India’s Corona virus update!
It is not a feat to be proud of but unfortunately, India has now surpassed Brazil and reached to the second spot in terms of Covid-19 infections in the world, second only to USA. Bearing the brunt of a new wave fanned by the crowded election rallies, religious festivals, and the dismissive attitude of average Indian people.
What did not happen even during the worst phase of the first wave of Covid-19 in 2020, has happened this time as India reported a new record in daily corona virus infections logging over 168 thousand cases. At 13.5 million cases of Covid-19 infections so far, India has crossed Brazil’s 13.4 million tally and only remains behind America’s 31.2 million infected cases so far. Currently, the total number of deaths because of Covid-19 has crossed 170 thousand and active cases hit a new high of 1.2 million. As we know the vaccination has already been going in full swing in India and DGCI has approved one more Covid vaccine, the Russian vaccine Sputnik-V, for emergency uses in the middle of record spike in the virus cases in the country. If the approval is cleared it will be third vaccine to be used in India after Serum Institute’s Covishield-developed by Oxford-Astra Zeneca and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
The new Corona wave has its own fallout and thousands of migrant workers, fearing a possible lockdown have started returning to their native places adding fuel to fire. The callous and ignorant approach like this is one of main reasons of sudden spike in numbers and 1.35 billion people in a densely populated country are recipe for a disaster. This current outbreak of virus is the reason, of getting many outbound Indians travelling overseas, carrying the virus with them, and creating chaos in countries they are heading to like in New Zealand. So, when last week, New Zealand government put a temporary ban of two weeks on the flights from India, some people cried foul and called it an act of racism.
While no one can deny that racism exists in every society and in every country, including in New Zealand. But taking precautionary measures to protect its country’s borders cannot and should not be termed as racism. This is a right of any sovereign country to safeguard and protect its citizens also a prerogative of a government to which country they consider a threat for them, in term of spreading infection. It should not be politicised or given a colour of favouritism to one country over other, at all. This will be deemed as expecting too much from the government. Instances of some immigrant’s suddenly wanting their families joining them after a gap of eight years, in the middle of peak of Corona crises are prime examples this. We all need to abide by laws and the rules of the country we chose to live in and should not just keep complaining about everything. There must be a valid reason to complain about the government since it is us who have chosen that government whether here in New Zealand or in India.
We should not forget that Corona pandemic is the biggest crisis in the world after World War-2 that has wreaked havoc and has put the whole world to a halt. So, when the entire world is passing through some unprecedented times, economies world over have collapsed and people are losing their lives to the killer virus, some people need to understand the plight of others. We need to have some empathy for those who are at the receiving end and facing problems more than us. I have written it a few times earlier as well that we, in New Zealand are among those lucky few, who are still living a normal life as compared to rest of the world. So, we should be rather grateful for our circumstances and be happy, instead of complaining.
-Yugal Parashar