What happened to India - What can we learn in Sri Lanka

Monday, 19 April 2021 - 7:02

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India is now in the grips of a public health emergency. People are dying, cases are surging and the Health sector is overwhelmed.

India’s COVID-19 cases tally crossed the 15 million mark on April 18. The country has so far reported a total of 1,50,58,019 cases and 1,78,793 deaths.

The country registered 2,75,196 new COVID-19 cases as of 11.30 p.m. on April 18, the highest single-day rise. As many as 1,620 deaths were also recorded.

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 to a bed, in corridors and lobbies of hospitals.

There are frantic calls for help for beds, medicines, oxygen, essential drugs and tests. Drugs are being sold on the black market, and test results are taking days.

"They didn't tell me for three hours that my child is dead," a dazed mother says in one video, sitting outside an ICU. Wails of another person outside the intensive care punctuate the silences.

Even India's mammoth vaccination effort was now struggling. Even as the country ramped up the drive and administered more than 100 million doses by last week, vaccine shortages were being reported. Serum Institute of India, the country's - and the world's - biggest vaccine maker said it would not be able to ramp up supplies before June because it didn't have enough money to expand capacity.

India placed a temporary hold on all exports of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, because the doses were needed urgently at home, and allowed imports of foreign vaccines. Even oxygen was likely to be imported now to meet the surge in demand.

Meanwhile, almost in a parallel universe, away from the death and despair, the world's richest cricket tournament was being played behind closed doors every evening, and tens of thousands of people were following their leaders to election rallies and attending the Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela (the event has been stopped as at yesterday 19).

The country's been reporting more than 150,000 cases a day. In January and February daily cases fell below 20,000.

So, how did India get from relative calm to its new crisis? Workplaces, markets and malls have reopened, and transport is operating at full capacity. Big weddings, festivals and election rallies are also being held.

The result: a situation that one doctor described as a "Covid tsunami".

India's second wave was fuelled by people letting their guard down, attending weddings and social gatherings, and by mixed messaging from the government, allowing political rallies and religious gatherings

What are the lessons of this public health crisis? For one, We should not declare victory over the virus prematurely, and it should put a lid on triumphalism.

People should also learn to adapt to short, local lockdowns in the event of the inevitable future spikes of infection. At present we have isolation in some areas in Kurunegala. 

Most epidemiologists predict more waves, given that India is evidently still far away from reaching herd immunity and its vaccination rate remains slow. As we emerege from the Sinhala and Tamil New year and move towards Ramazan and Vesak discipline is required. 

"We cant freeze human life," Professor Reddy said. "If we can't physically distance in the crowded cities, we can at least make sure everyone wears a proper mask. And wear it properly. That's not a big ask."

"Make no mistake, vaccines are a vital and powerful tool. But they are not the only tool. We say this day after day, week after week. And we will keep saying it. Physical distancing works. Masks work. Hand hygiene works" - Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO chief. 

Stay safe, stay wise and never be overconfident - This is not politics, religion or money - IT IS A VIRUS and it has no limits.



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