The Second COVID Wave: A Ground Report from India
Last Thursday, MIT-India was honored to team up with the MIT South Asian Alumni Association to present a highly informative and important webinar on the impacts of the second COVID wave currently ravaging India, featuring medical, policy, and journalistic perspectives.
From right to left: Moderator Mona VijayKumar, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, Ms. Aneesha Bedi, and Professor K. Srinath Reddy.
Panelists included Dr. Gagandeep Kang, a world expert on virology and vaccines, and one of the members of a 12-member national task force for oxygen distribution set up by the Supreme Court of India, for oxygen distribution across the country. Dr. Kang was joined by Professor K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Widely regarded as a leader of preventive cardiology at national and international levels, Prof. Reddy has been an active researcher, teacher, policy enabler, advocate and activist. Our final panelist was Ms. Aneesha Bedi, special correspondent with The Print in India, a web portal with its headquarters in New Delhi. Besides covering political and governance related issues in the national capital, Ms. Bedi has covered the COVID-19 pandemic and is part of the publication’s COVID coverage team, traveling to look at the ground impact of the COVID crisis in various parts of the country.
The panel of experts was moderated by current MIT-India graduate student Mona VijayKumar, an India-based architect who is currently pursuing independent summer research while also working as a research assistant for the Civic Design Initiative at MIT. VijayKumar opened the event with an acknowledgement of the pain and suffering brought on India by the second wave. “Before we proceed,” said VijayKumar, “I invite everyone in the session take a couple of seconds to reflect and acknowledge the grief each of us have experienced, and with that, also realize the importance of finding meaning and hope in our lives during these unsettling times.”
From there, VijayKumar invited Dr. Kang to the conversation, who began with an overview of her involvement in the 12-member task force for oxygen distribution. “In the work that we've done over the last month and a half, I've learned a lot,” said Dr. Kang, “And one of the things that I have learned is just how complicated it is, and how much the government has done in terms of being able to rationalize oxygen supplies.”
Next, Professor K. Srinath Reddy provided his perspective on the COVID-19 crisis in relation to public health policy in India. A strong advocate for increased public health funding, Professor Reddy argued that “You cannot have a swift and strong surge response to a public health emergency if you do not have an efficient and equitable health system functioning in the steady state.”
Lastly, Ms. Aneesha Bedi provided a humanistic perspective on the crisis, sharing harrowing stories from families who lost loved ones to COVID-19. “There were people queuing up outside COVID hospitals, lying on stretchers, and quite literally gasping for breath,” said Ms. Bedi.
The session closed with a Q&A led by VijayKumar, featuring questions asked by the audience. Overall, it was an incredibly illuminating event that shed light on India’s struggle through the worldwide COVID pandemic. We look forward to offering what support we can as the country makes its way out of the second wave. To learn more about what you may be able to do to help, visit our India COVID-19 Resources page.
To view the webinar in full, visit the link below.