Bodies are floating in the Yamuna River in Uttar Pradesh leads to the question of whether death rates were downplayed. Despite the lack of testing, it seems fairly apparent that COVID-19 is raging insanely through the towns and villages of rural India. Corona has savaged the ruins of a failing medical system leaving India almost helpless.
Corona is viciously sweeping through rural Bengal, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa, in greater intensities, and perhaps more states.
Rural India generally avoids the healthcare system and usually visit a hospital in the twelvth hour, afraid of hospitals because they are petrified that their organs would be removed if admitted to hospital and bodies are never given to relatives, they don’t want to test because are terrified of quarantines and afraid of vaccines feeling it will kill them.
Most Indians nurtured pride that COVID would not visit rural India surmising the rural Indians were stronger and resistant to the virus.
India had one year to prepare for the second wave, which was never done due to presumptuous attitudes that rural India would not get it because only urban India was COVID’s target, thus there was very little testing. Perhaps COVID related deaths were not even identified and passed off as heart disease and other illnesses.
Uttar Pradesh started experiencing a surge in the first week of April with a rise of cases exploding beginning the second week. On April 8, the state reported 8,490 new cases, crossing the previous peak of 7,016 cases registered in September 2020. However, half of these 8,490 confirmed cases were limited to the four districts of Lucknow, Prayagraj, Kanpur and Varanasi.
But things have grown worse from there. On April 25, the state reported nearly 38,000 cases. As of April 27 morning, the state has over 300,00 active cases. Experts say the true numbers are likely to be much higher given the state’s slow testing.
It is becoming evident that COVID s no longer restricted to urban centres. People are, “dropping dead like flies,” said Imran Ahmed, a local activist from Ballia’s Sikanderpur who has been helping people get access to oxygen with a lot of struggles. He said, “All their family members have the same story to share: they develop a fever and then all of a sudden they are gasping for breath, but there is no oxygen anywhere.”
A doctor at the Sikanderpur community health center said, “Our daily patient load is 200-250 patients per day and 90% of the cases come with problems of cough, fever, and breathlessness,” he said. “The more severe cases who need oxygen, there is eight-ten every day, we refer to the district hospital.”
It was tragic that rural India was blissfully unaware that the evil grasping hands of COVID were going to strike. The virus stalks everyone and spares no one. It is evident that rural India did not follow the distancing, masking, isolation protocols, with complacency in rural India with poor investments in rural India, weak medical infrastructure, fewer doctors all eventually leading to the catastrophic COVID bomb exploding in rural India. This tragedy could have been averted with better planning and prevention strategies. Unfortunately, even massive gatherings and crowds in rural India strengthened the virus and allowed it to mutate to new variants.
Vaccinations and isolation are the two weapons to fight Corona, but right now, only 2% of the population is vaccinated, and crowding rather than isolation is practiced in India presently…not even now with lockdowns is it being practiced. The Central Vista building process is on, only again defying all rules of isolation.