Over the last week, with my body temperatures crossing 102 degrees and oxygen saturation levels falling to 88, I have exited most Whatsapp groups. My school group, don’t get me wrong, has some very selfless souls working 24×7 to organize beds, oxygen, remdesivir, concentrators; but the overall mood appears, at least to my fevered brain, one of pure hatred. Modi has done this, Modi has done that, he’s so callous, he doesn’t mind people dying, he brought forward the Kumbh by a year to enhance his popularity, held mammoth election rallies …
While they rightly lampooned Modi when he was slow to commit to buy vaccines in the way the US and the UK did, most rained scorn on him when he freed prices and held forth on what a mess he had made since the poor would now never get vaccines. Never mind that increased supplies were critical or that, whatever the free market price was, half the total supply would be given to the central government at a low price. The usual suspects trotted out theories, faithfully forwarded on WhatsApp groups, on how despot-democrats – Trump, Bolsonaro and Modi – made a hash of dealing with Covid while liberal ones like Jacinda Ardern dealt with it so well; never mind the complete lack of comparison of the economies in terms of their prosperity, complexity and size.
Read More at https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/covid-is-the-enemy-not-the-government/2240340