India’s War With the Invisible Enemy

How does one perceive human resilience? Does your ability to endure irrefutable hardship vary from one piece of adversity to another, or is it a human psychological constant that fluctuates in terms of the varying intensity of the hardships you experience? Perhaps the pandemic holds the consequential capability of educating our species about the various philosophies that envelope and dictate the concept of human psychological endurance. Humanity has experienced loss, regret, isolation, oppression, suppression, hate, discrimination, and social injustices at every corner of the globe within a span of less than 2 years, and the lessons learned from those adversities that were inseparably empowered by the overwhelming scale of chaos and death that has occurred may in fact be the driving forces behind the creation of the unpredictable new world we are yet to see beyond the inevitable finish line of this global catastrophe. However, the unfortunate circumstance that deprives us of the luxury of thinking about the future is the continuation of the pandemic through a number of countries who seem to be experiencing only the beginning of a real sense of social disorder, unparalleled suffering, and death. On the top of that dreaded list resides the second most populated country in the world, India.

Human history is riddled with uncontrolled outbreaks of deadly microscopic pathogens that were not even remotely understood at the time of their emergence. We look at the deadliest epidemics in recorded history and we learn about the bubonic plague, the black death, the Spanish flu, all of whom who managed to purge and kill significant portions of the human population during their time periods, spanning from lasting only a few years to re-emerging all over the world at various periods across hundreds of years. However, when you dive into the details of these global catastrophes, including the one we are facing today, you will notice an unignorable pattern emerging. A pattern that peddles the escalation of widespread catastrophe and determines the scale of the damage that will be inflicted upon the human society. That pattern is the controversial concept of knowledge. You see, knowledge powers the modern world into progressing towards complexified growth and innovation. Knowledge braces humanity against the worst of the worst that could happen. We discover a new pathogen, and the world of science seeks to learn as much as it possibly can about its behaviour, its characteristics, and the level threat it poses to the human body. We did that with the SARS-COV-2 virus when it first emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019. In a matter of months we acquired the kind of knowledge that would have normally taken years or even decades to attain. However, there is only so much science can do when a considerable portion of the human population either chooses to ignore or deny the facts or intentionally tamper them and spread misinformation to fulfil their own selfish desires. Such is the case in India, where the presence of unpreparedness, ignorance, and denial unsurprisingly fed the mere spark into becoming the uncontrolled wildfire with the possessed capability of engulfing and burning the whole country to the ground.

The story of India’s struggle with the virus is one that is full of preventable catastrophes that blew the situation way out of proportion, which is ironic considering that there was a brief period during this crisis when the country was doing so well that the rest of the world looked towards us for guidance and support. We as a nation became a glorified symbol and a noteworthy example for others to follow because of our successes. 2020 was a year that went relatively smoothly for India, starting from the first 3 cases emerging in the state of Kerala back in late January all the way to peaking at over 98,000 nationwide cases in September before beginning to gradually decline for the rest of the year. When you study the statistics of the rest of the world at the time, you would be acquainted with the understanding that India was doing fairly well compared to the hundreds of thousands of daily cases and thousands of daily deaths in multiple nations across the western world. These statistical observations and comparisons did much to generate quantifiable hope, particularly for the people of our country. it showed the world how even one of the most densely populated countries in the world that houses more people than the entire continent of Europe can survive the calamity that seeks to engulf us all. However, a brief list of factors we did not pay attention to are enough to tarnish and crush the demographic of Indian success in terms of the country’s handling of the pandemic in 2020. Firstly, India has a disdainful track record when it comes to officially registering the number of deaths irrespective of their causalities, may they be because of car accidents, tuberculosis, crime, or suicide. Countless independent studies conducted by a number of organizations unveil the staggering fact that more than 8 out of every 10 deaths that occur in the country go unrecorded. What that means in terms of the epidemic is the educated estimation that the real number of deaths that have occurred because of covid are likely to be 8 to 10 times higher than the official statistics. That observation alone places India at the top of the list when it comes to the total number of fatalities. Secondly, the majority of testing that was being conducted by both the government and several independent entities was effectively concentrated in the major cities of the country. That may sound practical and understandable at first, but when you learn that more than 90% of the population resides in the rural areas outside the major cities, all the practicalities of the situation go out the window. Lastly, the only cases and deaths that are registered are those that take place in hospitals. Any covid-caused fatalities that occur outside the immediate vicinity of a major hospital go unrecorded or are given a different cause of death. For example, when covid infection leads to oxygen deprivation in an individual who is in home quarantine, the latter is labelled as the cause upon the occurrence of death. The entire existence of covid is completely disregarded.

The most gripping analogy is the acknowledgement that all these factors were predominantly present throughout last year when the situation was considered to be significantly better compared to the events that have been unfolding since the start of 2021. Each and every one of these facts continue to hold just as much validity today, which places our statistics of daily cases and deaths at unimaginable figures and estimates, supported by hospital reports and the crematoriums that continue to claim how more than 40% of the bodies that are burned are signed off as non-covid deaths.

There is much to be said about India’s management of the pandemic for the current year. Governmental inaction, social defiance, insufficient awareness, lack of education, poor hygiene practices, high poverty, unemployment, corruption, overpopulation, all have been playing a role in feeding the unprecedented chaos that has been unfolding these past few months. For decades, scientists have consistently proclaimed this nation as the perfect breeding ground for a viral epidemic, which only holds unarguable and undeniable levels of validity today. For example, each of the viral strains of concern that emerged all across the world, may it be the one from South Africa, The UK, or Brazil, all found their way into India and merged into a variety of double mutant and triple mutant strains, which then consecutively spread all over the world.

The truth about our circumstantial hardship is the reality that if we wish for things to get better, we must begin by understanding the situation for the way it is. It is indescribably crucial for us as individuals to rid ourselves of any ignorant or denial-infested perspectives that go against all the realities of our circumstances. The government has proven itself to be disgustingly incapable of amending the situation the way they were supposed to, which only means that it comes down to the rest of us to make things right and do what is best for our people. Practice all the precautions, limit outside exposure, limit human contact, sanitize like your life depends on it, and do what you can to support the NGOs out there who are battling the devastation and doing what the government was meant to be doing. Any kind of help, may it involve financial support or resources, can save people from having to face a cruel and unjustified death they do not deserve. Do your part in resisting the calamity our country has been facing, so we can finally step into the unpredictable new world that emerges after the smoke clears.