N-COV-2019 aka CORONA INFECTION IN INDIA

 The WHO deferring to the Chinese demand, gave a nomenclature to the deadly virus that originated in the city of Wuhan in China as n-COV-2019 or COVID in short for Corona Virus Disease.  The spread of the virus across the globe is something extraordinary in such a short time, more facilitated by people traveling from one place to another, one country to another and also not curtailing the travel when the symptoms of the disease started appearing in far off shores from the place of origin, is beyond belief.  As much column kilometers had been written about this in various forums, it serves no purpose to go through the same and it is not the aim of the author to recount the various measures adopted by different countries to fight the disease and the spread of the same. 

Finally, it has been determined by the scientists in WHO that the virus spread mainly through air and the best antidote is to wear a mask covering the face and nose completely and also maintain social distancing; avoid crowding and going to crowded places etc. 

However, when the first wave hit the country in India, the spread was controlled by a declared lockdown for a specific period to prepare the country to have better healthcare facilities, ventilators and various medicines and medical staff. The salutary effects was seen in controlling the spread of virus and also in the numbers.  The central government headed by the prime minister and his cabinet colleagues were able to get many things done in controlling the spread despite many states not following the sane advisories sent to them from time to time. The spread was increased to other parts of the country from mainly in cities thanks to allowing the workers return to their native places in far flung rural India.  When the virus was found to be abating, the state governments stepped in demanding that management of the virus should be left to the states as the control and management of virus and health care of the state population is the states' responsibility and they have adequate manpower to do so.  Moreover, there was a widespread discomfort in the centralised approach to the control and management of the disease by central government in a federal nature of the democracy.  A few states governed by opposition parties voiced this openly in the various meetings called by the prime minister to assess the situation from time to time.  The left parties and the main opposition party in the parliament were very critical of the way the whole issue was handled by the central government.

With such a development, the central government allowed the state governments to manage and control the spread of the virus and also take care of the health of the population in their respective states.  The indiscriminate permitting travel to and from abroad despite the global pandemic circumstances, not following adequate protocols in tracing the persons with even mild symptoms, not ramping up the RT PCR testing despite the positivity rate increasing tremendously in the early weeks of 2021 all lead to a situation where today, India surpassed all the other countries in the daily count of infections and the death rate though comfortably below 200,000 as of a recent date, still alarming. 

The state governments, with the exception of Kerala had not made arrangements for sufficient supply or storage of required medicines and oxygen.  The vaccination started sometime in March this year is not a panacea against this virus, except that the two doses that are required, once taken may provide sufficient immunity in fighting the virus.  The 2 to 4 persons per 10000 vaccinated getting infected is an indication of the effectiveness of the same.  

The political fall out seen in the control of spread and management of the disease by various state governments is pathetic.  The different parties ruling the different states think in narrow parochial manner of the state population only with eye on the next election and winning the same. There are, of course, some exceptions to this general rule.  Now there is another political agenda of the opposition political parties that is seen openly.  For any issue related to their own state machinery inadequacies, the political parties ruling in those states, start blaming the central government. The regional satraps of these states see this second/third wave of the virus as god send opportunity to blame the prime minister personally for all the inadequacy of their state machinery in handling the same.  They also see this as a trump card to thump the ruling party in general and the prime minister in particular in the next parliament election in 2024.  They lose no time or chance to blame the prime minister for all their problems in the preparedness of the states in controlling the spread and management of the disease. Be it a religious gathering or an election in a state, they find fault with everything and blame that for the spread of the virus in their states where there had been no such crowds or election.  It is an irony in Indian context that a religious congregation in a far off place or an election in a state removed by few thousand miles has an echo thousands of miles away in a metropolis where huge number of people are infected daily.  

It is a pity that the political parties and the regional satraps are thinking only of winning the next elections and thumping the present ruling combine and not about the health of the people of their respective states.  The safest way for an individual is to remain aloof, duly masked when in public or interacting with another person, wash their hands frequently, sanitize themselves and their surroundings as frequently as possible. The political parties are not able to think beyond next election and forming a government in the center.  God save this country.