BOBIE-LEE DIXON
(bobie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)
There is no telling when 24-year-old teacher Anurag George Ekka would be able to fly back to his home in central India.
He has been trapped in the country’s capital, New Delhi, since he arrived on April 17—two days before a lockdown was declared by India’s government, due to alarming increased COVID-19 cases.
The trip was supposed to be focused on a new venture in his teaching career, having previously used most of his profession to voluntarily teach underprivileged children in the slums of Mumbai.
But with Delhi reporting new infection rates of over 25,000 per day and hospitals reaching their limits, Ekka was forced to stay put.
In a zoom interview, he told Guardian Media, “I do have the option to fly back home but it’s just not safe to travel at the moment. So I am staying put here at a friend’s place and I am working from home.”
Describing the current situation in India, Ekka said although COVID had been with India and the world for the past year, this time around it seemed to be moving with a vengeance—sparing none.
“This time around I just feel it is much more infectious and deadlier, because I feel when the pandemic hit us last time it was always the understanding that hey the well-noted population was the elderly and people who are immune-compromised, but this time around, it’s just affecting everyone…young…old…irrespective of whether you are healthy, whether you have a preexisting condition or not. It’s just ruthless this time,” he lamented.
Ekka has experienced the loss of his own.
“I have multiple friends in hospitals, their parents admitted. I have very recently lost a few family members to COVID. So it’s now all very real and we really don’t know how to react to it because it’s overwhelming. It’s just like too many people you know.”
Responding to the question about the toll the situation has taken on him mentally, Ekka said he could not put words to how he feels as he still did not know how to process all of it.
He said what was once considered a normal part of one’s day to browse social media was now a daily reminder of the devastation, COVID-19 has brought to India.
“Every time I open my social media, it’s just overwhelming because all ‘insta stories’ are just people requesting that hey, can somebody come forward as a plasma donor, or do you have leads on where we can get these vital injections,” said Ekka.
He said with the hospitals running out of essential medications, to treat the virus, desperate people were even turning to illegitimate businesses for help.
“Black markets are being developed because we are just running out of medicine. People are putting up requests on social media, asking what is the right place to get an oxygen cylinder. People are getting treated at homes with teleconsultations by their physicians. So It’s just a very dire situation. Our healthcare infrastructure has completely collapsed and people are just on their own,” he explained.
India’s health ministry said on April 19, Delhi reported 25,462 cases and 161 deaths in a single 24 hours.
But with India as one of the biggest vaccine producers, seemingly doing well at the start of the year, issuing vaccine donations to various countries including T&T, which received 40,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from the country in early April. The question remains, what went wrong? Ekka believed it’s owing to the country’s people becoming too relaxed and India’s government not having foresight.
“I think it was not just something that happened very suddenly. I think we just as a populace got too relaxed and I think the government also in general did not foresee and plan for if a second wave, which I think the experts were always pointing would eventually happen. We were not prepared at all.”
He said the daily deaths and infections might even be more than what is being reported.
“It’s really horrific! We are getting images from crematorium grounds. Images from outside hospitals and I think largely, the data is also underreported. Firstly due to lack of proper administrative structure to record these things. And secondly also, because some states are willingly underreporting these cases,” said Ekka.
But despite the crisis India was currently facing, Ekka boasted the country had seen the banding together of people unlike before, in a national community response to help each other. He advised T&T however, not to make the same mistake India did and become too complacent.
“I think the larger picture is to understand from India’s example that it’s not going to be shared within national boundaries. The pandemic is a national issue and so everything, whether it’s medicine, vaccines, need to be made available universally to everyone, otherwise what happens in India is going to eventually affect not just people everywhere but also economies.”