Why We Should Collectively Mourn the COVID Dead
To have the state acknowledge the deaths might well give us the necessary sense of purpose we need to surmount this period in time.
Family members of Vijay Raju, who died due to COVID-19 mourn before his cremation at a crematorium ground in Giddenahalli village on the outskirts of Bengaluru, May 13, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Samuel Rajkumar
Rights9 hours ago
In the past month or so, there have been repeated news reports of how entire pages in newspapers are filled with obituaries, how attempts to number the dead are failing and journalists are trying to put together numbers by counting the dead listed in hospital registers, those awaiting their final rites in ambulances outside cremation grounds and cemeteries, and so on. There is no certainty about how many have died and while we publish a set of numbers every day, those are recognised to be only a part of the whole, a whole we are never likely to know.