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I visited India in Dec 2020, so here's my personal take on this based on what I saw. The first lockdown in India was very severe and it basically made the secon

by mdani 5y ago

I visited India in Dec 2020, so here's my personal take on this based on what I saw. The first lockdown in India was very severe and it basically made the second lockdown pretty unpopular in the business community, at least initially. The dithering contributed to even bigger second wave. The reasons behind the lull between the first and the second waves were not entirely clear, and some people assumed that the herd immunity is being reached. Combined with the desire to return to normalcy after a harsh lockdown, it falsely assured people that the worst was behind them. This created the perfect conditions for a bigger second wave. Finally, the state and every petty official was intoxicated by the powers they weilded during the first lockdown, and they forgot that with great power comes the great responsibility. They unnecessarily focused on tiny things such as fining people Rs. 500 at the traffic lights, while not really understanding the new information on how virus spreads, what are the best ways to tackle transmission and so on. People should have been given the liberty to be outdoors with proper face covering when there was good airflow. They shpuld have known that meeting indoors with poor airflow was the biggest threat. This wasn't communicated properly. Some government officials did take decisions proactively to save their own district. For example, see here https://youtu.be/Sa4vCG1oY6M https://youtu.be/Sa4vCG1oY6M But unfortunately, this was the exception rather than the norm.

newsHere 5y ago
The Michigan governor had a similar issue. The lockdown was well intended, but when she opened casinos, bars, and restaurants but closed gyms, it was clear that safety was second priority. In politics you don't get credit for trying to be good, you only get credit for succeeding.
kshacker 5y ago
While the first lockdown may not have been popular, the top 3 reasons for the second wave were 1) muddled message from the top with massive election rallies and no one wearing masks, 2) the religious kumbh congregation was allowed to proceed as normal while a similar (in comparison, a smaller muslim congregation was demonized last year to the extent of jailing some folks), and 3) total lack of preparation of vaccines, drugs, and even oxygen. You only need the queuing theory to explain how systems can break down when the demand changes just a tiny bit. The complete celebratory attitude with a mild (covid) winter made them forget all the planning that they did not even order their vaccines (at least the numbers they needed). Just in case this seems like a critique of the government, let me add both the people and the government were irresponsible, but a cautionary message from top would have helped and that did not happen in time.
- hesarenu 5y ago
  Why this latching onto election rallies and kumbh. Cases are exploding in Karnataka. No election or Kumbh here. Same for Maharastra.
  - bhanu423 5y ago
    Do you really buy into the excuse that somehow election rallies and kumbh did not increase the severity of the problem at hand ? Its Standard whataboutery spewed constantly by the ruling party. They just don't even want to own up to their mistakes and the PM is staying silent as he is expecting everyone to forget and move on to the next hot topic. The Central Government allocated covid related very critical projects(Oxygen Plants) to companies that are now untraceable. The Projects itself were floated in Oct(7 months into the pandemic) so they took actually a lot of time to do the job so poorly that we don't have any special infrastructure ready. I mean if the Prime Minister is campaigning til the very day, the Election commission had to put a ban on it due to the exact reason. BJP is a power hungry party and they involve in open candidate buying in a lot of states post elections(The situation is so bad that the opposition parties actually have to camp with all of the leaders in a secluded resort to prevent any kind of horse-trading to happen). Modi government will never accept their mistakes, which we have already seen with demonetization(another useless idea of the current government, which had already broken's India's back financially), or jobs or various other front the current government is failing on.
    - hesarenu 5y ago
      It seems more like elections and kumbh are standard phrases of opposition party. Cases are exploding in Bangalore. Do you know how far kumbh is to Bangalore. You are just trying to find a scapegoat, like how the RW where using Jamat last Year.
      - tzs 5y ago
        Kumbh Mela is attended by far more than just people who live near where it occurs. People from all across India travel to it, participate, and then go back home.

by mdani 5y ago

newsHere 5y ago

The Michigan governor had a similar issue. The lockdown was well intended, but when she opened casinos, bars, and restaurants but closed gyms, it was clear that safety was second priority. In politics you don't get credit for trying to be good, you only get credit for succeeding.

kshacker 5y ago

While the first lockdown may not have been popular, the top 3 reasons for the second wave were 1) muddled message from the top with massive election rallies and no one wearing masks, 2) the religious kumbh congregation was allowed to proceed as normal while a similar (in comparison, a smaller muslim congregation was demonized last year to the extent of jailing some folks), and 3) total lack of preparation of vaccines, drugs, and even oxygen. You only need the queuing theory to explain how systems can break down when the demand changes just a tiny bit. The complete celebratory attitude with a mild (covid) winter made them forget all the planning that they did not even order their vaccines (at least the numbers they needed). Just in case this seems like a critique of the government, let me add both the people and the government were irresponsible, but a cautionary message from top would have helped and that did not happen in time.

hesarenu 5y ago
Why this latching onto election rallies and kumbh. Cases are exploding in Karnataka. No election or Kumbh here. Same for Maharastra.
- bhanu423 5y ago
  Do you really buy into the excuse that somehow election rallies and kumbh did not increase the severity of the problem at hand ? Its Standard whataboutery spewed constantly by the ruling party. They just don't even want to own up to their mistakes and the PM is staying silent as he is expecting everyone to forget and move on to the next hot topic. The Central Government allocated covid related very critical projects(Oxygen Plants) to companies that are now untraceable. The Projects itself were floated in Oct(7 months into the pandemic) so they took actually a lot of time to do the job so poorly that we don't have any special infrastructure ready. I mean if the Prime Minister is campaigning til the very day, the Election commission had to put a ban on it due to the exact reason. BJP is a power hungry party and they involve in open candidate buying in a lot of states post elections(The situation is so bad that the opposition parties actually have to camp with all of the leaders in a secluded resort to prevent any kind of horse-trading to happen). Modi government will never accept their mistakes, which we have already seen with demonetization(another useless idea of the current government, which had already broken's India's back financially), or jobs or various other front the current government is failing on.
  - hesarenu 5y ago
    It seems more like elections and kumbh are standard phrases of opposition party. Cases are exploding in Bangalore. Do you know how far kumbh is to Bangalore. You are just trying to find a scapegoat, like how the RW where using Jamat last Year.
    - tzs 5y ago
      Kumbh Mela is attended by far more than just people who live near where it occurs. People from all across India travel to it, participate, and then go back home.