T20 Googlies On COVID-19!

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At the moment it seems (purely my opinion) that the politicians and a sadistic ‘national’ media of the country called India have taken full charge of the COVID-19 fight and its management. Both are ecstatically engaged in a series of googlies aimed at creating chaos, conflicts and tension in the country’s fight against the killer virus while all the time hitting the hapless commoners at the final receiving end. And, some other outbursts from the world over are also helping this overall trend in this country. As we mentioned in our last piece sections of the media created tremendous conflict between the concerned governments and the medical fraternity with their ‘investigative’ reports, and the very next day ‘they’ expressed deep concern at the growing conflict to experts called to their studios. Great gaming!  

Today, the first most unique googly came from the harassed Dy. Chief Minister of Delhi who, totally ignoring the world-wide behavior of the virus and the expert opinions expressed all the time, made ‘projections’ that by the end of June, 2020 Delhi might be having about 100000 COVID cases which might grow to more than half a million cases by the end of July, 2020. In Delhi alone! We don’t understand why he stopped at July-end only! He should have predicted the figures for the full financial year at least, and the final projected figure could have stunned even the die-hard skeptics. The roots of such projections are obviously political: Delhi Chief Minister wanted the government and private hospitals of Delhi kept reserved for Delhi residents only to overcome the shortage of beds which was overturned by the Lt. Governor of Delhi. Therefore, the next-in-command, with the CM being in self-isolation unfortunately, painted an ominous picture of Delhi with the specter of at least 80000 beds by the end of July.

Meanwhile the ruling political party launched its much-desired electioneering campaign with virtual rallies last Sunday, planned to go on all over the country.  Today in the virtual rally for the state of West Bengal the leader vouched strongly for ‘change’ in the state. One would have been so happy and delighted had this ‘change’ been for the change from ‘COVID-infested’ to ‘COVID-free’ with full cooperation from the party to the state government! But alas! No! This is India, you know! Therefore, obviously, this change meant a change in the voting pattern of the state only so that the party gets a chance to make the state ‘corruption-free’ and ‘violence-free’. To hell with COVID spread or not! In fact, an uncontrollable COVID crisis in the state would only further justify this ‘change’.

About two months back the sanity of Donald Trump was in grave doubt thanks to his unpredictable words and deeds while the sanity of the W.H.O was thought to be beyond doubt. Now, unfortunately, sanity of both the parties is at serious stake. The former continues to freak out as usual; but the latter’s actions or words could harm the public infinitely. Last night Dr. Tedros, Director General of W.H.O., made a peculiar comment as if he were the most ignorant layman of the world! He said COVID situation is only ‘worsening’ world-wide, and he based his comments on the present spikes in cases going on in several countries including India. I thought only the W.H.O. understood the behavior of the virus the world over, its spread and peak levels, the final control over its spread achieved even in the worst hit countries and so on. Let us forget whatever he said on several occasions earlier. Unfortunately, such googlies, as we mentioned at the beginning, affect and harm the tense commoners the most…

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