Whatever the prophets of doom say - of course - need not be correct.
One prominent activist, Daniel Drucker, a renowned Canadian endocrinologist, took to Twitter in 2020 and flayed The Lancet and its editor, Richard Horton, calling them 'obsessed leopard' for directing the tirade against Israel.
Lancet says casualties due to Covid in India could touch 10 million mark by August. However, in 2020, the publication had landed in a row and had to retract a study that raised safety fears over the use of a drug favoured by President Donald Trump to treat COVID-19.
The study paper's authors said they could no longer vouch for its underlying data.
It was soon followed by the withdrawal of another coronavirus paper in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that was not linked to hydroxychloroquine but relied upon the same healthcare company's patient database.
Why Dr Swamy bats for Nitin Gadkari, a strong RSS loyalist, and blames "PMO psychos" for Covid disaster
New Delhi: Things are taking gory turns for India on multiple fronts. Even those who sympathize with Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, he is all at sea.
A BJP lawmaker Subramanian Swamy says, excessive dependence of "PMO psychos" is not helping the situation.
"We need a serious Crisis Management Team now instead of PMO psychos to monitor and strategize the response," tweeted Swamy, a former federal Minister and a person known for calling spade a spade.
Dr Swamy also warned the third wave of Covid would target children, and said Modi should direct Nitin Gadkari, a former BJP president and man trusted by RSS leadership to head the new Crisis Team.
Whether the RSS leadership is backing Dr Swamy's suggestion is not clear yet. The ongoing second wave crisis has brought in health disaster with millions dying, there is political and administrative chaos as most hospitals have almost collapsed and there is also impending economic disaster on hand.
There are signs that India's outbreak has spread to Indonesia. The Covid is spreading in Nepal also as the tiny Himalayan nation recorded a 137 per cent increase in cases to 31,088 last week.
There is already a formal warning about the third wave now.
However, many say the country of 1.4 billion with sizable Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are yet to unite and show the much needed unity of purpose with political bickering and communal tensions still persisting.
Uddhav Thackeray, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, which is leading the tally with 4,822,902 cases as on May 5, said, "We are already preparing for the third wave. Several districts are seeing a decline in Covid cases but there is increase in some districts".
"Phase three is inevitable given the higher levels of circulating virus, but it is not clear on what time-scale this phase three will occur. We should be prepared for new waves,” K Vijay Raghavan, the principal scientific advisor to Government of India, told a press conference.
So much is helplessness and frustration over the health system and the civil-politico administration and private health services, top industrialist Uday Kotak, who heads the Confederation of Indian Industry, has urged the government to deploy the military to help care for patients.
Amid all these, the country has still not come out in a unity of purpose. While politicians and political parties are busy scoring points against each other, the post-poll violence claiming at least 15 lives in West Bengal shows somewhere down the line the gravity of the crisis has still not dawned.
The farmers in north Indian states are still protesting in huge gathering in public place and on May 5 announced that from May 10 - despite Lockdown, a large number of protesting farmers would be marching into India's capital from May 10. "We are not spreading the virus. It spread because of government's failure to provide oxygen and minimum services in hospitals. Why blame us. We would ensure that the momentum of agitation at the protests site on Delhi borders doesn’t drop for the want of number of protesters,” one prominent farmers' leader Sarvan Singh said.
On the overall situation, a BJP leader in Madhya Pradesh, Pankaj Chaturvedi says, "The country should unite at the earliest. The unity of purpose is one of the defining issues today. We need it at all levels like never before. We cannot wait until the crisis forces us to do something very drastic".
The country's central ban, Reserve Bank of India on May 5 announced a number of economic measures to tackle the second wave of Covid pandemic. RBI Governor Shaktikant Das announced a term Liquidity facility of Rs 50,000 crore (dollars ??) to ease access to emergency health services.
The central bank's intervention came at a time when most parts of India are either in Lockdown or maintaining restrictions of public movements like curfew or nigh lockdown. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is immensely under pressure to announce national lockdown.
It is not for the first time, such steps have been announced. The Government of India in March 2020 had announced a number of economic relief measures for the poor for worth totaling over Rs 170,000 crore (US$24 billion).
It also gave away extra funds for healthcare and for the states, to sector related incentives and tax deadline extensions. But nothing much changed on ground.
"For all practical purposes, Prime Minister is all at sea. A full lockdown would lead to further economic disaster. Otherwise, there is health disaster. But in the absence of any action, the number of Covid cases and fatalities are increasing.
So he has to reconcile with both the disasters," says Tushar Bhadra, an analyst in Varanasi in UP. The northern state of Uttar Pradesh is one of the gravely-hit states - with 1,342,413 cases. India has already reported a 20 per cent increase in cases in a week and 23,231 deaths. There have been 2.6 million new cases and the WHO has cautioned that India has accounted for 46 per cent of the new Covid at the global stage last week and one in four of deaths.
A disastrous election performance in the eastern state of West Bengal has added to Prime Minister's political challenges too and ignoring his appeal for considering Lockdown as 'last option', even many BJP states and city administrations have already announced Lockdowns.
The country's capital Delhi has also experienced Lockdown. Yet there is no halt in the spree of cases.
There were 3,82,315 new cases and India also reported a record 3,780 fresh Covid fatalities in the last 24 hours between May 4 and 5. The six most affected states by total cases are Maharashtra (4,822,902), Kerala (1,664,789), Karnataka (1,690,934), Uttar Pradesh (1,342,413), Tamil Nadu (1,228,064), and Delhi (1,194,552).
Blaming the federal government, Congress lawmaker Rahul Gandhi says, "A crime has been committed against India". "I just want to make it clear that a lockdown is now the only option because of a complete lack of strategy by the government. They allowed, rather, they actively helped the virus reach this stage where there’s no other way to stop it," he said in obvious reference to recent elections where crowded rallies were addressed by the Prime Minister himself.
And, also the centre gave its nod for a massive Kumbh festival of the Hindus. Yes, there is pressure on the Prime Minister for yet another lockdown, admits BJP leaders on the condition of anonymity. “The present COVID pandemic is a once-in-a-century crisis,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told The Associated Press.
External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar who flew to London to attend G-7 Foreign Ministers meeting told a Global Dialogue Series event, "This is not a defence of today's situation, I am saying this for over 75 years, India has under-invested in health".
Whatever the excuses the Ministers are citing, India is grappling with a grim situation; and authorities almost stand clueless.
The Indian rupee has turned into Asia's worst-performing currency this quarter Prime Minister Modi himself has certain issues. One is his style of functioning and decision making.
He is excessively depending on the PMO officials, says veteran BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.
Modi's mood swings are also weak spots. He does not have many friends among opposition leaders to build up a consensus. Rather he has enemies within his party.
Knives could be out any day. It is his personal popularity among the masses that is still working as a shield.
(ends)
India could see 10 lakh deaths due to Covid-19 by August 1
India could potentially see one million deaths - that is 10 lakh - due to the Covid-19 pandemic by 1 August.
The warning came from a prestigious publication 'The Lancet'. It is a well recognised medical journal owned by Elsevier since 1991, and its editor-in-chief since 1995 is Richard Horton. It also says, India could not keep the mometum of "early successes" in controlling Covid-19 in 2020.
The journal has editorial offices in London, New York, and Beijing.
India has till Saturday, May 8, recorded as many as 2,38,000 deaths due to Covid. And daily deaths is now hovering around 4,000.
“If that outcome (10 mn deaths) were to happen, Modi’s Government would be responsible for presiding over a self-inflicted national catastrophe. India squandered its early successes in controlling Covid-19,” the editorial in the journal said.
Of course, besides the virus-infected pandemic itself, the health infrastructures have only made things wore. There have been desperate pleas for oxygen beds, ventilators and basic medical resources including specific medicines.
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| Snap: AFP |
"...Until April, the government's COVID-19 task force had not met in months. The consequences of that decision are clear before us, and India must now restructure its response while the crisis rages," the Lancet editorial said.
The Lancet editorial quoted the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation which is an independent global health research organisation.
According to other IHME projections that have been linked in the Lancet editorial, the daily deaths in India in August will be close to 2,000, while the estimated daily infections will be around 5,23,000.
"[PM] Modi's actions in attempting to stifle criticism and open discussion during the crisis are inexcusable," it said.
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| Allowing Kumbh gave tool to anti-Hindu brigade |
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