The belief that still waters run deep is what holds true regarding the coronavirus, and Covid-19. And as everybody knows, still waters also hide a lot of sunken crap. That applies to India’s Covid display, too. The Covid coloured patches (states) of India keep changing, metamorphosing by the week. Kerala, which started off by bringing the coronavirus under control and then, despite the steady flow of the foreign-returned NRI to its shores, was able to set an example for the world, is now back to making a spectacle of itself in the Covid world. So much so, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is thinking of locking down the state for another longish spell. ‘What the hell?’ and ‘Why?’ are the shocked reactions.

A Kerala wag answered with a questionable video, which shows a “boy of 13” with hands and feet tied to a hospital bed in the Trivandrum Medical College Hospital. The boy is both Covid-19 and mentally-challenged and has been allegedly left to his devices by hospital staff who don’t care what happened to the coronavirus-laid admitted in this premier government hospital. The boy was reportedly tied to the bed by harassed attendants of other Covid-19 patients in the Ward (No.14). And to think that Kerala boasts of near 100% literacy and achieving the commanding heights of international human indices including commonsense and compassion. Bah!

Seems like internationally-feted Kerala health minister Shailaja Teacher and acknowledged ‘Great Administrator’ Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan have both lost touch with the people of Kerala and have given up to the wiles of the coronavirus. Sections of the Kerala media are speaking of a “complete collapse” of the “public health bubble” and say that the situation is “worse than that of Bengaluru” in the neighbouring BJP-ruled state of Karnataka, where things have reached such a passe that citizens are refusing to step outdoors and step up to cremate/bury their Covid-dead. The media, the few that still publish and print, are competing with each other in coining deadly headlines!

Tamil Nadu, which shares borders with both Kerala and Karnataka, is another state which is full of Covid-19 woes. And though there are reports of migrant workers returning to jobs they dumped a couple of months ago, the rampaging coronavirus seems to be in no haste to call it a day and stop infecting newer numbers. Tamil Nadu is the ‘No.2 State’ in the Indian Union and is pitted with industrial hubs. The Tamils take great pride in the exalted ‘status’ of the state. People are clamouring for the opening up of the Tamil Nadu economy but they know that’s as much up to the coronavirus as it is to the state authorities.

Yup, it’s a dilemma every state of the Indian Union is facing. And the decision depends on the state government. Some state governments are tougher while others cower and abdicate. For instance, Pune in Maharashtra, a city which the coronavirus has refused to release from its grips despite running the gamut of strict lockdowns. A fresh 10-day spell of lockdown was imposed on Pune on July 14. But then there was a public (read business-people) uproar and all semblance of lockdown was dumped halfway through and it’s now being reported that the Pune authorities were “blackmailed” with threats of “suicide” and “taking things into their hands” by trading associations! Apparently, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is not the tough and hardened Shiv Sainik that his father Balasaheb Thackeray and cousin Raj Thackeray were.

The fact of the matter is India is on its way to beat the United States to the status of ‘No.1 Covid Country,’ a roll of honour position which it cannot avoid no matter how much the United States tries to hold on to the top spot. And that will be much to the delight of The Global Times, the English language mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, which has been replete with opinion pieces asking India to toe an “independent foreign policy” and desist from targeting China when it had the coronavirus to tackle at home. Sound advice but for the fact that China was using that time and opportunity to intrude into and salami-slice India at the LAC.

India on Thursday (July 23) recorded the highest number of new coronavirus positive cases and this after the overall number crossed into the million+ just a couple of days before. The states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Goa are all reeling under that coronavirus onslaught and both the Centre and the state governments should know that they have a pandemic in their hands to conquer if they have forgotten. (IPA Service)