SECOND WAVE OF COVID-19 IN INDIA : A HUMAN CATASTROPHE
After the peak of first wave of covid-19 in the month of September 2020, the situation began to calm down and yet again after six months i.e. in the month of March the cases began to rise.
The concern of second coming of covid-19 was hanging over like “Sword of Damocles” and not to be my surprise India got badly affected by the second coming of covid-19. Lockdown rules were again employed in India by the first week of April. The second wave proved to be much more devastating than the first wave. Though the situation is now gradually coming back to normal but still this country will never forget the “ Human tragedy” it went through for the past two months. Even the remembrance of this terror scares people. The country went through so much that it became numb to sufferings. People lost their loved ones. For us the number of deaths on daily basis were just data but the void, the terror , the grief and the pain of losing a loved one with which people were left with can never be described in words. They could not give a last hug, a final goodbye or last rites to them and their savings were vacuumed by paying to private hospital .
People were dying because of lack of health facilities or not getting proper treatment. The government failed to function whereas people were asking for help on their social media accounts for oxygen cylinders in the hope to save lives of their parents, siblings and other loved ones . On the other hand there was lack of availability of beds in hospital, people were running from hospitals to hospitals with the hope to save their loved ones. The dead bodies outside the hospitals were piling up, bodies were found to be floating in the river Ganga. The march of helpless migrants workers will never be forgotten.
The government incompetency and miss-management was the result of this carnage. The government had an year to bid and purchase vaccines, to plan a proper Disaster Management, to build health infrastructure but in the end the population was blamed and the government continued the business of spreading virus by encouraging religious gatherings and conducting election campaign and nearly no concentration was given on vaccines purchase and finding ways to accelerate the vaccinations. Lockdowns are temporary but vaccines will always work. we need compassionate and humane governance and that can only bring a change in this system.
But the saddest part is that we as the citizens of India also failed to do our part and address our responsibility. I agree the government conducted rallies but those rallies were attended by whom? The citizens of India. The government failed to function, it did not order vaccines in advance and did nearly nothing to build up our health infrastructure even though it had a year to but even the citizens did not practice proper social distancing and attended religious ceremonies and planned trips with nearly no precautions. It was a pure man made disaster. We need responsible citizens too along with responsible government. Any further negligence and not taking the situation seriously may lead to vanishing half of the population of India and unfolding the terror of human catastrophe in front of our eyes again.
