Written by: Vincent Yang
Date: May 19
In January and February of 2021, the number of daily cases in India rose from a whopping 90,000 a day to 20,000 a day. With this, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, declared that the country was safe enough to resume daily operations, and reopened all public gathering locations in the country. Although Modi continued to push for social distancing and the wearing of masks, many people did not follow these rules due to its lacklustre enforcement. Modi even addressed a large audience of unmasked and not-socially-distanced supporters in five different cities. The Kumbh Mela, a festival that attracts millions of people, was also allowed to take place.
India is now the epicenter of the global pandemic and a focal point of international concern. The country even reported more than 350,000 new cases in a single day. With an already fragile and fragmented public healthcare system, the spread of the virus in India seems to only be getting worse. Hospitals have been overwhelmed and have had to turn away scores of patients. There aren’t enough beds, with an acute need for all kinds of medical supplies. Hospitals in the Mumbai and Delhi regions are also running short on oxygen.
This is due to the fact that over 80% of the Indian population are in the low income class, meaning that many people in this class are unable to even afford a simple doctor’s visit, let alone be treated for the virus. This ongoing crisis in India has simply exposed the Indian government’s underfunding and neglect of the public healthcare system, as the middle and high class have always been able to afford their own healthcare by visiting privating doctors and healthcare centers. Recent schemes, like health insurance and subsidised medicines for the poor, are not helping because very little has been done in the previous decades to increase the number of medical staff or hospitals.
Since there is very little to be done in a short time to fix a broken economy and a dismantled healthcare system, the Indian government is resorting to handing out as many vaccines as possible so as to prevent the further spread of this virus and allow hospitals to stop having to deal with more and more affected patients on their doorsteps every day. To help with this, the government has cancelled all exports of vaccines to focus on the administration of the vaccine in their own country. They have even enlisted Biological E and the state-run Haffkine Institute to produce vaccines. This solution however, has come a little too late, as the situation in India is already dire and the vaccines will only be available in a few months time, meaning the spread of the virus will only continue to worsen.
Citations:
http://learningindia.in/indias-by-class/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/27/india-covid-surge-faq/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01059-y
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56977653