Who'll pay for all the collateral damage ?

It’s a personal post today. And a sad one . For me and for some of my friends.

One of my close friends, one of the liveliest & sunniest people I’ve known in my life, someone whose positive spirit & can-do attitude influenced my thoughts & philosophy hugely when I was stepping outside my university gates into the big bad world outside, passed away last evening. He was married . And a father to 13 year old twins.

No, it was NOT Covid-19.

He had a kidney infection & a delay in the intervention procedure, including reluctance in allowing his family to take him in for consultation at a top tier hospital, thanks to the prioritization of & panic around Covid-19 in India currently, caused him to die of a massive seizure by the time the doctor agreed to attend to him.

He is the latest casualty of India’s crippled premier healthcare system that has descended from over-commercialization in recent decades to a mayhem of sorts today , despite having some of best medical brains in the world originating from there. This cluelessness in India today is a failure of administration and a failure of the famous Indian resilience. A country that stood tall against a thousand years of oppression, that refused to buckle when lashed by some of the most severe epidemic outbreaks in the history of modern mankind & a country known for its hospitality, sense of brotherhood and richness of culture, is virtually unrecognizable today, with rampant panic & distrust all over - that’s not just rendering us stupid, but inhuman too.

Who is to blame ? The leadership ? The TRP hungry media that loves selling disaster headlines ? The density of our population ? Political infighting ? Or the virus itself ?

Maybe all of the above, to a certain extent. But more than any of these, what has started to wobble is India’s spirit. And there is no vaccine for a surrendering spirit.

Let’s talk some numbers now.

There have been 15 million cases of Covid-19 detected as on 22/07/20 . That makes it 0.0019% of the world population (7.8 Bn).

99% of these 0.0019% cases are mild. Only 1% are serious / critical.

Almost 10 Million cases are closed , of which again 94% have been already discharged.

Yes, it’s a grim situation, no second thoughts. But now, with relevant prevention measures in place, we need to get the world back to normal again without any further delay. Because this mismanaged panic is actually driving us into a situation that is many times worse than what the pandemic is capable of causing.

Like my friend, we have millions of patients with other ailments & who are dying in huge numbers due to lack of basic medical attention. Millions of people are losing their livelihoods & that is collectively leading to irreparable social issues which will not go away even when we have a vaccine & when Covid-19 becomes history. Travel restrictions are cruelly separating families, including those where senior citizens are stranded and who need constant attention. Meritorious students all over the world have been thrown into uncertainty around courses they prepared all their lives for, as they have no idea how long these border closures will go on and even when they ease, how can the unsustainable 2-week quarantine at both ends be managed before they start off in a new country. Above all, there is this collective suspicion we have developed towards fellow humans & this induced sense of stigma around Covid-19 that is driving people to suicide. People are not even getting their dignity in death due to man-made restrictions around final rites & I have heard horror stories of how bodies are being ‘dumped’ disrespectfully without a proper send-off . Crime is on the rise. So is fake news. Organizational productivity has tanked, thanks to people using the excuse of Covid-19 to shirk accountability. And much more.

 Some of the most brilliant minds around the world have taken responsibility to bring us out of the Covid crisis, by means of a cure & a vaccine. Hopefully that should happen soon.

 But who shall take responsibility for all the collateral damage that is happening due to our reaction to this pandemic ?

 The responsibility to rekindle our spirit lies with us. With you & with me.

 Can we start today before more lives are lost ?

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 (My blog post – 23/07/20)

 This is a personal entry of mine re-posted here. It was scribbled in a daze after hearing of a personal loss. Please pardon typos & grammatical errors, if any. The views expressed in my posts are my own and they may or may not be relevant to my day job.