Perplexity

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term "Perplexity" means inability to deal with or understand something or a state of being entangled. I suppose one of the finest examples of it, is the current Covid situation. It's grim in our society. A situation that is threatening the very basis of human existence or in general the foundation of the sustainability of any species that is, one's protection against the other. 

Well, the first name that comes to our mind on listening or reading, or watching about Covid is "China you are a b***h! Screw you!!". But seriously is, China here the bad guy? I will leave this question to you. Look out for the answer because the best thought is your thought. In my opinion, China can be blamed for the origin of the virus and lack of transparency while it was dealing with the virus personally, which was way before the virus got promoted to the status of Pandemic. The spread of the virus has led to catastrophic situations worldwide, and it's undeniably the biggest challenge that we as a society are facing currently. On the other hand, China did try to blame other nations for the lack of containment and control of the virus in their regions and tried to deny the fact that it was the first nation to witness the surge of this fatal virus. 

Enough of the blame game, because one thing we need to understand is that we are all in this together, and having a nationalist approach towards solving this problem would not result in such preferable or desirable situations.

India has witnessed a real major crisis due to the virus especially during the second wave. Before we move ahead we need to understand what led to this second wave and were we efficient enough with dealing with the very first wave itself? Well, India did manage the first wave pretty impressively and efficiently. The cases were rising at a steady rate but the existing system was strong enough to take that hit and it was furthermore strengthened by strict government policies, especially the Lockdown. Well, the country was able to quite stabilize the scenario during the July-October phase but yet we did not have such a stronghold on the situation. We were able to export vaccines and medical equipment to other countries in dire need of these supplies and also were able to alarm people regarding the virus but the main problem was the rate at which this all was occurring was pretty much slow and even though we did have time we were not able to prepare ourselves for the second wave and I suppose that the government was not even thinking about it. We did not upgrade our medical facilities, 150 oxygen plants were sanctioned by the government but only 5 of them were truly developed and the fun fact is that it took us over 4 months just to sanction these oxygen plants. When it comes to the allocation of oxygen throughout the country it's the Central Government who has to step in and it did, but the steps were not at all up to the mark. The state governments have not much to do with the generation of oxygen but their main job is to see that hospitals do not run out of oxygen. So as we hear on the news that the chief ministers of various states demand changes in vaccine allocations or oxygen allocations it is the central government who has to make the decisions, well the judiciary is always there to uplift the demands of the states to the center but it is the major task here is more of an advisor and less of an authoritarian. It's not just the political policies to blame or the actions of our ministers, somewhere in all of this we are a bit to blame too because I don't know whether we have flattened the covid curve but one curve for sure has flattened and that is of our responsible and careful nature towards the pandemic. 

The country is mainly facing three problems which are lack of oxygen, lack of hospital beds, and lack of medicines and drugs to deal with the situation. Well, a fourth one might emerge soon and that is a lack of medical and non-medical workforce to deal with the situation. I am not saying that the ones currently working would die (God forbid) but the workforce might be outnumbered by the cases as what we are witnessing is an exponential growth of covid infections, so the control and containment of this virus would become next to impossible in the nation. Another pathetic issue that has come up is the black marketing of medicines, oxygen cylinders, and hospital beds. This is not just pathetic but portrays the materialism of the thoughts of people that they are even ready to make money out of people's deaths. A few more problems like fudging numbers and delays in tests have caused this surge. In India, we all knew that the situation of covid is going to be very difficult to handle because it's a populated country and on top of it a densely populated one, with a major part of it struggling to meet their daily normal demands. Healthcare also is not so reachable to the needy and the vaccination drive was never provided a proper direction to work in. Doctors and nurses quit their jobs out of frustration and overwork. The medical facilities were exhausted and never really were given a chance to replenish by the government because ministers' focus was directed towards elections in 824 assembly segments across 4 states and one union territory.

Delhi is currently facing a crisis of oxygen cylinders. They did knock on the doors of the Central government and were also provided with solutions but the efficacy of these solutions is highly questionable. So to improve on the credibility of these solutions the Delhi government came with a solution which has impressed me a lot, which is they created a portal where the hospitals can shout out their oxygen demands and the transporters and producers of oxygen from various states can keep on updating the government with the data of their products and the time it would take for the oxygen to reach Delhi. This is a solution which was implied on real short notice and now, fortunately, the people of Delhi are able to get some air. A system like this can be centralized all over the nation but the problem is we are really short of time and implementation of such a big step would take up some real-time. Well, the Delhi model would have really solved many problems if it were thought of by the government during the July-October phase. Well, what's done can't be undone.

Even in many foreign countries, the virus has had a major impact. Countries like the United States were in terrible condition during the first wave but they have improved a lot. In the United Kingdom the situation depreavated and the country had to face its worst days during December. In many other European countries, there were rules and regulations which led to the scenario of a semi lockdown in their regions, Spain which was the epicenter during the initial phase has slowly started to open up. Israelis were really successful in vaccinating most of their elderly citizens within a short span of 3 months. Australia and New Zealand were able to open inter-Tasmanian sea travel and the people were able to travel freely across both countries. African nations are still struggling with the development of proper healthcare facilities to deal with Covid. But, the world is still in a very miserable situation and in dire need of global cooperation because Covid for sure has portrayed the weaknesses or the holes in the wall of Global Platforms and Policies. 

Something interesting to note about several western countries like the UK, USA, Israel, or even China for that matter of fact is their attentive approach while handling the situation and that is an early investment in the development of the vaccine. They invested lakhs of dollars for the production of these vaccines and were able to vaccinate people and ease the situation a bit. Indians in the meantime were banging plates, media was much more concerned about Bollywood celebrities smoking weed and Sushant Singh Rajput's death and we were expecting some sought of a miracle to cure the situation. The government thought it would be better to lose crores of money in Lockdowns but did not bother to invest a few lakhs in the development of vaccines and we did not go out for the vaccine chase.

In fact, in December 2020, Pfizer came to India to get their vaccine approved, even as most of the developed countries had approved and started using it yet we gave them a long list of clinical tests to do and frustrated them so much that they finally left in February 2020.

Fortunately, with pure dumb luck, the Serum Institute of India partnered with Oxford-AstraZeneca to manufacture a billion doses for them of which a portion (10%) for India. So the ones who were lucky enough to be vaccinated early owe it completely to SII's modest bet. This was not India's vaccination plan and yet we pressurized SII so much to lower their prices the owner had to fly to London for his safety.

The safest and the most effective manner in which India can deal with the current situation is a vaccination drive that is well planned and has secure sources of vaccines. Bharat Biotech's vaccine Covaxin is truly effective but the supplies are short. There are foreign vaccines out there too and denying them just because of a nationalist approach is like denying a caterer for a grand wedding because your mother can make 10 Rotis. Well, we need to really pull our socks and bring in some caterers, because we have a lot of guests to attend to, or else there could be a fiasco at the wedding.

We as a country have a lot of work to do in these upcoming months to save ourselves from the third wave. One of the most ambitious projects would be vaccinating the adult population of the country, which means 40% of Indian citizens are vaccinated with both doses. Lockdown might seem like an option to stabilize the situation and bring several cases down but that would really have devastating effects on not just the economy but also on the people too because India is a dynamic country, we are not settled, numerous changes are happening every second and putting a full stop on it would be like stopping the flow of a river. Consequently, there would simply be just two possible outcomes one the river finds another track, or the second that is, it gets flooded. The only antidote currently to yet another surge of Covid in India is a combination of masking, social distancing, ramped-up health infrastructure, and a massive vaccination outreach.

As far as my knowledge goes in terms of biology, considering Covid as a good candidate for eradication is not such a good idea because it came to us from animal vectors and also unlike smallpox (the only disease that has been wiped out from this planet via vaccination drives) covid is asymptomatic and highly contagious, in the case of smallpox the only way it could spread was from human touch and the symptoms were easily visible but in the case of Covid we are fighting an enemy which cant be spotted that easily. So the best option might be containment and control of the virus, it is a highly effective approach but truly demands a strong healthcare infrastructure. For time being our best options are vaccination, wearing masks, maintaining hygiene, social distancing, and also being aware of the fact that we are the only ones responsible for our actions.

Covid is far from the deadliest disease that mother nature has to show to us. Well, the past year has shown us how well are we prepared and how strong our global policies and healthcare systems are, but the biggest plus point is that we are far more ahead in terms of science, knowledge, and technology than we have ever been in the history of mankind. We are well connected and vaccines can be discovered well in time and the manufacture, as well as distribution, might not be such a humongous task as it was earlier. So let us not forget that happiness and hope can be found even in these darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light. 

 We are in this together-and we will get through this, together.