COVID-19 is a global pandemic. It isn’t an economic or political crisis which we often talk about; it is a health crisis. The losses that humanity suffered are not limited to livelihoods but also include lives. A crisis which had the power to destroy everything. 

India was no exception to it. For almost a year, the whole Nation was under a lockdown. It affected people not just financially, but also emotionally. Situation in India looked relatively better until January 2021. But from February 2021, with the onset of the second wave, the situation seemed out of hand. With the sudden rise in numbers and unavailability of oxygen and other necessities like beds, medicines and injections, it looked hopeless. We suffered great losses but came up with a response.

As it would happen in India, even at the peak of crises, instead of focusing completely on the crisis at hand, we started to indulge in the blame game.  Starting from Farmers protest to the various state assembly elections to the Mahakumbh in Uttarakhand. We were never short of reasons to blame the second wave based on the political ideology we associated with. But looking back at the whole situation, it becomes important to look at the numbers and understand if it was a nation-wide problem or was it specific to some states. Before we enter into the blame game, we need to understand which state had a significant number in the total figures.

We will look at the overall figures of India and also of certain states which remained in discussion throughout. Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi remained in news for their high number of cases; West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were talked about because of elections; Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana were in news because of the farmers' protest and Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for the Kumbh Mela. If we just look at these states throughout the pandemic, these states had the share of more than 70% of total cases on an average. This rose to over 80% during the peak of the second wave. The majority share remains the same when we talk about total confirmed cases and deaths. The graph below gives a graphical presentation of the share of these states in the National total.

This suggested that it is important to have a careful look at these states to understand where the complexities were the most. If we look at the chart below, it tells us about the active cases in India and growth rates of the same.

The second wave was at its peak in April 2021, but if we look at the growth rates which were negative till February 2021, shifts to the positive thereafter. That is when the whole second wave had started to expand. Now which are the states which had significant numbers at that point in time?

One approach could be to have a look at which states had the major share of cases during the time. The graph below gives an idea about the same.

This graph gives no clear understanding except the fact that the cases were highly concentrated in certain states. We will now approach it in a different manner. It becomes ambiguous due to the large share of certain states. The cases started to rise for the second time in the first fortnight of February 2021. This could be because of various factors i.e., the states with high cases, elections in certain states, the farmer protest or the Kumbhmela. The graphs below tell us about the growth rates of active cases in the various states.

 

• Here are some major observations of the graphs above:In February 2021, the growth rates across states are either on a decreasing trend or more or less constant. But an exception here is that in the states of Haryana and Punjab the growth rates had started to rise. In the initial phase of the second wave the highest growth rate of active cases is in these states and the time period coincides with the farmers protesting in Delhi returning back to their home. But to say that this was the sole reason will not be correct.

•   If we look at the states with elections, the rise in growth rates for Bengal coincides with the election dates and for Tamil Nadu it matches with the campaign and actual dates of election dates.

• The only factor left is Kumbhmela.  The kumbhmela started on April 9^th 2021 and was cancelled halfway through. To say that the cases started to rise because of kumbhmela will not be correct because the cases had started to pick up weeks before the actual event. It was a wrong decision to conduct kumbhmela during that time because the cases were already rising. But with the scale down of kumbhmela the cases did start to fall in the state

To summarize, the initial rise during the second wave was in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi where the farmers protesting in the national capital started to return back home. The election states also contributed to the second wave, but the situation seemed relatively worse in Tamil Nadu where even during the campaign phase, the cases were already rising. But in other states like West Bengal, Kerala etc. the major spike was during the elections (voting) which can be attributed to the campaign days. This means that the growth in active cases of Bengal after the election campaigns can be attributed to the campaign, and in Tamil Nadu the cases were already on an upward trend even before the election campaign started. The elections in West Bengal could be justified with a relatively small number of active cases but in places like Tamil Nadu it was an absolute blunder even with the knowledge of the situation then. And finally, talking of kumbhmela the cases were already rising so to say that rise in cases was because of kumbhmela may not be completely correct. But another observation made is with scaling down of kumbhmela, the cases also saw a downward trend. After this the majority of cases were observed in certain states only where the cases were always at peak and had a majority share throughout. There is no single point to blame, it is the whole ecosystem in the place which has caused this collective trouble.

Summary

What also needs to be evaluated is if the severity of COVID was the same throughout the nation. This becomes important because if 12 states and Union Territories account for more than 70% of active cases for most of the time period can we say we were better in other places? It will not be correct to say that because for that we need to consider so many other factors like Mortality rate, number of people hospitalized and availability of such facilities, economic impact, the population of the state, population density of the states etc. These questions need to be answered before making any such statement. Furthermore, reported active cases depend heavily on the number of tests being done and we need to look at how many tests were done. If the tests being conducted are really low in the other states the results can be misleading. 

The initial spike during the second wave starts from the northern states of Haryana and Punjab but when at its peak the majority of cases were reported in the states of Maharashtra and Kerala. The election states did have a negative impact on the whole situation.  And the same set of states had more than 80% of total active cases which shows the high concentration in the active cases. Whether the high concentration of active cases is because the other states handled the situation well or because they did not do enough tests need to be evaluated. And we want to blame someone, it has to be us.

 

Image Credits: Pixabay.com

 

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