How a misplaced sense of complacency and botched government response contributed to a disaster in the country’s capital city.  

By Raghavi Sharma

When Rakesh Bhardwaj and his wife Seema tested positive for COVID-19 on April 17, 2021, days after receiving their first shot of the Covishield vaccine, they followed all the necessary precautions. They isolated themselves in separate rooms, monitored their oxygen levels, and scheduled regular online medical consultations. 

But Seema’s health soon deteriorated and her oxygen level began to fall rapidly. When her oxygen level fell below 92 percent, even with the help of an oxygen cylinder, Rakesh was told to get her urgent medical attention. But no hospital would admit his wife. New Delhi was in the throes of a catastrophic coronavirus crisis. The healthcare system in the capital city was overwhelmed and hospitals were compelled to turn away COVID-19 patients. Rakesh and his wife drove around Delhi the entire night until a hospital with some makeshift Covid facilities admitted Seema the following morning. 

She passed away within an hour of being admitted, but her family was not informed of her death for another 35 hours. 

At the height of the second wave of coronavirus in India in late April, the country was reporting over 400,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases daily. After initial apprehensions of a catastrophic explosion in COVID-19 cases in 2020 were averted, a sense of complacency prevailed across the country. 

“India isn’t having a picnic. But our drains aren’t choked with bodies, hospitals aren’t out of beds, nor crematoriums & graveyards out of wood or space,” wrote Shekhar Gupta, one of India’s most prominent journalists, in a column exactly one year before the onset of the second wave.  

“We are in the end game of the COVID-19 pandemic in India,” the then health minister said on March 7, 2021, even as infections had started to soar again. Large religious gatherings and political rallies were held in the weeks leading up to the disastrous second wave. 

As the new B.1.617 coronavirus variant wreaked havoc across the country, only a tiny percentage of the population had been vaccinated. The vaccine rollout had been slow until that point – and Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s peremptory decision to prioritize exports over vaccinating the domestic population came under fire.

Chaos ensued in the capital as patients died, gasping for oxygen outside hospitals that were struggling to secure oxygen supplies and ventilators. A parliamentary committee in November had flagged the need “to ensure that the oxygen inventory is in place” for hospitals but over the last year, healthcare capacities had not been ramped up to meet the demands of the second wave. 

Civil Society Steps In

As the healthcare system buckled under pressure, volunteers across the city organized networks online to coordinate information about hospital beds and medical supplies. “Information about vacant beds was not reaching people amidst the havoc,” said Ankit Gupta, a Delhi-based podcaster and volunteer who mobilized a team to coordinate distress calls for COVID-19 patients. 

“There was no robust system for coordinating calls in place,” said Ankit. “So every 10-15 minutes, we would call zone officers and hospitals and then update the number of vacant beds on social media. We had volunteers on the field as well monitoring the situation in hospitals, the number of ICU beds, oxygen supplies and ventilator beds.”

At the same time, pleas posted online for oxygen support invited police complaints and 25 persons were arrested for criticizing the central government’s policy to export vaccines. 

Elsewhere, community groups stepped in to fill in the cracks in the healthcare system. Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Sahib, a temple of the Sikh religious community, created a Covid care center with 400 beds. “During the first wave, we stationed healthcare professionals in our guest house in the Gurudwara and served them food because the government didn’t give accommodation to doctors,” said Dr. Harmeet Singh, a retired doctor and community organizer with the Gurudwara. “At the community level, we started several stalls where oxygen was provided. And the best part of this was that everybody – irrespective of their caste or creed –  was helped,” said Dr. Singh. 

Crisis Spurs a Black Market

On the other hand, the desperation of families who were scrambling to arrange oxygen supplies, hospital beds and medication for loved ones spawned a black market and COVID-19 patients were charged exorbitantly high costs for treatment. “The oxygen cylinder that my daughter arranged for us cost 50,000 rupees. And the ambulance was for 200,000 rupees,” said Rakesh. “People minted money during that period. Hospitals were selling 10-day packages for 1.2 million rupees and 12 days packages for 1.5 million rupees.”

“The situation during the second wave was aggravated because supplies were being hoarded. People stored medical supplies at home regardless of whether they needed it,” said Dr Singh. 

Nearly 170,000 deaths took place between April and May 2021, according to official estimates, which are believed to be vastly undercounted. As cremation and burial grounds struggled to manage the influx of bodies, families of COVID-19 victims were forced to pay large sums of money to cremate their loved ones. “They wanted 10,000 rupees in cash from me just to allow us inside,” said Rakesh. “There were 50 pyres at the cremation ground and every slot was full. It was during peak summer and the bodies outside were getting spoiled.” 

Not a single member from Rakesh’s family was at the cremation. “I cremated her like an unclaimed body,” said Rakesh. “In my society alone, 25 deaths took place in that period. People were so worried that nobody came to speak to me when I came home after the cremation. They only watched me from behind closed windows.”

Rakesh’s ordeal continued into the following morning. “When I went to pick up the bones from the pyre and collect the remaining ashes, they asked me to be quick. ‘Sir, hurry up, the next body is waiting,’ they told me,” said Rakesh. “That urn of ashes, which is supposed to be dispersed in the Ganges immediately, stayed in my car for two months.” 

The Indian government has since rejected the WHO’s report that put India’s Covid death tally at 4.7 million. “One government minister in parliament said that there was not a single death over oxygen shortage,” said Rakesh. “We have all witnessed deaths over oxygen shortage. So many dead bodies were simply thrown in the rivers. There was no place in the cremation ground.”
While calls for a commission of inquiry to look into administrative and political failures and government mismanagement during the second outbreak of COVID-19 have subsided, a number of frontline workers have since sought psychological help. “It was a traumatic event,” said Ankit. “I was diagnosed with PTSD after that period. If left unaddressed, the mental health repercussions of this event could lead to intergenerational trauma.”