Let me start with a prayer: that none of you, your relatives or dear ones catches ‘symptomatic’ Covid-19 and ends up at the ENT. Prayer is the only thing I can offer you to save you from becoming a statistic in the horror stories coming out of the ENT hospital, or should I say the stories that die within.

A terrifying silence is all you get. No one knows what goes on inside. How many working ventilators are really available? What happened in the Pack-and-Blister Rs500 million saga? Apart from the fact that the company took the money as well as the faulty but over-priced ventilators – the greatest deal in history – there is no update. Any medication available? Yes, plenty. What kind? Silence! In the meantime, far too many people are dying. And we are not just talking about the old. People in the prime of their youth, sometimes fully vaccinated and with no underlying condition, are leaving us in the apparent indifference of the authorities. Others are left to die in self-isolation.

No one is claiming that there is an easy solution to Covid-19. There isn’t. No one is saying that Covid-19 is not killing people around the world. It is. The difference is that over here, hospitals are not always given the necessary equipment, manpower and medication to deal with the patients. As for communication and transparency, please don’t even go there. The sense of complacency we are lulled into, combined with half-truths, no truths and massaging the figures have widened the trust deficit that already existed between the citizen and the authorities. It now seems beyond repair.

In spite of the dillydallying, contradictions and caginess that characterised the first wave of Covid, we came out of it with relatively few casualties and we were Covid safe for months. That was mainly thanks to the health authorities and Dr Gujadhur and his team, who managed to secure the nation’s trust by speaking the truth. No lying, no politicking. Just the harsh truth. Take it or leave it.

And the people of this country took it and followed advice, because they understood the gravity of the situation and how they could prevent it from worsening. That discourse has been replaced by spin. Ask about the number of Covid deaths and listen to the ministers blowing their own trumpet about the rate of vaccination. Talk about the number of infections and hear their self-congratulatory comments that show how cut off they are from reality. Listen to them as they push us for a third dose of vaccine when many doctors and even the World Health Organisation are advising against it!

In the meantime, shocking stories of bodies rotting in the sun and photos of Covid-patients sunbathing on their hospital beds in the middle of relatives and onlookers are coming out of overfilled hospitals.

Yet, the self-congratulatory tone is undented. Even shifting a few items of furniture from an air-conditioned office and turning it into a make-shift morgue gives the authorities sufficient grounds to brag. Covid has been with us for nearly two years but it is only now that we are thinking about setting up a place to store the dead to prevent rotting bodies!

Should we perhaps be thankful for the privilege of enjoying some cool air once we are dead? How about giving us every chance to live instead? Is it too much asking for that thought to one day cross the minds of those managing this crisis and bragging about their imaginary success in handling the dead? What are they doing about the living, pray tell?