Funeral Pyres in Delhi 
Funeral Pyres in Delhi 
Senior Citizens crowding at a vaccine center in Bombay 
Patients sharing a bed
Fuck. There I had to stay it, what India has been going through over the past 1 month is nothing short of biblical proportions. If you live in India you know the truth, if you live outside India then what is being shown on TV is absolutely accurate and scary.
I am very fortunate that my immediate family is safe but it seems like death and misery is everywhere around us. ALL of my WhatsApp groups are asking for 4 things: beds, oxygen, Remdesivir and Tocilizumab.
What we are currently experiencing is what everyone expected to happen to India a year ago when Covid-19 first showed up. In fact, my parents spend half their time in India and the rest in the US. In July 2020, we wanted them to leave India and go back to the US because we were afraid of the current scenario. I wrote a blog post about a year ago talking about the need for open source medical infrastructure but thankfully everything was okay. Most people just chalked it up to either our great immunity system or Ram Bharose, meaning it’s Gods will that everything will be okay.
Today, the story is very different and it’s clear the medical infrastructure has failed and the government has failed. There is blame at every level, me included. I was one of those jackasses that went to some wedding reception with 100+ people in a hall…stupid of course. Luckily, nothing happened.
The last 10 days have been horrific and I don’t think we are near the peak for the country, that is still probably 2 weeks away which means more agony and pain for everyone.
Even more disheartening is the governments’ stance that anyone talking negatively about their handling of the situation should be silenced. MediaNama has a story about some of the tweets that were requested to be taken down. At this point, the government needs to fully focused on the pandemic at hand and provide solutions to the problems. Haters are gonna hate.
The other tragedy at hand is the vaccine rollout. India is the single largest volume producer of vaccines and yet we have a shortage. I’m scheduled to take my 2nd shot any day now but it looks like I’m weeks or even months away from getting it. For all the talk about Indians being great at math, someone clearly fucked up the calculations on what was required and now we have a shortage.
Once we are through this pandemic I truly hope the Indian government puts together a nationwide plan to improve the healthcare infrastructure of this country. I know people want to blame the current government but you don’t get a pathetic healthcare system overnight, it takes decades of neglect. Think of all the doctors that left India in the 1960s and 1970s. Did they leave because the Indian healthcare system was so amazing they wanted to help other countries like the US? I’m guessing no, they left because they could see the writing on the wall.
If you want to help India and have some spare cryptocurrency, please think of donating to the cause.
celestri - virtual home of manish jain 