“It is hard to understand why corrective action was not taken at beginning of second wave,” says Chandrika Bahadur.
As India grapples with a massive second wave, Chandrika Bahadur, chair of the Regional Task Force of the Lancet Commission, speaks to The Hindu on why this happened and the way ahead ….
India is undergoing a very severe second wave of COVID-19, something that could have been anticipated. What in your view went wrong in terms of anticipation and capacity building?
India prepared reasonably well for the pandemic in its early stages. The lockdown gave the medical system time to expand infrastructure, train staff, and build capacity to absorb patients. The rationale for lockdowns across the world in March-April 2020 was to “flatten the curve”. It meant taking actions that would bring down the number of cases that needed hospitalisation and treatment enough that they would not breach the limits of the medical capacity of the country. This preparation allowed the country to manage the first wave in 2020, while keeping overall mortality rates relatively low (apart from brief periods of stress in the larger cities).