Uttar Pradesh, biggest state, under 35-hour curfew
Pandemic exposes gaping hole in health care system
India’s most populous state yesterday put its 200 million inhabitants under a 35-hour curfew to contain the spread of the coronavirus which has suddenly spiralled out of control.
Uttar Pradesh crossed the grim milestone of 150,000 Covid-19 cases and neared 10,000 deaths this week according to the state health department, sparking outrage against the government’s handling of the situation.
Amid mounting deaths in state capital Lucknow, local authorities have set up a tin wall to block the view of a cremation site.
The development came after harrowing visuals of rows of funeral pyres at the site went viral on social media.
Aghast residents are now drawing parallels between the newly-built Lucknow wall and the 400-metre wall erected along a road in Ahmedabad in February 2020 so that the then US president Donald Trump wouldn’t see a slum as his motorcade passed through the city during his visit to Gujarat for the Namaste Trump rally.
System collapse
The Lucknow wall is not as long, but it hides a bigger failing — the burgeoning number of Covid-19 deaths, many of which local journalists and families of the deceased say, could have been averted had the health care system not collapsed.
On Thursday, the wife of an ex-judge gasped to death at her Lucknow home after they couldn’t get an ambulance or hospital bed despite over 50 calls on a toll-free number over two days, media reports said.
Ramesh Chandra and his wife Madhu had tested positive for the virus days earlier.
Until Friday, Chandra was still struggling to perform her last rites due to long waits at the crematorium. “There is no one to help us in cremation of the body, please help. Since 7am (Wednesday) I have made over 50 calls to numbers provided by the district administration, but no help came in form of medicine or hospital admission. Due to negligence of the administration my wife (64) succumbed on Thursday,” he said in an open letter being shared on social media.
Ambulance delay is also said to have cost the life of Lucknow’s brightest star in the firmament of history — Yogesh Praveen, 82 — on Monday, his family alleged.
The historian’s brother Kamesh Srivastava said they kept waiting for an ambulance for two hours before taking Praveen to Balrampur hospital in a private car where he was declared dead.
“Everyone seems to be no more than one degree of separation from a coronavirus death in Lucknow,” said Dubai-based Jingesh Singh, who lost “three loved ones” in less than five days.
“The situation in Lucknow is apocalyptic. Dead bodies are piling at hospitals and there appears to be no one to pick them,” said senior Lucknow-based journalist Kulsum Mustafa in an interview with Gulf News. “There is a total system failure. We had so much time to prepare ourselves but we didn’t,” she said, recounting the experience of a friend whose husband died of Covid-19 at a hospital recently.
“She was told to bring a sheet to cover the body and take it with her as there was no transport.”
The statewide curfew which began at 8pm yesterday will continue till 7am on Monday and affect a population more than three times the size of United Kingdom’s.
“Essential services, polling officials for the Panchayat polls, health and sanitation workers will be exempted from the curfew,” read a government order.
Even before the curfew, the pandemic had brought the vibrant city of Lucknow to a near standstill and exposed gaping holes in its healtcare system.
All main markets had already been voluntarily shut down by traders following an appeal by their union bodies.
Aminabad, which used to be
abuzz during Ramadan, remains deserted. Every evening hundreds would go ‘Ganjing’ — a colloquial epithet to describe the act of strolling in the city’s most popular market — Hazaratganj. Now the sideways are empty.
“The only places that are busy are hospitals and cremation grounds,” said author Himashu Bajpai who has penned a poem to describe the all-pervasive fear.
“People are afraid because they are on their own. They have lost trust in the system. In hospitals they can’t get beds, in drug stores they can’t find medicines, in crematoriums they can’t find wood to burn the dead,” he said.
To make the ire complete, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has tested positive for coronavirus as have hundreds of doctors and administrative officials.
Everyone seems to be no more than one degree of separation from a coronavirus death in Lucknow. Several of my relatives are in hospital in varying stages of the disease.”
Jingesh Singh | Indian expat