moment under the sun
Inspired Atlas Lions Shock Belgium For First WC Win In 24 Years
ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, SOAR
Athletics Icon Usha Set To Become First Woman President Of IOA
Industry body calls for slower rate hikes
CII Asks RBI To Moderate Pace Of Raising Repo As Global Woes May Impact Growth
Insurance reforms may see PE funding surge in sector
Irdai Raises Investment Cap, Allows PEs To Be Promoters
Cut ties with child-killing regime, Khamenei's niece tells world, held
Iranian authorities have arrested a niece of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after she recorded a video describing the authorities led by her uncle as a “murderous and child-killing regime”.
