Halted lives, postponed futures

For all the continuous bombardment of daunting reports, images, medical hair-splitting, spiralling statistics and opinion — whether well- or ill-informed — the only certainty about the spread of Covid-19 is the uncertainties that surround it. 

Months after its emergence no one can conclusively say whether it is transmitted through air or by contact with humans or surfaces. Why do the virus and death toll spike sharply in some places and less so in others? Could it have to do with equatorial distance, heat, or humidity? In Nigeria, for example, where the incidence of infection and fatalities is low, many in cities are wandering without masks, convinced that hot damp weather will save them. “It is cold comfort,” reports a correspondent, “that this time around wealthy [Nigerians] cannot flee to London and Delhi for medical treatment, as they did during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.”

Specialists in communicable diseases such as Dr N Devadasan have argued, backed by comparative country-wise data, that one reason India has not seen a dramatic surge in cases is because Indians “have an innate immunity to the virus, thanks to unhygienic conditions”. Another is that India has a relatively young population as compared to, say, Italy, where most of the deaths have occurred in the 70-plus age group.

Even so, the good doctor is cautious to add that his simulations are speculative. The situation is liable to sudden change as in the unforeseen explosion of cases in the Tablighi Jamaat cluster. And we have scant idea of what is happening in remote towns and villages of the hinterland.

A striking example of unpredictability is the shifting use of terminology in official reporting on Covid-19. Till a couple of weeks ago, Union health ministry spokesperson Lav Agarwal was saying that the infection was “local” (therefore containable) rather than community-based. But what is Delhi’s Nizamuddin or Mumbai’s Dharavi except densely packed communities? So the word “community” has been dropped. We are now told the problem is “national”. 

Both hotspots are textbook examples of abject failure in disaster management. The six-storeyed Tablighi building stands cheek-by-jowl with Nizamuddin police station so its 2,500 occupants since early March should have been evacuated long ago — by diktat, if not by persuasion. The horrible postscript (with communal overtones) to this horrible story is an ugly confrontation between Delhi police and government, and Tablighi leaders.
 

Similarly, Dharavi, with its 1 million population (70 per cent of whom use community toilets), may be parodied as a tourist attraction as the largest slum in Asia, but like thousands of its lesser counterparts in the country, it is a potentially volcanic super-spreader.

Many heads of government are prone to bouts of myopia and grave miscalculation at moments of national crisis. Beating Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Imran Khan in the race, a cringeworthy standout example is Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. He initially described coronavirus as just “a little flu”. After repeated tests, he refuses to make the results public, claiming they are a state secret. His country is home to 13.5 million urban settlers living in favelas, the equivalent of our slums. Despite being politically isolated, he is hanging on. “God is Brazilian,” he says. “The cure is right there.” 
 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not quite so far gone. Thali-banging and diya-lighting on Sunday evenings may be his idea of rallying the nation but it is likely to be construed by some as a spiritual numen for deliverance. (And perhaps as a boredom-alleviating exercise for kiddies.) In his TV addresses and radio chats, Mr Modi doesn’t miss a beat at projecting himself as an amalgam of Supreme Leader and saviour. 

But when posterity records Mr Modi’s biggest failures, the most glaring lack of preparedness after demonetisation, would be to discount the tragedy of the country’s millions of informal workers, left homeless and hungry after the kneejerk lockdown on March 24. According to the government’s own figures, some 600,000 lives (and livelihoods) were abruptly halted as those with neither security of income nor tenure fled the cities. Their futures now stand indefinitely postponed. How far government bailouts will save them will depend how intense or long-drawn out the health emergency is.

The bleak choice the poor face at a time of life-threatening illness is whether they will perish from disease or hunger. In a New York Times dispatch from the Afghanistan-Iran border this week is a poignant quote from a 19-year-old Afghan woman health worker, Roya Mohammadi, helping to screen thousands of Afghan migrant labour fleeing coronavirus-convulsed Iran. Some already had Covid-19 but she needed the income to support her family in Herat. “I’m afraid of getting sick, of course,” Ms Mohammadi is reported as saying. “But I prefer to die with a full stomach rather than die of hunger.”