COVID- 19: LESSONS YET TO BE LEARNT

History repeats itself for those who don’t learn from it. A chillingly pertinent lesson that Indian city leaders need to learn right now. Public health and livelihoods, to name two lessons from 2020, went largely unlearned. In 2021, as wave two of COVID wreaked havoc, the same lessons as well as some new ones came to light, particularly the pictures of people running helter-skelter and paying exorbitant prices for that precious cylinder of life-giving oxygen.

Public Health: Here comes’ the next wave

In two reports, the most cogent and tragic illustrations of the total collapse of urban public health systems were given. In one, a critically ill patient died outside a hospital’s emergency room because the facility would not admit him. Two: the lines of individuals waiting outside oxygen production facilities to have their oxygen cylinders filled with the life-giving gas. Because during the virulent COVID second wave, government and private hospitals ran out of oxygen.

 Perhaps an abstruse media story that this writer by chance came across reflects the plight of a helpless populace. After paying the hospital bill for the oxygen he received, an elderly patient in Delhi recovered and was released from the hospital. He then got on his knees and thanked God for the free oxygen that nature had provided him with for the previous 70 years. And pondering the amount that, at the going rate, he would have owed to God.

Numerous experts had cited decreased funding for public health over the years. The disastrous misplacement of the center’s emphasis on PPP (private-public partnerships) in healthcare was made clear by its utter failure in states like Uttarakhand. But despite everything that has occurred, it continues to serve as the cornerstone of state policy. Additionally, pristine, expensive digital health care programmes are being promoted as the modern solution.

Urban- rural livelihoods

Unfortunately, the tales and images of the tens of thousands of unemployed migrant workers and their families trekking hundreds of miles back to their ancestral villages following the first lockdown in 2020 have already been forgotten. They gradually began returning to the cities in 2021 in an effort to find new employment. But the jobs were permanently lost. The few that were available also came with low pay and unfavorable working conditions. The central government in wake of the exodus tried to set up community kitchens, provide subsidized food facility to the migrant workers. Humongous budget allocation was made for this. But was it being implemented, as some reports suggest contrary to the figures being brought out by the government.

In light of the dire circumstances, some economists and development specialists attempted to spark a national discussion on the necessity of an urban jobs programme for daily wage workers, similar to the one for rural workers. Few disputed the necessity of such a plan. They provided specific examples from Kerala and Orissa where these programmes had been tried out. The mechanics for putting such a plan into action were suggested. Sadly, the discussion eventually lost steam.

Pharmaceutical industry: Power and profit

The pharmaceutical industry is hailed as a savior during a pandemic, but it is actually using the crisis to maintain its unsustainable, profit-maximizing model. The industry’s demands, including stronger monopoly patent laws and public funding with no conditions attached, could limit access to COVID-19 medications and vaccines, prolonging the pandemic for financial gain. Health is a human right, so pricing and access decisions cannot be left to the discretion of the private sector.

For instance, Pfizer vaccine generated $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, or nearly a quarter of its overall revenue. The business did not reveal how much money it made from the vaccine, but it reiterated its earlier forecast that vaccine profit margins would be in the high 20 percent range. In the first quarter, that would equate to pretax vaccine profits of about $900 million. According to Pfizer, making its vaccine available worldwide is a priority. The statistics from the World Health Organization show that Pfizer has only made a minimal contribution to the world’s poorest nations.

International organizations: Cacophony of alarms

On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “public health emergency of international concern,” or PHEIC, indicating that a pandemic may be on the horizon. The WHO urged testing, tracing, and social segregation as ways to combat the coronavirus, but few nations complied. By the middle of March, it had reached every continent. Health officials and researchers are currently investigating the reasons why the organization’s warning system failed and considering improvements.

Black humour is produced by pandemic fear, but it also makes people hyper vigilant and compels them to notice things they otherwise might not have noticed, pay attention to some associations while ignoring others, and recall prophecies they might have previously repudiated as absurd. These organizations by their way of predicting the lethality, contagiousness of the forthcoming wave and coming out with contradictory studies without any scientific evidence in hand is questionable.

Global Vaccine Governance

Traditional COVID-19 vaccines, such as whole inactivated virus vaccines, are now accessible from China (Sinovac and Sinopharm) and India (Bharat Biotech) (Covaxin). The Sinovac whole inactivated virus vaccine, which has more than 160 million doses, was distributed to nations around the world without being examined by a strict regulatory body as defined by the WHO. The Russian Sputnik V adenovirus-vectored vaccine also falls under this category. Even though China and Russia are both working hard to resolve this issue, the current effects of unilateral “vaccinationalism” are perturbing.

Environment and climate change

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how exposed and vulnerable the world is to external dangers. Both the disease’s effects and the control measures adopted have had negative effects on people’s lives and means of subsistence. In addition to the tragic cost of illness and death, economies, particularly in developing nations, have been severely affected.

This year’s severe heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and tropical cyclones have made the growing effects of climate change all too evident around the globe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that there is now a demonstrable relationship between rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in a new assessment of the science that was published in May 2022. According to the report, “Climate change is already having an impact on every inhabited region of the world, with human activity responsible for many of the observed changes in weather and climate extremes.”

It will take a long time before India achieves its Paris climate conference goals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on reaching the target set for 2030 in the next year and a half is quixotic. The government’s reckless attitude has been responsible for India lagging behind in tackling environmental issues.        Promising commitments are of no help unless done in reality.

Brief Overview

Globally, COVID-19 has become a menace to the public health. It is another epidemic infectious disease outbreak to be added to the list, which already includes Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis in 1986, Avian Flu in 1997, SARS in 2002, Swine Flu in 2009, and Ebola in 2014. These outbreaks serve as a constant reminder that in order to survive and prosper, we must respect the interdependence of animals, human society, and the environment.