More than thirteen months ago India was placed under country-wide strict lockdown to halt the lethal Coronavirus’s spread. I still recall when Prime Ministry Narender Modi was addressing the nation on 16th of March 2020 and while addressing he said, in the coming 21 days India will be virus-free. Now after more than thirteen months India’s health system is completely collapsing. All the hospitals in major cities are completely overwhelmed with a shortage of everything, shortage of hospital beds, antiviral drugs, lifesaving oxygen supplies, ventilators, and so on. Every hospital is running out of oxygen supply, and tempers are running high among the masses as the virus causes more deaths. Some hospitals allegedly shut their doors to keep patients out. There is chaos everywhere and the situation is very grim and out of control.
Now dead bodies are being hastily loaded into transport vehicles wrapped in polythene. I am not hesitating in saying our politicians are playing games with our lives since 13 and a half months ago. In every 24 hours in India, there is a record number of positive cases. In the last week, every day recorded more than three-hundred thousand coronavirus positive cases and will cross four hundred thousand daily cases in a couple of days. The Indian government has not taken this pandemic as seriously as it should have, particularly when the second wave of this pandemic knocked India’s health system by early March 2021.
There is a hue and cry all over the country as people are dying on roads, having to wait for hours for the last rites of their loved ones. Crematoriums in many states are overwhelmed with dead bodies. Everyone is begging for everyone’s help. Health workers are calling it a tsunami not a wave as it has shaken the country’s entire health care system. Experts say the peak of this second wave is yet to come and India’s health care system has already collapsed. If the situation remains as it is nobody knows who will survive and who will die. People believe that the government is completely failing to protect their lives. For the last seven consecutive days, Delhi hospitals are sending SOS calls for oxygen supplies.
On Monday India recorded a new daily high of 352,991 positive cases and more than 2,810 deaths, which is the worst toll since the start of this pandemic. India’s health care system is in deep trouble as it battles with this coronavirus pandemic which has infected more than 17 million of population and claimed more than one-hundred and ninety-two thousand lives.
Every one questions where was the exact loophole. Both the central government as well as the state governments are responsible for this disaster. There are still many unanswered questions, such as why the country’s entire population was not allowed to get vaccinated before the onset of the second wave of this pandemic, instead of exporting vaccines to the rest of the world. Why India’s export of oxygen supplies has increased by 700% in the first couple of months of the year 2021? Now India’s demand for lifesaving oxygen supplies has increased by 23% in the last three days which is a big worry for the government as well as for its people. Although India has started now importing lifesaving oxygen supplies from rest of the world, it’s getting too late now because hundreds of patients are dying daily due to lack of oxygen supply. Why the government had not thought about it before? Even after the onset of the second wave of this pandemic why the government has allowed mass gathering of religious devotees in the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, where lakhs of Hindus were performing their religious duties. Why the crowded campaigns for the five state polls that continued in the middle of raging virus cases. Why the tourist places were opened amid the onset of this second wave of this pandemic. What the government has done even while being very well conscious about the second wave of coronavirus pandemic. Why did not they put an exigency plan in place before the onset of the second wave of this pandemic?
Now it is not the time to look behind but is the time to look forward with proper policies on how this pandemic can be brought under control. The havoc of this virus continues and there is no respite. The government should take help from other countries in terms of medical supplies as Germany, EU, US pledge help for India amid the deadly second wave. It’s the responsibility of every citizen to stay indoors, follow proper SOPs, not go outside for unnecessary things. The government should now take hard steps by imposing strict lockdown and curfew as it is the last resort and it must step up vigil and ramp up the ongoing vaccination drive. May Allah have mercy on humanity and get rid of this pandemic. May Allah protect us all from this pandemic.

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Tahir Nazir & Khair un Nissa Qureshi