Herald view: Gross mismanagement of COVID pandemic and a failed govt in denial

Barely two months ago in February the Government and the Bharatiya Janata Party declared victory over Covid. BJP adopted a resolution hailing Prime Minister Modi’s dynamic leadership as an example to the world. The Union Health Minister exulted that the endgame was close. Overconfidence was such that the Election Commission announced an expansive poll schedule; the Government gave the go ahead to the richest cricket tournament to go ahead on schedule.

The overconfident government permitted the once-in-12-years Kumbh Mela to be advance from 2022 to this year. Precious resources, manpower and energy were diverted to manage elections, the religious festival and cricket matches. The Government which had failed to arrange trains for migrant workers last year went ahead to arrange for 25 special trains to ferry the pilgrims.

While the Prime Minister continued to solemnly ask people to stay indoors, put on masks and maintain social distance, he himself and his ministers sent out mixed messages by claiming that India had overcome the pandemic and holding road shows in poll-bound states without masks. New facts are tumbling out daily over the past few weeks, which call the government’s bluff on good governance and its gross mismanagement of the pandemic. It encouraged irrational and unscientific cures with the health minister himself promoting Baba Ram Dev’s magic cure branded as Coronil.

The Government encouraged research on the efficacy of Gayatri Mantra and Yoga on Covid-19 patients while withholding funds for genome sequencing of samples. Despite being aware of the country’s vaccine manufacturing capacity pegged at seven Crore doses against the requirement of 180 Crore doses, it did nothing to secure vaccines from manufacturing companies abroad unlike other countries. License to manufacture vaccines were denied till this month to public sector companies with past experience.

While it boasted of having ramped up hospital beds, the second surge of Covid has exposed its complete unpreparedness with two to three Covid patients forced to share beds in Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital in Delhi. It had the time to set up oxygen plants in hospitals and increase the storage capacity but once again it was complacent and took its eyes off the ball.

The government, one suspects, has used emergency provisions to spend enormous sums of money on advertisement and communication. That is why its failure to disseminate credible information about the pandemic and the failure to contain panic are so glaring. While police in the national capital and in several states went berserk, beating the daylights of people found without a mask, the uniformed force turned their eyes from ruling party workers taking out rallies, organizing roadshows and seeking donations for the Ram temple without masks.

The WHO dropped Remdesivir last year from its approved list of medicines to cope with Covid. But the government created an artificial shortage of the medicine and allowed its hoarding and sale at exorbitant prices. It failed to communicate to the people that 99% of the Covid patients can get well at home. It failed to convey that only around one percent of Covid patients ran the risk of death.

It is a different matter that it botched up the treatment of even these one percent of the cases, just as it botched up the vaccine rollout. Even more amusingly, a government which calls for ‘one country-one tax-one election’ and so on has now allowed private vaccine manufacturers to charge multiple prices from different users. An all-party meeting and a short session of Parliament need to be convened urgently to lay the road map ahead.