THE INSIDE VIEW BLOG #16
India has been hit by an unprecedented second wave that has taken toll of the normal lives of its citizens. The scientific World knew that sooner or later, India with such a huge population would face a second wave, but no one anticipated it to be this huge. The health infrastructure is crumbling, people are dying without the availability of drugs and medical oxygen, lockdowns have been announced in major parts of the country and many such miseries are being faced. But who exactly is responsible for such a huge second wave of COVID-19 infections?
Elections
The central and state governments had let their guards off after the fist wave of infections peaked in mid-September. Large gatherings were allowed, there were no restrictions imposed, etc… More importantly elections were allowed with huge political rallies. The Madras High Court in a judgement this week held the Election Commission is wholly responsible for the Second wave of COVID-19 infections. The election commission didn’t impose any restrictions on the number of people participating in political rallies and didn’t enforce strict guidelines for prevention of COVID-19 during election campaigns.
The Prime Minister who in one of his addresses to the nation spoke about the importance of following COVID-19 appropriate behavior even after the release of vaccines, was seen conducting huge rallies involving thousand of people in poll bound states like West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc.. Many other political leaders conducted huge rallies that has currently become super spreader events of COVID-19 infections.
Health Infrastructure
Another major fault with the central Government was in not ramping up the health infrastructure in the country. A huge amount was sanctioned in September to build Oxygen Plants across the country, but most of those projects have not even started. Currently, all the major hospitals across the country are sending out S.O.S calls through twitter for medical oxygen. Many COVID-19 patients are dying due to the lack of medical oxygen.
Vaccine Distribution
Vaccine is the only way out of this pandemic for this whole world, but due to certain mistakes by the central government in the decision making has led to ineffectiveness in the all important vaccine distribution process.
The Indian Government rushed through the vaccine approval process and approved Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin before the results of phase 3 trials were released. This resulted in vaccine hesitancy even among the well educated health workers at the initial phase of vaccination.
The central government initially did not support the vaccine production companies to ramp up the production, this caused vaccine shortage in many vaccination centers due to lack of timely supply.
Now, the central government has shifted the responsibility of vaccinating the age group of 18-45 years to the state government and private hospitals. The serum institute of India, the company that manufactures Covishield vaccine has priced the vaccine at Rs.600 to the private hospitals and Rs.400 to the State Governments, which is almost double the price at which the vaccine was sold to the Central Government. This will further lead to competition among states and private hospitals for the vaccines and ultimately lead to unequal distribution of vaccines in the country.
The common Citizens
We ourselves had let our guards off after the first wave. Social distancing and masking had become a thing in past. We participated in many super spreader events like marriages, election rallies, religious gatherings, etc… We are also one of the major reasons for the situation that we are in right now.
All these has led us to the situation that we are in right now. But if we follow certain COVID-19 appropriate behavior at least now, many lives can be saved.
Stray home, Stay safe.
The Cityzen Journal 