BinaryRoot

Namaskara dear readers: Many have lost their loved ones in this Covid-19 pandemic. In the month of Oct 2020, I lost my beloved father for the first wave of coronavirus in India. I was there with him at the hospital, and saw him die slowly day by day. My soul was deeply sobbing inside, descended and shattered for my own helplessness. I had passed through depression and anxiety days, remembering and reliving those times in my own hell. Today, I am stable enough to write what I have seen and sensed. The Covid-19 is huge, something very huge, where the entire world is part of this scandal. Though, I have no proof of anything I have claimed here, I don’t care either whether anybody has been convinced about what I wrote. But yeah, that’s the beauty of the system involved in this Scandal. However, there are missing links between the dots, because I am not able to imagine the big picture, but I am conscious enough to sense what’s happening around. This scandal was designed to cause both disgrace and damage to the reputation of our country and maybe the central ruling party. This will not end soon, unfortunately, it might get worse in the coming days.

Everybody knows the theory behind this virus. It originated from Wuhan city in China and spread across the world by human to human close contact. And, later there were different versions of this theory, and our dearest media has helped to trace down the patient.zero from China, by whom it is believed that the chain reaction has originated. This is no less than any Sci-fi movie story, but ground reality is much more different. If you ask me, did China design this virus in a Wuhan laboratory? I say no. This was an artifice by certain forces, involving the media, to divert the attention and to defame few countries at large. But, of course China has a major role in spreading this to the whole world and has profiteered largely in an international market when the whole globe was devastating in sorrow and pain. Meanwhile, strategically China has also managed to corroborate nowhere in the pages of history neither China nor Wuhan has been termed for such a disaster.

When the tiny unimagined enemy was at war foot against humanity, neither India foresee it’s coming, nor have we imagined its mass effect. However, India had managed to lock-down its international borders by the time covid was super spreading across the globe. And there is a major belief in India that Tablighi Jamaat at the capital city was the reason for the initiation of the infection on a large scale. But, I don’t believe so. I feel it is in particular Delhi government’s failure to foresee the possible massive damage, for which a communal angle is given by some forces. Unfortunately India internally has few such hate mongering and anti-national communities operating at full gait. When you are a part of something big and if you are unprepared to handle or don’t have proper protocols for the measurements, you will be crushed and sabotaged entirely. As usual, this community started it with a religious angle and tried force feeding people without knowing the depth of the forthcoming tsunami and later they all have shut their mouths. Better not discuss this topic now, because they are just (unimportant) puppets, appear on screen as per their roles and bark here and there in unheard media or in social media.

However, there are multiple steps of failures to this devastation in India. Though, initially these failures were not intentionally designed, later they were made part of this scandal. At the initial stage, I am sure it remained collective failures at respective state levels, later included in a larger plan to put their own people permanently rest in peace. If you are thinking, what is that bigger plan I was referring to! it is none other than the ‘Medical System’, including doctors (not all), hospitals, nurses, clinics, test centers, ambulances ect, you name it. Yes, I know what I am claiming here, the Government, the celebrities and even the general public have named them as warriors and life savers; even during lockdown the entire nation has come out on streets in numbers to clap, to cheer, to ring the bell, to burn the lamps/candles and to salute them for their thankless service to humanity. But, unfortunately it is true the entire Medical System is bloody corrupt this time.

The first step to scandal started from the initial rt-PCR test. With such faulty kits and equipments, when .there are really no skills to conduct the test, when large scale of medical system is not dedicated enough to serve their own kind, and if the accuracy of results are really pathetic, why the hell tests are permitted at ‘District’ level, where on an average, the population is more than 4 millions? Yes, all the swabs taken at local centers will be packed and sent to a District level medical test center and they issue the results as early as 3-4 days time, except for metropolitan and tier-2 cities. This has been confirmed to me by a couple of government doctors. If you wish to speed-up the process, you have to visit the district level test centers in-person, and the report will be given to you in 6-8 hours. Until you have a negative RT-PCR report, you will be denied admission at the private hospitals if you seek medical help for any non-Covid treatments, meaning, as per the rule, there are only Two categories of medical services, Covid and non-Covid. So technically speaking, if you need any immediate medical attention for any non-Covid treatments, you have to take the patient to district level covid test centers, wait for 6-8 hours to get the report and then travel back to private hospitals where you can find a suitable treatment or take the patient to a government hospital nearby, where upon arrival your swab will be taken and will be sent to district level test centers and you will be isolated and admitted into a ‘Covid (Suspect) Ward’ to wait for the results which is arriving in 3-4 days. Anyways, government hospitals never had any treatment facility for emergencies before also, I don’t blame them now. So, once you are in government hospital Covid Ward, you will wait in an isolated room (a hall) with daily supplements of vitamin-C, a banana and an egg, maybe. That’s the maximum treatment possible by the way.

I still wonder, why hasn’t the government intervened in this matter, why hasn’t done privatization of this testing yet? It would have been a faster way of handling the test and the real stress. Well, somewhere I heard the answer, the government wanted the actual counts of infected people, as privatization of testing may lead to higher corruption, people may go to the private centers and get tests done from the back-door, paying bribe to prove the negative report; in which case the government will never come to know the real numbers. But sorry, why does the government need an infection count? Are we in some competition to prove we are ahead in positive numbers? In this matter, many countries have done a phenomenal job, China taking a step forward to hide its numbers from international media. Especially the USA, they have increased their testing by increasing the facilities and centers on-time. They went on testing their people at a rapid rate during the initial days itself, in other words Trump had finally intervened to advise his fellow members to slow it down to avoid the international disrepute. I think somewhere we have failed to foresee that taking control over the counting might really back-fire?

More interestingly, someone also said to me, covid testings in India are deliberately delayed in order to fulfil a purpose; funds have been released from the UN for impecunious countries, and distributed among the needy states in India. The more numbers you showcase, the higher the chance you receive a large share for your state. Though this seems somewhat convincing, it doesn’t prove anything to me. However, even at district level test centers, we may not have adequate facilities and enough faculties to conduct the test at such a massive level. No doubt our medical businesses are so talented in finding the short-cuts to market, and so might have happened in the testings too. If you don’t have the facility, create your own way; I am sure they have found their short-cuts to the PCR test results, a big lottery system? Also, a trend in testing has started, ‘contact tracing’ to break the Covid-chain, meaning tracing down all the people who could have potentially came in close or distant contact with a covid positive patient. This increased the testing and in turn the positive numbers. Even a non-symptomatic person also got a positive report to put him into home quarantine and given free supplements of vitamin-C. This was the biggest blunder, I think. Aren’t we surrounded by billions of such viruses, and it’s our immunity that fights for our own defence every second? This is what we have been taught since childhood, and now all of a sudden a goofy theory of non-symptomatic Covid positivity was spread across the country. Well, I will clarify it. Imagine, if a testing center issues you a negative report, then their business is over, and you will go home happily. Instead, if they issue a positive report, it works exactly like a network-marketing, one positive patient can potentially bring many more patients for testing and thus it multifolds the business.

By the time the central government was deciding for a lockdown in the country, the testing business was booming. In the measure of contact tracing, for one covid positive person, they have started forcefully testing many others within 100 sq/m area, volunteers have sealed down the premises, buildings and even entire locality sometimes, fear has been filled into people’s mind, even rumors have been spread saying Virus is in the air, volunteers are sent to every house to forcefully collect their contact numbers and Aadhaar number and are declared positive without even testing. I remember, medical volunteers have visited my neighborhood to test Blood Pressure of many elderly people and provided vitamin-C supplements free of cost to collect their Aadhaar and contact details. There were many accidental cases and natural deaths, whose dead bodies were forcefully tested and declared covid positive and the bodies were denied to their family. At a hasty level, medical volunteers even have offered money to many healthy individuals to come and get admitted to care centers, as because, the government has announced compensations for covid patients. Many of these are reported in the media, and aware by people. Can anyone dare to deny it now?

This is how a rogue business scandal has begun. I have refered to what has happened in Karnataka state, but no doubt the situation is the same across every state. What you see in other states is how well they have managed to wreathe the media.

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Both my parents live in a small village where the population is a couple of thousands. My father was 72 and was a strong man except was diagnosed with the first stage of Alzheimers in 2019 and was under basic medications (non steroidal, wasn’t drowsy). Since then both my parents have not gone outside and no outsider has visited them either. When this covid started in India, my mother was very cautious about everything and she regularly used Dettol to sanitize every household item, used basic precautions like regular hand wash and masks, they always consumed good freshly prepared foods, never ate outside, no events were conducted at home and no relatives. Still, at the end of September 2020, my father had developed a cold and chills. Me, my wife and my child were in Malaysia at that time, and India was running VandeBharath missions to extricate people willing to come back. When my father was sick, my mother consulted 3 doctors from private clinics and requested to visit our home for my father’s diagnosis, but they refused to come as they were strictly instructed not to visit any house; I don’t know why. I never understood this one thing, why private clinic doctors were advised such a pathetic thing. Throughout the district the situation was the same, no private doctors were allowed to treat any patients and no one was allowed to visit any house, however people could consult them from a distance, if they were willing to open their clinics. We called upon and enquired almost all nearby private hospitals and private doctors for the consultation, but had no luck. Later, we were advised by one of the doctors to give him a ‘Dolo-650’ paracetamol tablet thrice a day. The paracetamol made him more drowsy, non responsive day by day and he started developing pneumonitic symptoms and started shivering with chills. But, his temperature was below 98*F throughout. We knew a private laboratory guy, who use to visit our house for blood test before this covid, we called him and also took an advice from one of the doctors by explaining my father’s current condition, and the doctor advised to do a blood checkup and found out my father was developing Typhoid symptoms, and was given medicines. Also, the generous doctor has confirmed my father did not have any covid symptoms by secretly advising the lab guy to perform some other unknown tests (I am not sure what it is, may be the Oxygen level testing). But, though he was given medications for his Typhoid, his situation worsened the next day, and had no choice than searching for an immediate admission into a hospital.

We belong to Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka state. Unfortunately, for a stretch of 200 KMs, from Ankola (a taluk in Uttara Kannada) to Manipal (a town in Udupi district) we don’t have a good multi-speciality hospital. From the past 25+ years, ever since I started thinking independently, I realised that we never heard of any good hospital services with at-least basic amenities and doctors for consultation, in this entire stretch. For any big, small or emergencies, people were visiting Manipal Hospital then and even now for treatments. If not Manipal, next stop will be Mangalore, another 60 KMs of an extra drive.

Helping hands have come on an immediate basis, from friends and family, to put my father into a private vehicle as he was not in a condition to walk and shift to hospital. It was late 8pm in the evening, we took him to one of the nearby hospitals in Honnavar (a taluk in Uttara Kannada district) to enquire about admission and his treatment, which they have denied saying they don’t have vacant beds, more than that they don’t give any admissions to other patients without Covid negative report. Since his condition wasn’t good, on a lot of requests and a slight influence they finally agreed to put him drips without any admission. While he was on general bed, a doctor on duty visited him to do a check-up and said, it’s an emergency case and immediately asked us to take him to Manipal or any other multi-speciality hospital where he can be treated for Covid like symptoms. He also said, my father’s Oxygen levels were dropping and he cannot be treated in their hospitals. The doctor assisted to arrange for an ambulance from the same hospital with a High-Flow Oxygen supply equipped. Since we knew from one of my cousins that Manipal Hospital doesn’t have any vacant beds, after a quick decision, my father was shifted into the ambulance and supplied Oxygen to ease his situation and drove four and half hours to the ‘Yenepoya Speciality Hospital’ in Mangalore.

To Be Continued …