The symptoms emerge within 14 days of exposure to the virus. So far the coronavirus has infected over 3 million people worldwide. And doctors and scientists are still not sure of the enemy’s full potential to ramrod the human race. Lots of talk of a vaccine in the offing, but “by when” is uncertain. More so because, according to the CDC, “knowledge surrounding the deadly disease continues to evolve.”

A new discovery is, a grim one, that while older men and women are more at risk, some younger Covid-19 patients are dying of sudden strokes in the United States. The virus is causing clots in arteries, resulting in the death dealing strokes. Most of the young patients had no medical history of thickening arteries and reportedly had only mild Covid-19 symptoms.

Yet another symptom reported in the United States is “Covid toes.” Purple lesions on the feet or the hands that show up with or without the other symptoms. The CDC, however, doesn’t mention ‘Covid toes.’ It only emphasizes immediate hospitalization upon having “trouble breathing, persistent pain or pressure in the chest, new confusion or inability to arouse and bluish lips or face.”

Not much is divulged about the state of Covid patients hospitalized in India. Like befitting a third world country, most Indians are considered unfit to make out dumbed down headlines. So nothing much about Covid-19 escapes the corona ward in Indian hospitals except maybe the coronavirus. The only advice given is if you’re still breathing okay, steer clear of hospitals and Covid-19 containment zones.

Then again, it’s not the coronavirus that is bothering India’s vulnerable, which include not only elders with co-morbidities, but also lakhs of young and middle-aged migrant workers stuck in “alien” lands across India, largely uncared for and left to fend for themselves. The sudden lockdown of March 25 and the subsequent extension up till May 3 led to desperation bordering on open rebellion in these people.

Hordes of migrant workers are protesting out in the open regardless of government orders not to; and, unmindful of the police and paramilitary. Most of all, there is no fear of catching the virus by breaking social distancing and other anti-Covid-19 safety norms. These are the biggest and most disturbing challenges facing Indian authorities.

The other day, migrant diamond workers in Surat gathered and protested in the hundreds demanding the government arrange transport for them to “return home.” This has been the migrant refrain from Day 1 of the lockdown. Governments have responded differently and meagrely. The full gravity of the migrant workers crisis brought about by Covid-19 and lockdown is yet to hit.

There’s more than a sneaking feeling that the Centre and state governments are not stacking up to the challenges. It helps that cashless migrant workers holed up in “alien” lands with or without adequate food cannot make a hue and cry unless it’s the sort mounted in the spur of the moment – like in Delhi post-March 25 – or in an organized manner – like in Surat the other day.

And it’s not just the desire to be with near and dear ones which is driving migrant workers and their immediate families to desperation. Most basically, it’s the fear of being left without the means to get the most basic of essentials – food for sustenance – which is compelling migrant workers to take to the streets regardless of coronavirus and Covid-19.

At least two reports, one by the Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) and the other by faculty of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) released in the last one week talk of the gross inadequacy of the welfare measures targeted at migrant workers. They speak of food shortages, cashless distress and the misery of living without doctors and medical facilities to treat ailments other than Covid-19.

The spectre of looming unemployment, if the jobs have not already been lost, and subsequent inability to send money to dependents is only part of the mortal struggle. Also striking anger is that tens of thousands of migrant workers have not received the direct bank transfers announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Out of the scores of mobile calls SWAN took or made from/to migrant workers, tens elicited anger at this government failure. “The lockdown announcement and official discourse including statements of Chief Ministers, like Shivraj Singh Chouhan, have pitted lives against livelihoods and health against wealth,” says the SWAN report.

“…while containment and testing efforts, and investment in public health systems need to be urgently ramped up, the social and economic costs of the lockdown cannot be ignored.” The report says since the time the first lockdown was announced to the second lockdown, more than 350 government orders on relief measures but that “these (were) temporary measures and not sustainable.”

Even such steps like the Centre’s aid to construction workers, which overlooked unregistered stranded migrants, and the MHA directive to pay wages without deduction and make no demand for rent, mostly went for a toss. The promises of free rations to both ration card and non-ration card holders and the cash largesse have been mostly kept in the breach.

The real cost of Narendra Modi’s event-based style of functioning, administrating a country of India’s size and complexity of issues and problems, will be known only after the pandemic. For now, both headache and the spectre of hunger are Covid-19 symptoms for the migrant worker. (IPA Service)