Kumardeep Banerjee

Even on February 4, when the active Covid-19 caseload was at its lowest, the government was repeatedly advising Covid appropriate behaviour, including masking, social distancing, and vaccination. Nearly five months after living through one of the worst nightmares, people's carele ssness seems to have not changed at all. I spoke to a couple of friends who run hotels in hill stations around Delhi and they shared a horror story. Most of them, while happy about the spurt in tourist in flow, are looking at an early revival of a year-long,dried-up business but are equally horrified with how people seem to have for gotten that the pandemic is far from over.If that is not enough, the Prime Minister has also warned the tourists and nonessential travelers to maintain caution. The onus is on the citizens to prevent a third wave. Meanwhile, some State governments, despite facing the brunt of the pandemic, have opened the flood gates for the annual carnival of devotees who collect holy water from the Ganges and return by foot, bikes, and music-blaring trucks. The event comes hardly three months after the Mahakumbh which was touted as a super spreader of the Delta variant of the virus. The Uttarakhand government has banned Kanwar yatra for this year, it is time for Uttar Pradesh to follow. However, the issue is not India-centric alone. The visuals of fans from the Uefa Cup or Wimbledon, packed like sardines in the stadia with none wearing masks, in acountry caught in the middle of the “third wave”,prove that the apathy is spread geographically.

The solutions are also coming in from across the globe.The Tokyo Olympics,after a year's delay, has declared a six-week emergency in and around the theatre of the world's biggest sporting event. A country with an inadequate number of vaccinated, especially among the young,decided not to afford a careless, hysterical frenzy. Saudi Arabia has shut its doors to anybody from outside the country to undertake the holy Haj pilgrimage, the second year in a row. This is where the world needs to draw its lessons from. The Indian Medical Association and experts have been repeatedly warning of a more lethal third wave, seeking a ban on all religious, political, or social gatherings which could potentially become super spreaders. However, the advice may again prove to be a wasted effort. A big fallout of the second wave has been the optics around the inadequate government measuresto handle the pandemic. Yes, the health minister has lost his job, but the threat is far from over. The government's vaccination scheme which underwent rapid changes in the initial few months and then picked up a comfortable pace seems to be slowing down once again. The pace of vaccination which had hit its highest on June 21 managed to stay there only a couple of daysand State governments have started complaining of stocks running scarce. It is more a case of the manufacturers being unable to provide supplies fast than a failure of the government. However, with a new health minister in place, and the additional portfolio of pharmaceuticals under his belt, it is not difficult to rectify the situation.  In a large country like India, shuttering down factories, shops and establishments may not be the smartest way to prevent another wave of the virus. It is also too much to expect a country of 1.3 billion people to practice social distancing. The only option is vaccination. If India manages to vaccinate nearly half of its population, it will be in a safer position to prevent another tragedy.

(The writer is a policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.)