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BIG STORY APRIL 23, 2021 | The Indian Eye 5

The medical experts are
worried sick. Dr. Jalil Parkar,
one of India’s leading pulmo-
nologists, wears his exhaustion
on his face. In between treating
patients at the COVID-19 in-
tensive care unit of Mumbai’s
prestigious Lilavati Hospital,
Parkar appears regularly on
TV to give updates on the cur-
rent, devastating second wave
of the pandemic that is killing
thousands of Indians. He him-
self spent time in the ICU last
year and almost died after suf-
fering multiple COVID-com-
plications. Now, he confesses to
losing his calm over what he is
seeing unfold every day.
“Our healthcare system has
collapsed. We have let down
our own people in the country,”
he says. “What can doctors do Relatives of COVID-19 patients queue up to get refilled Oxygen cylinder at Talkatora Industrial area,
when our infrastructure is un- in Lucknow on Friday. (ANI)
able to take the patients, when
there are no hospital beds or ox-
ygen cylinders?”
Not just the healthcare sys-
tem, the country’s image too is
in tatters.
For image-conscious Nar-
endra Modi, the foreign press’s
reviews of his handling of the
coronavirus pandemic must
make devastating reading. Modi
has gone from hero to minnow
in fighting Covid-19 in the eyes
of the world press as daily in-
fections have soared to succes-
sive new records. After appear-
ing to have skilfully ridden the
first Covid wave with one of the
world’s strictest national lock-
downs, Modi has been engulfed
by the second, according to the
verdict of the foreign media.
Headlines like: “Modi floun-
ders in India’s gigantic second
wave,” in The Times, London,
have been typical of the cover-
age that the Prime Minister has
been receiving as the daily count A COVID-19 patient breathes with the support of an oxygen cylinder as he arrives at a government hospital amid
of new Covid cases has barrelled the surge in Coronavirus cases, in Kolkata on Friday. (ANI)
past 300,000. The Times has
blasted the government’s re- ranging from op-eds to detailed the country are running out of haustively by sections of India
sponse to the latest coronavirus reports – on India’s situation space at a time when with the media, a study of them is worth-
wave, saying it has “underscored and the lack of governance in kicking off of vaccination drives while chiefly to note how India’s
the air of complacency and deni- key aspects that led to it. The worldwide, the end to the pan- handling of the second wave has
al that have dogged his govern- national capital is held hostage demic had appeared near. reflected worldwide. Among
ment’s response to the crisis.” by an unprecedented shortage While global media reports publications that have minced
News outlets across the in medical oxygen and burial deal largely with events and as- no words in holding the Centre
world have focused pieces – grounds and crematoria across pects of the crisis reported ex- Continued on next page... >>

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