With over 1.29 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, India is now standing as the world’s third-worst-hit country. Major cities such as Mumbai and Delhi are especially damaged, with hospitals barely being able to keep up with the huge quantity of critical patients getting admitted each day.
Keep in mind that the surge in the number of cases comes after a two-month nation-wide lockdown, that severely rattled the country’s economy and livelihood. Some researchers even say the Indian government failed to take action to preserve the country’s struggling healthcare infrastructure and ‘just sat there and waited for the storm to pass’.
Even as India struggles, the true extent of the epidemic still might not be apparent. The nation seems to have an ‘incomplete death-registration system’. What that means is, not all deaths are being recorded and the documentation will often be incorrect.
Now, this brings into question India’s COVID-19 mortality rate. Which officially, is less than 21 deaths per million.— among the lowest in the world. With relation, Spain has witnessed 610 deaths per million and the United States less than 340.
The government’s initial response was a lockdown, but as mentioned earlier was ineffective. It wasn’t the right response. It brought anguish to countless numbers of people. India still hasn’t been able to restore society, people were distraught, furious, and even lost hope. It was unfortunate. If the preparation for the lockdown was improved, the country would have still suffered losses, but it couldn’t be greater than what it’s facing today.
The excuse the Indian government gave for the lockdown was to gain time. But what they achieved isn't comparable to the damage the lockdown induced. With their economy taking a large hit, unemployment, hunger, an unprecedented migrant worker crisis, and widespread loss of access to healthcare.
Now, the Indian government is regulating the amount of social contact between people and making sure masks are being worn, but are still ‘analyzing’ the virus and how to ‘tackle’ it.
COVID-19 has been traumatizing citizens, and unfortunately, the government still hasn’t taken a major step towards recovering from their ‘failure’ of a lockdown, as many people consider it.
Hopefully, soon, India’s government will take a promising stride for their country in its fight against COVID-19.
Hi Anisha - Great info graphs and appreciate your opinion. Definitely agree with you on adverse effects Indian government’s handling of coronavirus and the implementation of lockdowns. Would be great to see you write a follow-up article and what you think could have been the solution and what should be the solution going forward. Looking forward to more from you. Thanks for starting a dialogue on such an important topic.