By SOMALARAM VENKATESH, MD
In “Asterix and the Roman Agent”, Julius Caesar deploys Tortuous Convolvulus to cause internal conflict among the Indomitable Gauls. Until then, the only fights the peaceful Gaulish village witnessed were between Unhygienix, the fishmonger and Fulliautomatix, the village smith. The Gauls always stood united against the Roman army and in spite of the occasional free-for-all, would always come together at the end for a boisterous feast.
In the new millennium, India – like many other countries – has exhibited deep fault lines circumscribing hardened ideologies. It is that time in India’s history that Government’s economic and administrative actions are either inherently partisan, or projected to be divisive by its detractors. If SARS-Cov2 were to be an insidious single-stranded helical malware designed to sneakily break societal monoliths, there couldn’t have been a more opportune time for it than this. This pandemic has become an administrative nightmare.
The first case of Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) in India was detected on January 30th. After a lull for the next two weeks, stray reports of COVID-positive cases started from mid-February. A surreal calm descended across the country even as the COVID deaths climbed rapidly elsewhere in China, Italy & Iran. The nation went through a phase of wishful denial & unfounded bravado that tropical heat will protect Indians & that a younger, innately immune population will be somehow spared.
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