How Covid-19 taught us we are a great nation with dumbness inside.

“India is being hit by second wave of Covid-19 that took the entire country in state of chaos. The experts keep saying that we failed this time, on hitting of second wave. But maybe we never won.”

Unlike last April, we the people of India were excited about IPL, Marvel movies in theatre, and enjoying a beautiful summer in Maldives and Goa (For those who could afford it). But time has bitter plans ahead, or I should better say we planned it ourselves. The death toll due to Covid-19 is on a record high. This time the numbers are not only shocking but frightening people as they are lethal in quantity but, I am sorry to say also in quality.

This is taking healthcare, market, civilians on a great leap of uncertain danger. Employment and poor level of economy was already a problem but this year they took a new high. Lives are in danger whether they are in hospital, staying inside their home or don’t have a home at all. So, what went really wrong? Mutation of virus? Nope. We as country failed together or I really want to repeat it we never won.

The beginning

2020 was not a cheesy year for anyone, people lost jobs, there were market crashes, low GDP, and overall the pandemic took lives inside and outside the hospitals. When the first case of Covid-19 came in January, the people were unaware of the threat coming ahead. Although the government had a view of disruption around the world from their window and how much disastrous it was, they took no interest in searching of any precautionary matter. It was March 2020, when numbers took a turn and started increasing. Though the pace was low but there were things which needed attention.

Suddenly people were forced to stay inside with a sudden order of lockdown and the new era of online learning and working came in existence. Zoom calls and online meetings became a new thing for everyone. As government took no previous interest in this kind of scenario, people were stuck in the middle of lost jobs and fatigue of unprecedented problems. The economy was going down day by day, and there was no plan to encounter the upcoming incidents. The head of the nation only had ideas like lighting diyas and candles and rebroadcasting Ramayana and Mahabharata on national television. I know the idea behind this entire diya thing was to cheer health worker and the broadcast was to engage people in their home. But India needed a better program and a better approach to tackle the pandemic.

Different care funds by governments were awoken for the good of people. Even a large chunk of 170,000 crore for poor and health worker was announced by finance minister. But it was all a panic move rather than any planned decision. There was no sign of how government is going to tackle problems coming in near future.

Intermission

The announcement of extension of lockdown on 14th April, gave chills to people. There were students, workers, families locked in different places. The first extension came with a warning that it is not going to stop that easy. Corporates were already cutting down on expenses as it was not at all easy to have employees without any work going around. It was little easier for the others but one who had no job and also no means of personal financial aid, they were in a shock. It panicked them and they started their own flee of going home.

The small workers and migrants started their venture of going home without any means of transport. As the means of transport were already on halt with the beginning of lockdown, it was no easy for any of them to come home. They packed their bags started walking. It was April 29, when for the first time this came in eyes of the government. Although they came with many ideas but it was not their cup of tea. But there were people around with good heart that helped poor in every way. They brought them food, cloths, medicines and even buses. The government was only involved in blame games.

Climax

After all the chaos, lockdown and problems related to it; the government came with unlocks. The unlocks were not implemented on places where there was still Covid-19. Those areas were called containment zone. The places were defined as red, yellow and green zone according to severity of the situation present there. It was a great move and the pace of spread was in control. There were fewer fatalities. Slowly lives of people were coming to new normal with Covid-19. With every new unlock, there was new provision for state to restart certain part of the public facility.

The whole idea of unlock was working very well. The vaccines were also introduced. As the largest producer of vaccine, our country was rising as a helper for any country you can name. But from here the new problem began. As everything was opening people started to come in mass. There were no certain plans to control the mass at any place. Though the vaccine was present, the large chunk of population was not even involved by the government in any idea of vaccination. We were still close to catching the pandemic once again at any point.

The latter happened and in March 2021, the second wave caught us. It all happened in the middle of election rallies, campaign and Melas. The mass gathering brought a mass of problem with it. The new rise in numbers was frightening. The symptoms and death rate came as scary as possible. People panicked and the wave shocked everyone. The number of deaths per day is breaking its own record. This brought sleepless nights for health workers. The health sector was not even aware that something would come up this large. For them, tackling it would be a far word; they are not even in position to cope. The whole economy is again going to sink and there are lives are in stack both inside and outside the hospital.

Post credit

The government all over the country was busy, in their own well fare. There were no plans for well fare of public. There was no strong and rigid timeline that how the pandemic should be handled. When it came there was chaos, in the middle when it was passive we took it for granted. It is not the variant that is taking lives, nor is the lack of different medical facility. It is us who blindly followed our government, and let them spread it.

The plan less government and our ignorance towards humanity is taking a cruel turn and we are going to pay for it. We are not failing this time, we just never won. The lack government planning, ignorance and negligence never late us win over it. We were always losing and the pandemic just took its trump card upon us. Now as the judiciary all over the country is taking things in their hand there is a hope that government will have a lesson. This time we need to win with the assurance that we will keep winning from now on.