[New post] Reflections on the COVID-19 second wave in India
GEM Report posted: " By Chandni Jain and Priyadarshani Joshi, GEM Report The second wave of COVID-19 in India devastated the country, and made national and international headlines. Its neighbouring countries, especially Nepal – with which it shares an open border – also s"
By Chandni Jain and Priyadarshani Joshi, GEM Report
The second wave of COVID-19 in India devastated the country, and made national and international headlines. Its neighbouring countries, especially Nepal – with which it shares an open border – also saw a spiralling in the number of cases and deaths. After a post-first wave lull in cases, a slew of political and religious events with mass gatherings were organized. The combination of a slow vaccination rollout, deadly virus mutations, and a rise in misinformation exposed the frailty of the countries' health, social and governance infrastructures. This slew of developments led to an unprecedented situation - at its peak, there were over 400,000 cases per day, the highest record in any country.
Figure 1: Daily COVID-19 cases between February and July 2021 for all South Asian countries (Johns Hopkins University CSSE COVID-19 Data, 2021)
Estimates from the first wave were already showing that the pandemic disproportionately affects the poor. Since the pandemic began in 2020, the number of people with incomes of $2 or less a day is estimated to have increased by 75 million in India. This means that India alone will account for nearly 60% of the global increase in poverty in 2020. This will only rise with the second wave.
This crisis has exposed the lack of system resilience, especially harming the poor, and the short and long-term education effects will be devastating. It has also highlighted the challenge of misinformation and the importance of critical thinking skills (for young people and adults) if we are ever to return to a 'new normal'.
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