07 May 2021  |   04:02am IST

Into the blistering COVID-19 2nd wave ...and the way ahead..!!

Into the blistering COVID-19  2nd wave ...and the way ahead..!!

Binayak Datta

Just when pundits were articulating on how and why our infection and mortalities were lesser, and when our politicians were busy revelling over our “Victory” “over Corona inspiring the entire world….”  and when our Union Health Ministry triumphs just 2 months back, “We are in the "end game" of the Covid-19 pandemic in India...” we hurtle straight into the boiling cauldron of the 2nd wave. I’m not an expert and am not venturing into the why’s and how’s of the deadly second wave – I would as a reasonably educated, experienced elder, like to ponder on the essential lesson, I thought we took from the 1st Wave: The virus cannot easily be killed, you have either to prevent or to endure or perish; so, we needed preventions strategies, robust and ruthlessly administered. And that’s the rule-of-4; Masks; Social-Distancing; Hands-Hygiene and Vaccines. And of-course we took (rightly) a 2½ month hard lockdown and allocated some Rs 20-odd lakh crores (nearly 10% of our GDP) in “packages”. 

At the end, we are pretty-much in a worse place than where we started, one year back – we’re still short of beds, we’re still short of testing facilities, additionally now we’re short of Vaccines and we’re short of Oxygen and Oxygen Equipments. We of course, did remarkably well in PPEs. Congregations were a strict no-no, yet we saw teeming millions in gala mega-melas, mega state-election rallies and opulent “Road-Shows” a-la-gladiator style of ancient Rome, results - we’re now suffering inevitably, the evitable! I’m reasonably certain that Saul Bellow thru “Brother Yun” in “To Jerusalem and Back” would have said once again, “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep”..      

My Take: Two points – vaccines and masks, statedly the biggest preventions and the way forward. India needs 180 crores of vaccine shots (2 each to all of the 18 and above groups) Of this 2.7 crore both doses and 9.9 one dose have already been administered (per Government portal); say 80% of the rest can be vaccinated. So, with a 5% wastage you need 140 crore shots. We make 7 crore shots a month today. With Sputnik added later this month, we'll make 13. 

Second: We knew we have no vaccines, yet we invited 50 crores of youngsters for the jab. Beats all logic, when at this speed we’ll take till April 2022 for the program, by then who knows how the umpteenth variant-strain responds?

My recommendations: Rapid increase in vaccine-capacities.  Negotiate free-licensing for the existing vaccines and the ones to be imported, (it’s best not to depend on single source) take lessons from the 162 PSA Oxygen plants from the PM-Care funds. Out of 162 due February, only 33 are in)! Follow closely the ramp-up program of the existing two vaccine-suppliers we paid for. Finally, import fast from multiple sources. 

Authentic sources agree, friends in UK confirm – they’re spacing the shots 12 weeks apart, rather than ours 8. That would release immediate capacities for the first shot significantly without hampering benefits.

Lastly, broad-base facilities for genome-sequencing. This program determines the order of the bases of the DNAs – it’s important to know which variant and what its sensitivities are. Currently, we have a set of only ten laboratories in India for 130 crore people. I think it’s essential we multiply this facility several folds. De-restrict importation of components.

Now on masks. I need not re-emphasize the degree of disuse of these simple life savers. And all this, when we knew all the time there was a second wave coming. We saw UK, US and Europe, yet it hardly weighed on our priorities. 

My Take:  Our one-year history proves, we won’t heed counsel unless we are constrained to. Daily deaths all India has increased 37 times in 3 months. (107 to 3979). No, it’s no longer safe to wait, there are no indications of any abatements. And people won’t just heed feeble “appeals” from politicians. 

Clamp a complete national-lockdown for 28 days (two compete life-cycles) to seriously cut the transmission chain, to enforce isolation, to build up capacities for vaccination, testing, sequencing and oxygen-beds. Disperse the international aids piling at airports to deep inside hinterland. Yes, economy will be hurt once again, arrange for DBTs from the PM-Care and CMs-care funds to target rural families and urban migrants for them to stay on where they are. And for heavens’, stop all luxuries “so-called essential services” like the Rs 20,000 crore Central-Vista at Delhi and the needless Rs 4,000-crore “Linear-Projects” in Goa.

In Goa: Goa faces exponential increase in daily deaths in the last 3 months – 0 to 71. First, just three days back, we heard there was no shortage of Oxygen, yesterday none other than the Doctors’ Association itself emphasized Oxygen shortage at GMC itself. Again, just two days ago, we heard “beds have been made available at all hospitals”, yet a 49-year-old lady had to die yesterday, after waiting for hours just outside a South Goa hospital, reason: no beds. In the Economic Survey, we however read “The impact of Covid-19 on the State is much lesser, compared to many states, due to the timely measures and professional handling of the situation by the Government”. I may add that Goa has the Highest Positivity Rate (all-India) at 52%! I think our perpetual “denial mode” is often at the root of our miseries. 

And in conclusion: At the end – it’s human lives we speak of. Everything else is secondary, at best only purposes of life. Bellow’s “Yun” I think saw this right thru – if we continue in our “illusions”, it will only be at our own peril, with nobody else to blame!

(Binayak Datta is a Finance Professional)

IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar