Every single death from COVID19 is unfortunate but the second wave of the pandemic had devastating for India. There was not just panic all around but the whole healthcare system of India had collapsed. Every coronavirus related medicine was short in supply and price of sky-rocketed. Thousands of people died just due to lack of hospitalization, oxygen and medicines. All the claimed preparations during the first wave of infection and the lockdown seemed to have completely failed. However the second wave was far fiercer in comparison to other pandemics where the second waves are found to be less fierce.
In the first wave, a total 1,07,58,629 cases and 154428 deaths from the virus were reported (as on 31st January 2021). The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) in the first wave was 1.43 per cent. In the second wave, a total of 2,01,86,419 cases and 2,57,017 deaths have been reported (as on 13th July 2021). The CFR in the second wave is 1.27%. That means more than 98.5 percent of infected individuals are recovering over time in this wave. This clearly indicates that Indian health system has learned a lot in the last one year. And this is a good news that every citizen must know to defuse the panic behaviour. However there is just one way out of this problem and that is following coronavirus protocols which include wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. Obviously, the coronavirus is not very deadly but the very high R value (reproduction number) makes it a highly infectious virus.
The nature of this virus is quite different from all the previous viruses. This pandemic has opened wide all the fractures in the crippling and negligible Indian healthcare system which had been continuously ignored by all the previous governments since independence. It is true that a pandemic like this can collapse any healthcare system irrespective how well equipped the system is. But that does not mean that the governments are not responsible for the death of lakhs of citizens. When governments had time to upgrade and prepare the healthcare system to face the second wave, governments chose to celebrate and even at this point of time, it seems to have no clear direction with regards to the healthcare sector which has been almost lent to the private sector.
Rajeev Upadhyay
The nature of this virus is quite different from all the previous viruses. This pandemic has opened wide all the fractures in the crippling and negligible Indian healthcare system which had been continuously ignored by all the previous governments since independence. It is true that a pandemic like this can collapse any healthcare system irrespective how well equipped the system is. But that does not mean that the governments are not responsible for the death of lakhs of citizens. When governments had time to upgrade and prepare the healthcare system to face the second wave, governments chose to celebrate and even at this point of time, it seems to have no clear direction with regards to the healthcare sector which has been almost lent to the private sector.
Rajeev Upadhyay
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