There are media reports galore with grim statistics as India battles the second, and undoubtedly a more lethal, wave of coronavirus these days. After all, Covid-19 records are being shattered every day. The nation has been registering over 2 lakh new covid cases for the past three days, with each day seeing 16,000-plus cases more than the previous one. Yesterday, India’s daily Covid death count breached the 1300 mark for the first time since the outbreak of the global pandemic last year as more than half of its states witnessed their highest ever spike in cases.
Accounting for one out of every four Covid-19 cases reported globally, one report noted, India is bearing the brunt of the pandemic. Another one has warned that if India does not take adequate steps to check the spread of Covid-19 now, the deadly virus may claim more than 2300 lives – around a 1,000 more than the current record of 1340 – every day by June this year.
In this ongoing battle, it seems as if the virus has laid siege to the national capital. Reporting nearly 19,500 new cases and 141 deaths yesterday, Delhi has left Mumbai behind as the worst-hit Covid-19 city in the country. Photos of two Covid-19 patients sharing a bed at a Delhi hospital tell much about the extent to which the second wave of the pandemic has overwhelmed the city’s health infrastructure.
Then, there are fears that the city may soon face a shortage of vaccines with stocks available only for another week. What is worse is that Delhi is not the only one; five other states – Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Punjab and Rajasthan – have also raised concerns with the Centre about vaccine shortage.
In addition, another recently published study by reputable medical journal ‘Lancet’ has concluded that the virus is primarily transmitted through air, instead of droplets (as commonly believed), which forebodes even worse times for a densely populated India where public adherence to pandemic safety guidelines is dismal, to say the least.
Fortunately, though, not everything is gloom and doom.
There are studies assuring that the faster-rising second wave will not last as long as the first one because around 40% of the Indian population will have anti-bodies by the end of this month, having been already been infected over the past year and also thanks to the ongoing vaccination campaign nationwide. Even during this second wave, a significant proportion of Covid-positive cases are reported to be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.
Besides, the Narendra Modi government has dispelled concerns about vaccine shortage, assuring that there will always be enough stock of Covid-19 doses for the immunisation campaign to continue smoothly across the country. In response to fears about mutant variants of coronavirus rendering vaccination efforts ineffective, the Modi government has confirmed that RT-PCR is successfully detecting all variants known to be present in India.
Amid these reports of despair and hope, one message invariably rings true: public cooperation is as important as political will – if not more – for India to break the chain of transmission of this virus and finally overcome this crisis. Simply blaming the government and political leaders without following all safety guidelines diligently will not be enough. The sooner every Indian realises this, the better.
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