Death, but not by Covid

The death of a much-loved movie star always sparks an outpouring of grief. But there was something overwhelming about the sense of loss at the passing of Irrfan Khan earlier this week. And no sooner had that news sunk in, another blow fell. The next day, Rishi Kapoor (67), who, like Khan (53), had been battling cancer, passed away. The death of two iconic actors in quick succession would have been a terrible tragedy at the best of times. But this is the worst of times. And, somehow, the two deaths seemed to add to the grim litany of deaths that is echoing around the world today; it seemed to sharpen the idea of death which looms over us now — keeping us indoors, fearful, exhausted, fighting claustrophobia and melancholia in equal measure because we are in the midst of a pandemic and we’ve been told that this is the only way to escape it.

But more was to come. On the same day that Rishi Kapoor passed away, football legend Chuni Goswami died of a heart attack in Kolkata. He was 82. How many more of our idols would we lose at this awful time, we wondered in despair.

The world is poorer for the loss of Khan, Kapoor and Goswami. However, all three men died of pre-existing conditions. We know and care about their passing because they were famous and beloved. But others are dying, too —  men and women whom we have never heard of, and their deaths have nothing to do with Covid-19. We don’t know how many Indians have died of causes other than the coronavirus in the last two months — that death count is not continuously flashed on our television screens — but it is definitely many more than the 1,147 deaths caused by Covid-19 (as on May 1). For context, let us remember that over nine million people die in India every year.

Other patients and relatives waiting to enter a hospital in Kolkata during the lockdown

 

This week, Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy said that extending the six-week lockdown further would eventually lead to many more deaths other than those due to Covid-19. This seems likely, because hundreds of thousands of people are being pushed into hunger and destitution after losing their livelihoods in the service of the lockdown. Government subsidies and free rations will surely reach many, but many others will slip through the cracks. Besides, those who are used to earning a living may be hard put to survive if forced into a life of bare subsistence and resultant debt traps.

The collateral damage of a protracted, draconian lockdown is playing out in other ways, too. I know an auto mechanic in North Delhi who was advised an immediate heart bypass surgery before the lockdown. He did his pre-operative tests, but after the lockdown kicked in, the government hospital told him to come back only after it is lifted. Reason: the hospital is now too Covid-focused to attend to him. So if the man has a cardiac event in the interim, he will probably die. How many others have been forced to pause their critical care?  

Or, take tuberculosis, a disease which kills about 1,200 Indians every day. A report in The Print said that there was a 78 per cent decline in the diagnosis of new cases in government-run healthcare centres in April 2020. It was down to 34,342 cases, compared to 156,000 cases in the same month the previous year. Evidently, patients are not turning up for diagnosis either because of the lockdown or because they are scared that they might be detected with Covid-19 (some of the symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis are similar to Covid). Hence, India’s TB deaths — 449,000 in 2018 — are likely to balloon further this year.  Incidentally, left untreated, tuberculosis will kill you — unlike Covid-19, where more than 90 per cent of the infected recover.

The rigorous lockdown needs to end since its economic and humanitarian costs now outweigh its benefits in delaying the spread of Covid-19. The fact is that the coronavirus, which has a fatality rate of about 3 per cent in India, will be with us for a long time. We have to learn to live with it — instead of opting to die in greater numbers owing to the double whammy of an economic catastrophe and unattended critical illnesses.

Shuma Raha is a journalist and author