It is hard to make sense of the daily edicts being issued by various governments to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Injecting a strong element of partisan politics into the decision-making has made things much worse, of course. Take the relaxation in the lockdown being introduced amidst public admission of a feared rise in the number of infections in the coming days. In this regard, the Delhi Government seems to be a major culprit. After it was rebuffed by the Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal who nixed its wholly unjustified order banning admissions and tests for non-residents or ‘outsiders’ in city hospitals and laboratories, the Kejriwal Government presented a further scary scenario. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that the number of COVID-19 cases alone would reach more than half a million by the end of July; by mid-June he estimated 44,000 cases and by the end of June these could increase to one lakh. Delhi has nearly 30,000 cases at present of which more than half are active. The Delhi Government believed that the community spread of the virus had already begun, though the Centre disagreed. Several new venues were sought to be commandeered for turning into temporary corona-quarantine hospitals. Increasing the number of beds in private hospitals was also ordered. The total number of beds is likely to go up from the existing 8,975 to nearly 11,000 exclusively for corona patients. These will not be enough even to cope with the present number of patients. Should the number of infected rise to over five lakhs, as the Deputy CM of Delhi estimates, it would be impossible for the capital to cope with the situation. In fact, Sisodia sought to justify the order banning testing and treatment for anyone other than those who actually reside in Delhi, arguing that if outsiders filled up all the beds, where will the beds come from when the number of cases increase to half-a-million? Why has Sisodia painted such a scary scenario? Could it be to justify the now junked order to hospitals to treat only those who can furnish proof of being residents of Delhi? We suspect that was the real motive behind the gloomy prognostication of the pandemic drawn by the Delhi Deputy CM. Besides, if the Delhi Government feels that the pandemic is likely to spread further, how can it justify the relaxations implemented from June 8. For instance, opening religious places was totally uncalled for at a time when the fear of escalation of the pandemic was very much alive. Religious places cannot be easily monitored for the spread of the virus however much they take precautionary steps such as a restricted entry to a limited number of people at a given time, hand-sanitising, no-prasad, etc. Opening of religious places ought to have been lower down in the priority of governments since there is always a threat of them turning into centres of transmission of the virus. Opening the economy did not require opening of the religious places, or did it?
The Delhi Government would have been better advised to step up testing and tracing instead of undertaking cheap populist measures which help nobody. Conditions in public hospitals are particularly bad, with doctors and nursing staff often complaining of shortages of essentials, including food and water. Citizens are given a run-around without their finding a lab which would test and a hospital which will admit patients. Even the well-connected people have found it hard to find a hospital bed. As for the economy, despite the permission to reopen, there is a mood of doom and gloom all around. Shops and restaurants stare at huge losses as customers seem to be weary of stirring out from their safe quarters for fear of catching the virus. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Kejriwal is not corona-positive, tests have revealed. The health crisis has thoroughly exposed the incompetence of the Aam Aadmi Party Government. Handling the deadly pandemic was not akin to dangling the carrot of free water and power before gullible voters. It required minimal administrative skills and leadership which the rabble-rousers woefully lack, much to the chagrin of the suffering citizens of the national capital.
