KOCHI: More than a year after Kerala reported India’s first Covid case, the disease is wreaking havoc across the country.
Ambulances with gasping patients waiting in serpentine queues, lack of oxygen and hospital beds, and over-burdened crematoriums have become the order of the day.
While India battles a healthcare emergency, Wuhan — the central Chinese city of 11 million people and the capital of Hubei Province where the novel coronavirus infection reportedly broke out in December 2019 — is bustling with life returning to normal, albeit with precautions.
Dr Anila P Ajayan, the lone Keralite who stayed back in Wuhan during the height of the Covid spread, told TNIE: “Though we had to face an ordeal, all problems have now vanished. Life in the city is back to normal.”She said people on the busy streets there are now fearless of the virus, be it festivals, holidays or weekends, but “mindful and wearing masks the right way”.
“N95 and surgical masks are commonly used and there is no point in wearing cloth masks here as the virus is less than 12 micrometres,” Dr Anila said.
When most overseas students flew out of China during the height of the pandemic, Anila chose to stay back saying she didn’t want to be a “virus carrier”.
She is the regional coordinator for Asia-Pacific at the Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FWBON) and a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan.
Anila explained the situation in the Chinese city: “Basketball courts, badminton halls and gymnasiums, once filled with hospital beds, patients and medical staff in PPE suits, are now back with sports enthusiasts. People coming there now aren’t worried about playing inside without masks. Hand sanitiser is present at every corner with strict entry requirements like thermal screening and QR (Green Code) code scanning made compulsory.”
Shopping malls are crowded, restaurants busy, pedestrians with their pets a common sight on roads and retirees relax by singing and dancing in public, reminding how life was just before the pandemic struck and how empty the public spaces were in between, Dr Anila said.
The government started highlighting the importance of vaccination to prevent infection using signs indicating the inoculation rate in the residential buildings in China.
Currently, the infection rate in that country is rather small, especially among elderly people. So the vaccination among those above 60 is progressing in a staggered manner, she said.
The Chinese celebrated a handful of festivals and holidays after Wuhan recorded ‘Zero Covid Cases’ continuously, from last year.
“A recent Chinese media report stated that, as of April 14, 2021, the May Day holidays saw a significant increase in hotel bookings as compared to the previous years. Air ticket bookings are up by 23 per cent, hotel bookings rose 43 per cent, tourist attraction tickets soared 114 per cent and car rental bookings skyrocketed by 126 per cent. All these reports clearly show that China is returning to normal from a situation when people were scared to venture out to nearby markets for essential shopping,” she said.
As the vaccination drive gathers momentum in India and across the world, all that people can say is that “this too shall pass”, she said.
“Each one of us should come forward to get vaccinated as that is the only way to prevent the coronavirus infection,” Anila signed off.