India Can’t Breathe
Covid-19 Crisis – News from around the globe
“I can’t breathe!’ These words are etched into our collective memories from last year when an innocent man was handcuffed and thrown on the ground in America and a knee clamped down on his neck for a total of 9 minutes 29 seconds. Horrified, in slow-motion, we watched his life ebb out on television, until his breath was stilled.This year we are witness to a catastrophic nightmare in India, multiplied many, many times over. Covid-19, in a virulent second wave, has invaded the country and has its powerful knee on the collective neck of India. Millions of people can’t breathe and due to a massive failure of the administration, the country has been caught completely unaware. Innocent people, going about their lives, have been caught in a quagmire of poor planning and shortages. There is a lack of oxygen, medicines, equipment, hospital beds – and people are left to fend for themselves.
The living can’t keep up with the dead, as they rush about city streets, trying to procure oxygen for their loved ones, fight for a hospital bed and then stand in long queues even to bury their dead. Hundreds of crematory fires burn, not only in crematoriums but even in car parks, as Indians struggle to give a dignified farewell to their dead. There are unspeakable images of dead bodies queued up even to leave the world.
India is a nation of close families and intergenerational caring with traditions of welcoming a new life into the world – and of sacred, beautiful traditions of goodbyes. Here the whole process has been short-circuited with people dying unnecessarily before their time, dying on the streets, in rickshaws and with hapless sons and daughters begging for a hospital bed or a cylinder of oxygen. This brings tears to one’s eyes, to think that human beings have to die without dignity, without loved ones by their side. Covid-19 is a cruel disease but the negligence of those in power is even more shocking and crass.
Sitting far away on another continent which has been through its own Coronavirus nightmare, we can only pray for the loved ones lost, and day and night compulsively watch the news unfold on television and in the media. We are supporting many Indian-American organizations which are sending funds to India as well as organizing oxygen, medicines and vaccines with core partners in India. (A list is at the end of this article. Please do contribute your share)Here are some heart-rending reports from international media
The New York Times
NEW DELHI — India’s coronavirus second wave is rapidly sliding into a devastating crisis, with hospitals unbearably full, oxygen supplies running low, desperate people dying in line waiting to see doctors — and mounting evidence that the actual death toll is far higher than officially reported.
Each day, the government reports more than 300,000 new infections, a world record, and India is now seeing more new infections than any other country by far, almost half of all new cases in a global surge.
“A young woman sat weeping into the elbow of her protective suit,” writes @Amannama from New Delhi. “‘My parents are waiting outside,’ she told me, pointing to one wooden structure among the others. ‘It’s my husband. My husband. That’s my husband.'” https://t.co/UFbMofcJDQ
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) April 30, 2021
Ajay Koli set off on a desperate 48-hour hunt for oxygen and medical care in New Delhi after his parents fell gravely ill with Covid-19. He shared his story as the pandemic spirals out of control in India. https://t.co/A1OrkyirfW
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 30, 2021
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An on the ground video from Al Jazeera on India’s Covid Crisis
How to Help India Amid the Covid Crisis – The New York Times
