Pandemic Revisited~I

The response of the so-called 'enlightened' West was decidedly selfish; even before any Covid-19 vaccine was approved by WHO, the Western world had negotiated opaque deals with vaccine makers, and bought up almost all vaccines that were yet to be developed. Many of these same rich governments blocked a proposal by India and South Africa at the WTO to waive intellectual property rules for Covid-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines

- DEVENDRA SAKSENA The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax

Unquestionably, the greatest catastrophe to befall mankind in the twenty-first century was the Covid-19 pandemic, which raged across continents, sparing no one, leaving no corner of the globe untouched. Hence, the recent spike in Covid-19 cases in South-East Asia, particularly Singapore and Hong Kong, and the rise in Covid-19 cases in Thailand and China—the source of the first Covid-19 wave in 2020—has epidemiologists worried the world over. The rise in Covid-19 cases across Asia, even during summer months, may not herald another wave of the pandemic, but the current outbreak does show that Covid-19 is not done and dusted—the virus is alive and kicking, and mutating to newer forms.

The disadvantaged bore the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic; almost 40 per cent of Covid deaths in the US were reported from residential institutions housing the old and disabled. Ill-thought-out policies like nationwide lockouts worsened existing inequalities, hitting the poorest of the poor especially hard. Stagnating industrial production and disruptions to global trade caused by the pandemic resulted in worldwide galloping inflation, and worsened by the Russia-Ukraine war.