India's Current Situation With Covid-19

In just a few months, coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 350K people and infected 5.6 million people across the world.

As Lockdown 4.0, the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown, has been imposed till 31st of May with so many relaxations, the number of cases hikes gradually. On 24th of May, India overtakes Iran in cases, becomes the 10th most affected country in the world. And witnessed the biggest-ever spike with 7000 plus cases on Sunday, taking the total number of Covid-19 cases to 138,536. Sikkim And Nagaland were the only states that were the only COVID-free states in the country. But on Sunday Sikkim reports its first covid-19 positive case who recently returned from Delhi and Nagaland reports 3 coronavirus cases for the first time on Monday.

About 70% of India’s cases are come out from 11 “municipal areas” in seven states: Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Rajasthan, the Ministry said in a statement.

Current Situation Of India

The situation of the Migrant workers or daily wage workers going to be worse day by day and with covid-19 they are fighting difficult battles for their survival i.e. food and water. Either they will die with covid-19 or of starving.   

     The government have started Shramik Express to help those stranded people who want to return to their homes but due to lack of coordination between the state government and the railways,  workers are suffering. Due to no proper timing or delay, wrong information provided or somewhere routes are changed; migrant workers are facing so many difficulties.

           

And many of them have started their journey to their native places on foot. While government announced Vande Bharat mission for Indians who stranded overseas, many of the migrant workers walk back to their native places. The only way they have left with walking, bicycles, or hatching rides with no food or water under scorching sun. 

It’s not only the migrant workers who are facing the burnt of lockdown, but middle class with meager income are badly hit too. Due to this pandemic, most of them lost their jobs who were in corporate sectors and getting half salary.  And those working as consultants/in the gig economy along with small businesses/non-essential shops have been hit badly. 

          
Most families across the country are grappling with a sudden loss of income due to which they face difficulties for paying rents, expenses on groceries. school fees, electricity bills. And many of them have already withdrawn their PF to fulfill their necessities

As this is the time for the cutting and sowing new crops and fruits. Many farmers are facing difficulties due to lack of workers as a result of curfew, lockdown. 

             

These workers are responsible for harvesting, collection of stubble, storage, and transporting them to mandis. Even in mandis these workers are the ones who clean the grains and fruits before it sold.  

Domestic workers like guards and maids are now being challenged with increased poverty and financial challenges. Many domestic workers are abandoned by their employers in the time of crisis, denied full payments for the month of march, and not even bothering to pay them for the coming months. 

            

As there are no law and rights to protect domestic workers, this pandemic gives us a call that we need a law for one of the most important of our society.

Covid-19 affects various sectors like automotive, entertainment industry, tourism industry, pharmaceutical industry, media industry, to the education industry, IT industry, art industry, construction, business, and transport industry. With their potential losses and prediction in the near future, it would take time for them to come on track. 

Since the whole world governments are entirely focussed to anyhow control the exponential growth of pandemic, they have imposed medical emergencies in the countries. But this is also true that Covid-19 is an additional burden on the healthcare system. It is not like that other diseases have vanished all of sudden. Entire health department is totally devoted to treating corona patients only. In this situation the other patients than this virus have been extremely marginalized. They have been left entirely on their own. Private sector hospitals, as everybody knows, are not affordable for low-income families. It is now obvious that people are also dying due to medical negligence since every govt hospital in different regions is locked to treat Corona patients only. A vast number of patients already suffering from deadly diseases or illnesses like cancer, asthma, diabetes, heart attack, dengue, tuberculosis, HIV, fatal injuries and road accidents who are not Covid symptomatic, are not getting immediate services.

 In that scenario many have been left dying while waiting for the immediate response and treatments from the hospitals. There is very less media attention towards this. Govt and media, all are busy collecting no of death reports due to Corona infection, but no-one is talking about other seriously ill patients who also need urgent care during this lockdown situation. In fact the number of people suffering from prevalent deadly diseases are quite higher than the Covid-19 cases. If you look at the actual statistics, you will find that death cases from other deadly diseases are also far higher than the Corona cases. Although very few such cases got media attention, I am pretty much sure that the incidents of patients dying from other well known fatal diseases due to medical negligence are overwhelmingly higher.

Don’t Panic, Stay Home, Stay Safe