Covidiots Threatening Another Wave Of COVID-19 In India?
It’s
really unfortunate that the governments and the authorities in India have been
forced to impose fines and penalties on the Covidiots for not wearing masks,
not following hand hygiene and social distancing, excluding the ones belonging
to the governments and the authorities themselves. Despite being exposed to the
antics of the COVID-19 virus, always described by experts as very clever and a fast-mutating
one, these people still seem not to understand the importance of keeping the pandemic
at bay, after suffering through periods of lockdown and restrictions that
impacted the citizens the most. A distinct flattening of the Indian COVID-19
curve during December ’20 and January ’21 is now being threatened by the
combined ‘idiocy’ of all the concerned.
Further
again, most of the Covidiots are also vaccine hesitant, they don’t even believe
in the necessity and the prevention-efficacy of the vaccines that have come to
us so fast thanks to the incredible work done by the medical scientists. And,
the ‘idiots’ in the political class have also been sitting idle, not doing
enough to squash the apprehensions and the vaccine-doubts in the minds of the people.
As a result perhaps, the overall rate of vaccination in the country has been
painfully slow.
That
India has taken nearly two months to add one more million to its total COVID
numbers, now crossing the 11-million mark, in contrast to the earlier one-month
period stands bleakly without any ‘headline’ importance due to the spikes in numbers
over the last few days, despite the persisting ‘chest-thumping’ indulged in by
the central authorities. With the forthcoming assembly elections in five states
things look to deteriorate further.
It
has been a curious case of the Indian pandemic fight that the infections at the
beginning during March-April 2020 occurred mostly in the states of Kerala and
Maharashtra kicking in a peculiar kind of competition between the two states:
one showing escalation of infections for some time exceeding the other state’s
numbers and then controlling it with success, numbers falling behind the other
state. This kind of ‘competition’ is going on even now. In the recent weeks the
total infections in Kerala have been escalating unabated while Maharashtra including
Mumbai has been witnessing consistent fall; and in the recent days Maharashtra
has taken over Kerala in terms of daily infection numbers. However, the almost uncontrollable
spread in these two states can be explained quite easily, both being highly
internationally-connected states with huge chunks migrant population across the
nations of the world and even within the country, and also the high rates of urbanization
and development in both states, apart from the large size of Maharashtra.
Faced
with the recent escalation of cases, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav
Thackeray, appealed to the citizens and also the political class to follow the
basic three norms, masks, hand hygiene and social distancing, and tossed it to
the public: will give you around a week to show restraint and fend off the
lockdown scare, you decide if you want to suffer from lockdown again or to
finally progress toward a much-awaited normalcy. He imposed lockdown in the most
affected district of Amaravati and restrictions like night curfew or partial
lockdown in other districts. The Chief Minister also declared a ban on large
political/social/religious gatherings and hefty penalties/raids on violations all
over the state. The Covidiots, particularly in the financial capital of Mumbai,
must learn from this showing willingness for the general sake and also to benefit
from mankind’s incredible discovery of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Therefore,
at the moment only a two-pronged strategy involving the Covidiots can check
another threatening wave of the pandemic: following the three norms strictly
and religiously, and coming for the vaccination in large numbers, assuming that
the central government takes it urgently to accelerate vaccination initiating a
public-private joint venture.
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