The things happening in the world are taking our breaths away. We are fighting for the lives of our loved ones with time, money and resources. Every day, one person is dying every minute due to COVID-19.
India now has become the home of the worst ongoing Coronavirus pandemic with nearly a million cases, just behind the US with 3000 deaths every day. The reason for the thousands of deaths is COVID 19 but the causes are many that make it a man-made disaster:
- Unavailability of Beds in the hospital: The world has turned upside down and the fact that India, the second-most populated country, doesn’t have hospital beds anymore is dreadful. People are dying after not getting proper medical care and attention and the number is increasing day by day.
- Oxygen Shortage: India lost thousands of lives due to the lack of oxygen left in the hospitals especially in Delhi. The world countries have pitched in by helping India in its need by supplying Oxygen cylinders, medical equipment, vaccines and more.
- Unequal Distribution of Resources received from Foreign Countries: Despite the help India received, the uneven distribution has resulted in the loss of lives across the country. India has received assistance from 40 countries over the past week and still, people are dying. Even the opposition is questioning the Central government about its distributions.
- Wastage of Vaccines: The weapon which India boosted and provided other countries with was Vaccines. But instead, when the Central government provided the states with 16 crores vaccines, they wasted 14.8 crores vaccines with Tamil Nadu reporting the highest wastage with 8.83%. Although, from May, Vaccinations for Adult above 18 years has started for which Center provided 57 Lakhs vaccines.
- Under-reporting of COVID 19 cases: The reasons behind under-reporting of COVID-19 cases are barriers to testing due to costing and travel time, asymptomatic Infections, false-negative tests, missed deaths happened outside of healthcare facilities, post-COVID 19 deaths often listed as Kidney failure or heart attack, limited availability of tests, and most importantly, COVID-19 associated stigma.
- Lockdown diverted us from the Big picture: When Lockdown happened in 2020, the Central government took pride in controlling COVID 19 surge and became an example for the World. But that was short-lived, as we lived in the past and the government along with the people thought COVID 19 was defeated. Hence, the negligence has led to the nightmares of every family in the country.
- Religious Gatherings and Political Rallies: The political parties went on rallies across the country and on the other hand, religious gatherings like Kumbh Mela, which made the situation worse in Allahabad were encouraged by the Central government. The Central government worked on varying opinions rather than crisis management.
- No Accountability of PM Cares Fund: When Lockdown was imposed last year, PM Cares Fund was set up to help people in need. But till this date, no public information about the fund is available and the Right to Information for this fund is denied.
- Black Marketing: After people died due to Oxygen cylinders deficiency, Delhi High Court and other High Courts slammed the Central government and the state governments for their failures and unpreparedness to tackle the situation for 14 months. The court slammed the Delhi government for excessive black marketing of oxygen cylinders and quintessential drugs in Delhi.
There are so many reasons which this blog hasn’t covered. COVID-19 is a man-made disaster that will intensify with time. The only takeaway from COVID-19 is: The Insatiable nature of humans will only lead to worse conditions.