In April 2020 when I started my Lockdown Diary, little did I imagine that May 2021 would still find us locked up. Well, not in as hard and harsh a lockdown as we were at this time last year, but a life of severe restrictions, where the only time we step out of the house is for our weekly vegetable and grocery run.
I can vent and fume about what and whom is to blame for the sorry mess we find ourselves in today, but at this point all I feel is numb and hopeless. And, I have a whole load of questions…
How did this hell we are currently in come to pass?
How is it possible that we went from 10,000 Covid-19 positive cases per in Jan 2021, to a staggering 4.3 lakh (430 thousand) infected on the 5th of May 2021?
How is it that we went from being the pharmacy of the world, donating vaccines to other countries and crowing about it, to this acute shortage where we are struggling to fully vaccinate even our most vulnerable?
How is it that city after city and state after state is being brought to its knees by the sheer volume of positive cases?
How is it possible that people are dying from a shortage of medical oxygen and not directly from Covid-19? And how is it that this lacuna hasn’t been fixed in all these months?
How is it that funeral pyres are burning day and night and still not able to cremate all those who are dying?
How is it that hundreds of dead bodies have being dumped in rivers because our crematoriums simply cannot handle the daily load of bodies?
How is it that after having a full year to prepare for the second wave we have been caught with our pants down and absolutely clueless?
How is it that the people we voted to power have abdicated responsibility and left us to fend for ourselves?
How is it that our leadership ignored all warnings of a coming second wave and lured us into complacency by prematurely and publicly announcing a victory over Covid-19?
How is it that nobody, and I mean nobody, is being held accountable for this gross mismanagement and total catastrophe? Where does the buck stop?
How is it that we have become international pariahs banned from entering almost every country in the world?
How is it that we have allowed ourselves to get swayed by mumbo jumbo and refused to heed sane scientific advice?
How is it that in the midst of this crisis there are daily reports of bribery, corruption and profiteering? Surely there is a special place in hell for such people.
How? How? How?
