 Hello you watching News Made Easy and I want to apologize in advance because this video is going to be a bit of a rant because it's been more than a year since COVID-19 hit India. We went into a lockdown and now we are back to square one. Nothing has changed. We appear to have learnt no lessons from the worst year in our recent history. The center has learnt nothing, state governments have learnt nothing and to be honest, we haven't learnt anything at all either. So cases, daily cases are hitting all-time highs, we are talking about restrictions in all cities, we are getting night curfews, public transport, the number of people they can carry as half, restaurants can't take that many people, cinema theaters are being closed in some places, in some places they are only allowed to take 50% of the number of seats that they have. So restrictions are in place and Maharashtra is once again talking about a possible lockdown. So basically we are back where we started and if news reports are to be believed and you can see the pictures as well and the data suggests as well that this is happening migrant workers have started going back to their villages because they're scared that the lockdown is coming and they'll get caught in cities without any food, without any money, without any work. So the process is restarting once again 12 months later. And by the way, even if there's no official lockdown, people have stopped going out because when there's such a surge in COVID cases people begin to be scared and they stay at home. So restaurants aren't getting footfalls. I have a friend who has a restaurant just outside Delhi and they told me that their footfalls in the restaurant had never really reached their peak that it had in let's say last year and 2020 before COVID hit. But it went up to about 70-75% of their peak by late February, early March. That has dropped now back to below 50% so you can see what is happening. And this is not an isolated case. In every customer facing service industry that is exactly what is happening. And what does that mean? That means that suppliers are getting affected, small suppliers, vendors are getting affected, those who transport things are getting affected, rickshaw wallas, cab drivers, hawkers, daily wages, everyone is getting affected. But if this continues for long, then jobs will be lost. Salary jobs will be lost exactly like it had happened last year. We've seen a bit of a recovery, but if you compare the data then even now we have not gone back to what it was pre-COVID. And now once again it's threatening to go down further. And we know what happened to migrant workers last year. A study shows that when they went back to their villages, they did not find work. One in three people did not find work. Even though the government increased Manrega transfers, the number of jobs under Manrega, the mandates increased. Despite that, one in three did not find work. There was a huge rise in employment in agriculture, in the farm sector, which is nothing but disguised unemployment. Because what the work that could have been done by two people was being done by three people. And therefore that extra person who had come in from the city back home might have called themselves employed in the farm. But actually they were adding nothing. Effectively they were not getting any extra income and therefore were unemployed. So by the way, why are we talking about a lockdown again? If there had been enough hospital beds, if there had been enough medicines, if there had been enough oxygen, doctors, nurses, then we really wouldn't have been worried about a lockdown, right? We would have said, okay, continue with your work, maintain social distancing. But even if the disease spreads, there are enough hospital beds, enough critical care beds, ICU beds, for the various states to take care of their patients. One year has gone by, we've done nothing about it. Once again, why are we talking about a lockdown? You know, lockdowns do help in curbing infections, but that takes a long time. Because what happens immediately if you also do not have isolation places? Places where there is a decent living accommodation and treatment for people who are infected. What happens? Those who are isolated inside their homes, quarantined inside their homes, if there's one infected person, they're in constant touch with the rest of the family. So at least another two, three people in the family end up getting COVID. So therefore, you actually see a sudden increase in numbers precisely because of the lockdown. And lockdown does not immediately help. So lockdowns only work if you have decent, as I say, decent, clean, hygienic, well-maintained isolation centers for those who are infected. They need to be given the option to leave their families, even if they're not severe cases. I'm not talking about going to hospital to just go to an isolation center so that their families remain unaffected. And that is what stops the spread, not just a lockdown. And again, we had one year to do this. We had one year to build more hospitals, to put in place more beds. We had one year to train paramedical staff across India. We have many people who work as compounders. They could have been trained to work on COVID patients, to help COVID patients. We did none of that. We did not build any good isolation centers and cities to put those who are infected away from their families where they would feel confident to go and not be scared that they'll be treated badly. Now, compare that to China. Last year, in February 2020, China built a COVID hospital in 10 days flat. In 10 days, they had a temporary hospital ready. Again, in January this year, when they started worrying about a rise in COVID numbers in Beijing, they immediately built a 1,500 bed, 1,500 bed COVID hospital in five days. An isolation center was set up with 1,300 rooms and structures in record time. This was done in China. All right, you can say China is an authoritarian country. And there, if an order comes from the top, no one can question it. They can command your resources. They can command your land in a very authoritarian manner. Fine, you can't do that in India. But you can do something. You don't have to just sit around doing nothing at all and have nothing ready at all. So here's the other point. We were in the last two months extremely complacent, congratulating ourselves that India has dealt with the COVID crisis so brilliantly. Our netas were out there without masks, mingling with crowds, campaigning for elections. And what message were they sending to the average citizen? They're sending a message that, OK, it's over. Don't worry anymore. You can go into crowded places. There's nothing to worry about. Only cowards and paranoid people are worried. So you can go out. There's no need to wear a mask because I'm not wearing a mask. I'm a big leader. Why do you have to wear a mask? So therefore, we instilled our leaders, our political establishment, instilled in the average citizen a sense that COVID is over. And once that has happened and COVID has started increasing again, what has happened? Our netas are blaming us. Our governments are saying people were lax. But what were the leaders doing? So leaders sent a message that it is OK. And yes, people are equally to blame. I'm not saying they're not to blame. There were many people who were roaming around without masks. They were going to places where they needn't have gone at all. They were in parties and social gatherings without masks with no social distancing. They were going off on holidays to these spots where there were a lot of people in one place. So that has been happening. There's no doubt about that. And all experts are saying that it's a combination of two things, a faster spreading variant or maybe more than one variant that has come in of COVID and the fact that people were lax. They gave up all the protocols like wearing masks. But that's the problem. As I said, that if the leaders, if the establishment sends a message that it's OK to not wear masks, then how can you expect the citizen to not follow that same principle? So here is point number two. Number two of the things that have led to this crisis and finally the vaccines. 65 million doses have been exported. And there's already a shortage in various states. Now, I'm not saying don't export the vaccines. It's part of, let's say, building your goodwill as a nation, helping other countries in a crisis situation. Yes, indeed export. But has the Indian government at all helped companies like Serum Institute or even Bharat Biotech produce more? Has it helped other pharma companies in India to develop vaccines, to tie up with other vaccine makers across the world and produce them in India? Compare that to the United States, where the orders were given in bulk to pharma to vaccine manufacturers. And that was after they'd been given billions of dollars in aid to develop these vaccines. Nothing like that has happened in India. So at every stage, we have been behind the curve. We've been self congratulatory. And frankly, those who are taking steps, those who were trying to be secure, trying to protect themselves, we laughed at them. We said that you're paranoid. You are doing things which are not required anymore. Today, we're facing a surge because of precisely this lax attitude towards this pandemic. And because of that, we have again faced a setback. It's setting us back. We could have had economic growth. We're now staring at another few months of low economic growth, joblessness, poor people becoming poorer, salaried people losing jobs. So this is a crisis which has been created by us, which we could have stopped.