To save lives and livelihoods, it is must to give up our aversion to masks
One of my close friends called up a few days back to discuss renovation of his office. This renovation is tailored more towards making the small office COVID-prepared, from creating separate working spaces for individuals to having provision for different AC vents for as many as possible, and preferably a bunch of private washrooms. This set up is to be used for not more than 10 people using a fairly large open space called office. He thinks the virus and its mutations won’t go away for the next couple of years. There is greater anxiety in his communication, the deep-seated fear of having experienced death of loved ones in a fortnight which was frothing up. Overall, there is aloss of that ‘bounce back sentiment,’ which was almost infectious during the first wave and its aftermath in India. India’s central bank has termed “demand shock” being one of the critical factors to guide Indian economy. Citizens of most metros, and those belonging to the affluent class (even though they form a miniscule percentage out of the total) have been devastated by a what seemed like a bomb that exploded in their neighborhood. This will have long term impacts.
The central government this time around carefully stayed away from a nationwide lockdown learning from its experience last year (India had in 2020 imposed one of the strictest and lengthiest nationwide lockdown). It instead widely publicized need for local/micro containmentand strict adherence to Covid appropriate behavior. This translated to State governments (with their political polarities) deciding on the levels of lockdown and effective management of second wave. The result (and we are yet to get over the second wave) is many a times mis-managed, out of synch and mostly a judiciary supervised handling of the pandemic. The time may not be right to criticize any particular individual or political interest for the entire mismanagement, however, emerging facts point out that a state government which worked like a team with the central government, and had a sound bunch of experts including corporate captains and healthcare personal bin the backroom advisory panel, did control the pandemic quicker and safer. The second aspect that met with huge failure was in following COVID-appropriate protocols where we, as a nation, failed. Experts,scientists,epidemiologists, doctors had all,for a year, been talking about the appropriate maskusage being the first vaccine against the yet to be understood virus. Their reason was simple that a mask worn properly exposes the wearer to a very tiny fraction of the virus in contaminatedenvironment, which the human body has a capacity to develop an immunity to (this is yet to be ascertained scientifically) and hence, a critical safety deterrent against infection and possible death. However, despite repeated warnings, since February, 2021, almost 50 per cent of the population had forgotten thata virus was still spewing across the globe. Festivals, political gatherings, in home get togethers, outbound travels, shopping in neighborhoods or malls, there was visible alerts of impending fatalities due to the “no mask” carelessness. This aversion to masks dealt a heavy blow and even now the nearly 98 per cent vulnerable population (as stated by health ministry) needs to be masked up before they get a vaccine.
The overall sentiment and questions on lives and livelihoods will continue to rage, and it may be some time before India recovers from the second wave. We hope the democratic governments and policy makers at central state or local administration level don’t succumb to the lures of populist measures and think long term for the nation.
The writer is a policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.