Today, Explained - India’s SOS to the world

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

The world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer ended up with the world’s worst Covid-19 surge. Neha Arora, New Delhi correspondent for Reuters, explains. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Remember a year ago when the United States had the worst case of COVID in the world? When the numbers were scary and the testing was lagging and people had really started to despair. Now, half the country's adults are vaccinated. We're certainly not out of the woods, but people are feeling hopeful and the U.S. government is turning its attention to helping other countries, countries like India. I have no words how to describe this to you. This gentleman is struggling to breathe. Countries like India. I have no words how to describe this to you. This gentleman is struggling to breathe.

His son is struggling to get somebody to look at him. My mother is on a ventilator situation which is high oxygen power. So these critical patients will be the first to go. It's a field of funeral pyres of those who have lost their battle against coronavirus. It's a mass cremation. No rituals, no emotional last goodbyes. It's not just the United States offering a helping hand. China, Australia, Germany, France, the Indian government is sending military planes to other countries to pick up oxygen. Even Pakistan, India's arch rival, is pitching in, offering medical supplies.

Everyone wants to help because India is setting records. India has recorded a global record of new coronavirus cases for the fourth day running with 349,000 infections. More than 2,700 people have died. Delhi reported 22,933 new cases on Sunday and 350 deaths. The government's own internal assessment is indicating that the worst is still yet to come and that India's most popular states are going to be the worst hit. And all of this after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

declared victory over COVID-19 earlier this year. To understand how Modi got this so wrong, we reached out to Neha Arora from Reuters. One of their New Delhi-based correspondents. We started with the situation on the ground. You could say that the entire healthcare system is right now hostage to the COVID-19 infections. It's so disastrous in the capital city of Delhi, at least, where several hospitals have run out of oxygen supplies. Families are out there on the roads, stranded, figuring out where they can get oxygen cylinders from.

They've been going to friends. they've been hitting the black market. And it's absolutely chaotic, where several hospitals in Delhi, for example, they are turning away new patients because they just don't have any more beds left. What has just been announced, and it will fall as a ton of bricks for a lot of people that the availability of the oxygen beds here is now not, in fact Dakota is full, there are no oxygen beds which are available here. And crematoriums are also overflowing. There is, you know, my own colleague, he figured out that there is a 48-hour waiting

to cremate one of his relatives who just passed away from COVID-19. Cremation grounds are packed. People are putting makeshift facilities for cremating the dead. The bodies just keep on coming. Whilst we were there, bodies were being brought in every few minutes. There's no room left inside the crematorium, so they've spilled out into the open ground next door. were being brought in every few minutes. There's no room left inside the crematorium, so they've spilled out into the open ground next door.

And if you look at just the data, every five minutes in Delhi there's a fatality. What has changed between now and just last winter when Prime Minister Modi basically said India had won the battle against coronavirus. So that assumption was utterly wrong. By February at least, from December to February, cases were on the downswing. February cases were hitting multi-month lows. But then what happened is, because the economy has reopened,

businesses have reopened, people are going out. I mean, there are elections happening. Then there is that huge festival, Kumbh Mela, happening in the northern city of Haridwar. Devotees from across the country have gathered for the Shahi Snan, which is taking place today at the Kumbh at a time when COVID cases are at an all-time high and ensuring social distancing has emerged as the biggest challenge for authorities. Take a look at these visuals. Even during that festival, you see devotees dipping in the Ganges and no mask. Lakhs of devotees have already arrived in Uttarakhand and Haridwar for this auspicious occasion.

And right now you can see all the people who have came here to take dip in Ganga River. You see these election rallies. You see people, thousands and thousands of people, gathered in the open, jostling with each other, no masks. The prime minister campaigning in Assen, Seoul, said he was delighted. I think the word was elated to see the large crowds

that had gathered at his rally this on a day when India has reported over 2 lakh coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day and over 1000 deaths in 24 hours. This is the state of affairs where everybody is practically mixing with each other. There is a whole lot of business happening. People are traveling from one city to another. So when you prematurely celebrate and there were in fact very little data to support that, you know, there may not be a second wave. So the assumption was incorrect that there could not have been a second wave. So that is where it all faltered. And yes, experts are saying that

because you've had these large gatherings, whether for political rallies or for the festivals or people traveling, all of this just smacks of negligence and indifference. So Prime Minister Modi can't just blame pandemic indifference within the country or his political opposition. He himself is culpable for holding rallies where people weren't being mindful of COVID. Yes, experts have very clearly said that the government should have been more mindful when it came to holding these election rallies. And that Prime Minister Modi himself addressing these rallies,

Home Minister Amit Shah himself addressing these rallies, clearly sent out the wrong signal to people, people who were even watching them on television, that things are okay. Let's talk some about the actual virus that's circulating throughout the country. Is this, you know, the OG coronavirus? Is this one of the variants? Is it both? What's going on? So this time around, it's a toxic mix of both, the old and the new. The variants have, in fact, multiplied. It's hard to tell. But what doctors have been telling us is that the variants right now, we can't say which one is prevalent. For example, in Delhi, where more and more younger people are getting infected, the age group shift has already

happened. And a lot of younger people in Delhi who are getting affected, doctors can't tell which variant is it. Now, the heads of the government's top-notch institutes have finally admitted that the second wave of COVID in India may have been driven by these variants. Data released by the National Centre for Disease Control says over 400 cases of the UK strain and 76 of the Indian double mutant strain were found in Delhi, implying... And of course, there are a number of variants we know about in India, including the UK variant, the South African variant, the Brazilian and India's own variant. Now that India is setting

all these records, I believe like about half of the world's new cases are in India. How is the government responding apart from, you know, holding these political rallies? Well, the Bharatiya Janata Party has announced that they would only have like 500 people at once in a rally. The prime minister cancelled one of his rallies, in fact, and said that he would be doing a virtual rally. Critics are saying that it's perhaps a little too late in the day to be not holding rallies anymore. But the fact is, states have been talking about these shortages of drugs and vaccines. How do you address that? That's a question mark, right? So the government has announced it will invite more vaccine makers into the country. They will have hopefully three or

four more vaccines going into next two or three months. So that's perhaps one thing. And of course, importing a lot of oxygen, medical oxygen for patients. That's the crisis that they're addressing at the moment. That's the crisis doctors want them to address first. And it was almost a year ago to the day we published an episode titled Inside the World's Biggest Lockdown about India shutting down. Is there a chance the government imposes another massive nationwide lockdown? Has that already even happened?

I know you're currently in lockdown in New Delhi. No, the country is not in another lockdown. It's not a nationwide lockdown. So a lot of these state governments have been told that they can impose local lockdowns and curfews across cities wherever cases are rising. The prime minister has said that a lockdown should be a last resort. Friends, in today's situation, we have to protect the country from lockdowns.

And that state governments should really be focusing on containing the outbreak within smaller zones. He also said that the efforts are towards repairing the economy and safeguarding people's health. So a wholesale lockdown, we don't know. The government isn't saying it, although a lot of doctors are saying that it would help. But then the economy coming to a standstill at a time where it's just recovering from a recession may not be the ideal response to it. So a lot of cities are already under curfew and people are largely cooperating.

And that's primarily because everyone is seeing visuals of people lining up on the streets outside hospitals, pleading for beds, pleading for oxygen, scrambling for medicines. So it's a grim reminder of how badly things can go wrong. And a lot of these cities are in fact reporting that people have been very compliant with restrictions. So let's assume there is a nationwide lockdown. It's not too far from the truth to say that people will comply this time around.

My name is Jyot Jit and I am the chairperson of Disaster Management Cell of organization Shaheed Bhagat Singh Seva Dal, which is an organization that provides free ambulance service, free funeral vans for the dead bodies to transport them to the cremation ground or the burial ground. We also provide free cremation or burial services in India and specifically the national capital territory of Delhi. The Hindus, the Sikhs here, they have a tradition to cremate the dead body once a person dies. There's a specific place designated by the government where

you know people take the dead bodies of their loved ones when somebody dies. Four people are required to, you know, transport the dead body on the platform where the body is being cremated. There are, you know, religious people, they chant mantras, and after a specific tradition is followed, then the cremation takes place.

So after 24 hours or so, when the ashes are left and the body is burnt completely, the families come and they collect the ashes, take the ashes to the holy Ganga river which is in Haridwar. So we used to bury 20 to 30 dead bodies in the first COVID wave. But in this wave, the toll has increased exponentially. We have been cremating around 70 dead bodies every day. Out of that 60 to 70 dead bodies, 40 to 50 dead bodies are either left by their family members. They do not want to perform the last rites because they fear that

they could contract the virus. At this moment, nobody is coming to claim the ashes of the dead bodies at the cremation ground. By this virus, people are under deep fear to even go near the dead body. Other religions, Christianity, you talk about Muslim religion, they prefer, you know, to bury the dead body rather than cremating. However, we've seen that we are getting cases every day here where the Muslims and even the Christians, instead of burying their dead body, they're preferring cremation because they have no other option because the graveyards here, they are full. There's no space left there to bury a dead body. So there's a new thing that they've been doing.

They have been, you know, cremating the dead body in the cremation ground. After like 24 hours or so, they collect the ashes and then they bury the ashes of that dead body. So it is very heartbreaking to see that people cannot even

perform the last rites of their loved ones according to their religion. There's a tremendous risk to our volunteers, our emergency response teams, because if I talk about the current situation, more than 50% of our teams are down with COVID. Our manager of the emergency services is in the ICU right now. He's in critical condition. 70% of his lungs have been damaged by this COVID virus. But somehow we, you know, try to cope up with the stress that we face every day.

And we have been performing these services. The most tragic aspect of this record-setting COVID surge in India is that the country is one of the biggest vaccine manufacturers in the world. More on that in a minute on Today Explained. keep up with family and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an Aura frame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday and she's very fortunate. She's got 10 grandkids. And so we wanted to surprise her with the AuraFrame. And because she's a little bit older, it was just

easier for us to source all the images together and have them uploaded to the frame itself. And because we're all connected over text message, it was just so easy to send a link to everybody. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carvermat frames with promo code EXPLAINED at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code EXPLAINED. This deal is exclusive to listeners and available just in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions do apply. Neha, over the weekend, President Biden removed impediments

to exporting raw materials for vaccines. The U.S. also pledged to send India ventilators, PPE, and test kits. A spokesperson said the U.S. also pledged to send India ventilators, PPE and test kits. A spokesperson said the U.S. would help India in its moment of need because India has done the same for the United States, which makes all this seem just all the more tragically ironic. India is going through this while being one of the biggest vaccine manufacturers and suppliers in the world, right? Yes, India is known as the pharmacy to the world. Maximum doses have gone to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Afghanistan.

Bhutan and Maldives, interestingly, were the first countries to receive vaccine donations from India. We have supplied doses to 40 nations so far. This includes countries in Sark, Latin America and Africa. 34 more nations are in the pipeline, according to Subramaniam Jai Shankar, India's external affairs minister. And it's only been able to vaccinate a fraction of its population so far, which is another glaring criticism from a lot of public health experts who say that India should have focused on its own people first

before sending out vaccines to the rest of the world. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has written a letter to Prime Minister Modi questioning the centre's decision to export vaccines, stating that India is facing vaccine starvation. For people who are kind of surprised or shocked by this tragic circumstance, India is the world's pharmacy and yet so few Indians have the vaccine and India is experiencing the worst surge in the world. How exactly did that come to pass?

So back in February, when cases were down, the government was defending its decision that they are exporting vaccines to the rest of the world because they are looking out for those who do not have enough vaccines and that they will be doing enough for people in the phases that they had already planned. Indian-made COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to countries around the world. Sixty million doses have gone to 76 countries as part of aid and commercial agreements. But India recorded its highest number of coronavirus cases in five months this week. The government says it must now prioritise local supply.

The whole thing went for a toss when infections started surging and exports were practically stopped. But the idea is that all these experts are questioning the assumption that on what basis did the government come about to these calculations that it would be enough or there would be enough time to inoculate the population to make sure that there is herd immunity. Clearly, none of that happened. There is no herd immunity to speak of as what experts keep saying that there is. In fact, it's far worse than it was because of slower pace of vaccination and because of the fact that large crowds have been out on the streets and not enough data was analyzed on the variants because these variants had started appearing already.

And that not enough analysis went into it is another reason why the situation is so bad today. So those two vaccines, which are already there in India, are precisely the same ones which are also going overseas. But now the supplies have fallen short. So even if there are no exports, there are practically very little domestic production capacities as well at the moment. It's going to take a while before all of that scales up. Which are the two vaccines that are made in India? There is the Serum Institute of India's vaccine, Covishield. And this is the vaccine that most of the countries have taken from India, either as a gift or on a commercial basis. The second vaccine is the Bharat Biotech vaccine, which is a homegrown vaccine.

And this vaccine, the supply is fairly limited. It's minuscule compared to Covishield. So this vaccine is going to take a far longer time to catch up. So in the meantime, we might have the Russian vaccine coming in about a month's time. We might have Sputnik. There could be other vaccines like J&J. There could be Pfizer, Moderna, because the government wants foreign vaccine manufacturers to now come in. So there is expectation that there could be four to five vaccines going into the next two or three months. But at the moment, it's difficult to really assess because they're just these two vaccines and the public data that we have suggests that it could

just be about 70 to 80 million doses, which would also take about two months. And that's not enough because from May 1 onward, the government is opening up the campaign to everybody above the age of 18. And estimates suggest not even 2% of India's population is fully vaccinated. Only around 10% have received at least one shot. How much can you tie these decisions the government made to export vaccines to the surge we're seeing right now? Is it causation or correlation?

It's difficult to say, really. That's a very tough one to answer. Yes, states ran out of doses. There's been plenty of criticism around the fact that there are shortages across several states of these vaccines and that India should not have exported from day one and looked out for its own people, had enough stocks to take care of people. So it's hard to say because then you're competing with a form of assumption and then you're looking back in hindsight. There have been multiple decisions, therefore, which would be hard to really pin down. I mean, there is correlation for sure. I mean, you don't have

vaccines. You've shipped out quite a few. You've shipped out millions of doses abroad. You could have had those for the country itself. Yes, that would have definitely helped. So if India is now focusing on its own population and it stopped exporting vaccines to other countries. Are those other countries going to be shopping around for vaccines elsewhere or are they out of luck now? So the one thing that could get disturbed is the COVAX initiative, which has been backed by the WHO and the Gavi Alliance. So the COVAX initiative also relies a lot on India's supplies. So it's not yet clear as to which direction that may be headed entirely. There's not enough, can't really draw conclusions there. But that COVAX initiative was relying a lot on CoviShield supplies. That's what we know.

That's what everybody knows. As far as bilateral exchange in terms of either gifting or selling vaccines, well, yes, some of those countries would have to look elsewhere. Do you think the world will learn something from what happened in India? Yes, I suppose from what experts are saying, we'll just have to lean on that, on their wisdom, is that if you open your economy too early, if you prematurely celebrate, if you let people get the messaging that it's all fine at the moment,

that it's all safe, and then they drop their guard, this is what happens. Neha Arora is a correspondent for Reuters based in New Delhi. I'm Sean Ramos-Verm. It's Today Explained. today explained. Thank you.