India’s suffering is both visible and alarming. What corona has done to India is show that military might and space enterprises etc are not enough when it comes to a health sector crisis. Even the fact that the world does need India for a number of reasons and have helped, the help received is not enough. Brittan has flown in an entire oxygen production plant by air and that should ease some of the suffering but it isn’t enough once more. It will also be ntoo late for many. Despite everything else, India’s prestige has been damaged and for a country that cares much about that, the experience must be painful.
It must be painful because India brands itself as the world largest producer of vaccines. A thread of India’s argument says that the world can’t afford to give up India because that will end any hope of beating the virus through vaccines. It’s considered that it’s one of the two options and the other is herd immunity. Vaccine has a chance but herd immunity is next to impossible to achieve. And even if it happens the harm price will be way high. We hope that India will be able to cope with a very grave situation, perhaps unprecedented in its and most histories.
The problem is not limited to India as the Indian variant which is highly infectious has already been detected in Bangladesh as per media reports based on health authorities and experts. That being the case, it’s a matter of time only before we reach an India like situation.
Bangladesh coped with the first surge virus because for reasons not yet full known it didn’t impact much on South Asians and people were let go relatively easy without any serious casualty. But the second wave, already here and its far more virulent. But have awe achieved much in terms of care, caution and prevention is the point.
During the first phase we learnt that the hospital capacity is very limited and if the scale of the second surge is higher-almost inevitably going to be so-then we are looking at a major disaster. It’s not just that the care facility is limited but the supervisory and regulatory performance is also poor. We need to know if any lessons have been learnt and what actions have been taken to prevent a repeat.
Equipment and technical skills were both in short supply and nothing is known about what the action plans are. Even India was caught unprepared in corpse disposal and we also face huge obstacles.
The second surge is almost here and GOB statistics shows that the infected and the dead are all down but that is also hope. But there are reasons to be cautious about death rates which will produce many more in the second surge.
Thus, this is the time to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Bangladesh is not a strategically important country so if the world ignores us, we should not be shocked. It’s all about getting ready. So, do we have the plans? Or do we have whatever is necessary to ensure adequate success?
