Southern Notes: Oxygen surplus and enough beds in Kerala

One of the enduring mysteries of the COVID-19 management – or mismanagement --is how Kerala has tackled the crisis. From the very beginning, the coastal state reported the largest number of cases but managed to contain the situation through an adroit combination of timely measures and a wide-ranging campaign of testing, tracing and isolating, backed up by a public awareness not seen in other states. And, while the rest of India was celebrating the end of corona [prematurely], the state did not let down its guard. But at no stage was the state’s health infrastructure overwhelmed by the number of patients.

While many states are reeling under an oxygen shortage, Kerala is probably the only surplus state in the country, with a net availability of 246 metric tonnes supply {155 metric tonnes production capacity a day and storage of 90-plus against a demand of just 100 tonnes}. It is also helped by the fact that there are fewer patients on ventilator support than other states. Kerala has been the real outlier in this matter as in so many others.

***

Karnataka contrast

Contrast the above with the situation in Karnataka, and its high-flying ‘Silicon Valley of India.’ The capital city of Bengaluru reported an alarming rise in the number of new cases, next only to Delhi [the state reported nearly 35,000 cases, and Bengaluru close to 21,000 on a single day], prompting the government to go in for a 14-day lockdown from April 27. The city was already under several curbs, but the surge was so quick and sudden that Chief Minister Yeddiyurappa had to resort to that old standby – total lockdown.

The unfortunate thing about this is that as early as February, a health task force had predicted what was going to happen, but the government did not take it seriously.

***

Free treatment in Andhra hospitals

The situation in Andhra Pradesh is also on the verge of turning worse, with two districts – northern East Godavari and southern Chittoor [home to the Lord Venkateswara temple of Tirumala] emerging as hotspots. There are more than a million active cases in the state, and a night curfew is in place as in other states. The government treats Covid patients free in its own hospitals and has said that more than one lakh patients have been treated free in private hospitals taken over by the authorities, even if they are not covered under the Arogyasri health scheme.

***

Free vaccination for all

In the other Telugu-speaking state of Telangana, the government announced that the entire population, including migrants, would be vaccinated free [a promise made by Kerala and Andhra Pradesh too]. Unlike last year, when most of the cases came from the capital Hyderabad, the outbreak is spread evenly over all districts. And in an eye-catching message to mask up, three young artists have lit up the Shamshabad toll plaza on the way to the Hyderabad airport with a poster of eight-faces, all masked, looking drivers and passengers in the eye. Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words.

Plenty of action in TN

For those inclined to dismiss Arvind Kejriwal and Uddhav Thackeray’s vociferous complaints about a shortage of oxygen and vaccines as mere political posturing, here’s something that can’t be explained away so easily: outgoing Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy, whose AIADMK is an ally of the BJP, minced no words in telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he didn’t want oxygen from a plant in Sriperumbudur diverted to Telangana and other states, when covid cases were much higher in TN. In another development, an all-party meet agreed that the closed Sterlite copper plant of the Vedanta group could be allowed to manufacture oxygen in this crisis situation; there was much belligerent talk, including from the government, that the plant would not be reopened even in the face of a query from the Supreme Court. Presumably, better sense prevailed, and no one wanted to be accused of intransigent behaviour in an emergency.