[Global Times-Global Network Reporter Bai Yunyi] On the 28th, India encountered a "darkest moment": According to a report from the Ministry of Health of the country that day, the total number of deaths due to the new crown in India has exceeded 200,000.
Under the threat of the menacing virus, are the Chinese in India okay?
What is their health and safety situation, what is the most urgent need for help, and what is the real India like in their eyes?
"Global Times" reporter interviewed the stories of several compatriots.
"The landlord was infected. I didn't even dare to get out of the bedroom door, so I had to exercise in the room to'self-help'"
Wang Yuezhou, Chinese student, now living in Delhi
The day before yesterday was a bolt from the blue for me, because the family of the Indian landlord I lived with was infected with the new crown.
I am a university student studying in India, and I rented a house in the old city of Delhi with two Chinese classmates.
It was a small four-story building, we were on the third floor, and the Indian landlord’s family lived on the second floor.
Yesterday, the landlord’s family felt uncomfortable and wanted to go to the hospital for a new crown test, but there were too many people in line for the test, so they couldn’t make it. So they performed a CT scan. The result of the image was that the lungs were infected.
After learning this news, my classmates and I became more nervous.
Recently, we have seen an ambulance from the window more than once to pick up nearby residents, but we did not expect that this time, the virus was so close to us, separated from us by only a thin floor.
In order to protect myself, I still don't even leave the door of my bedroom. Even if I go to the living room on our floor, I have to wear a mask.
Because I know that the resources of Indian hospitals are very tight now. Once you get sick, you may not be able to get treatment at all.
So the only thing I can do now is to eat more protein every day and exercise in the house, hoping to "help myself" in this way, improve my immunity a little bit, and avoid the virus.
The only lucky thing is that India’s express delivery is relatively developed. You don’t need to go out to buy food and daily necessities. You can book online and deliver them to your door. The supply of materials and prices are still stable and guaranteed.
However, I was always very careful when picking up the goods, and asked the courier brother to put the things at the door, wait for a long time for ventilation before taking them in, and disinfect them immediately.
I am very nervous now, but to be honest, some time ago, like other people in India, I thought that the epidemic was under control, and it was a bit slack.
However, I just relax psychologically, and I have been taking protective measures, but many local Indians have relaxed in all their behaviors.
I remember that in January this year, I went to two other states in northern India. At that time, I was surprised to see: On the streets of these two places, no one was wearing a mask, yes, no one!
Even in Delhi, where the epidemic prevention situation is "much better", many people are replacing masks with a kind of woolen cloth with a head in India.
One of my neighbors wears such a piece of cloth to go out every day. I really can't stand it. He also gave him a batch of masks, but he still didn't want to wear it, saying that he was not used to it.
Later, he became infected.
India’s official statistics on infections and deaths are now very serious, but my personal feeling is that the actual infection situation is much more serious than the official figures.
This is because there have been a lot of help posts on my social network that everyone reposted recently. It is because relatives and friends have won the new crown, and the blood of people in need of recovery, etc., have never appeared in the past year.
In addition, as far as I know, there are many people who will not be tested even if they are uncomfortable because they dare not: if they test positive, they will not be able to continue working and there will be problems in their livelihood.
I know people who have such thoughts, and as long as the symptoms are not serious, I will survive on my own.
So I have always believed that many people in India have been infected with the virus unknowingly, and even have antibodies, and some of the symptoms are mild and even they don’t even know it, but they can all infect others.
In my opinion, the measures taken and the orders issued by the Indian government sounded right, but the ability to execute them and the results were very poor.
For example, Delhi now says it is "closed", but a few days ago, a friend of mine came to me from Noida, a satellite city of Delhi, to get me medicine. They came here very smoothly. Is it closed or not?
I think the situation now resembles that joke, "In the eyes of Indians,'planned' is equivalent to'completed'."
Now, there are about 40 or 50 foreign students like me who are still stranded in India, and some of them are still living in the school collectively.
Our greatest wish at the moment is to return to China.
We also don't want to cause trouble to the country, but depending on the current situation in India, it may not get better in one or two years.
I still remember that when the epidemic was severe last year, the Chinese Embassy in India assisted in organizing commercial charter flights for overseas students to return to China. However, I was afraid that it would affect graduation. I did not go back if I could not get a degree.
There was another charter flight during the Spring Festival this year, but at that time the epidemic seemed to be developing in a positive direction. I also trusted the Indian government too much, so I didn't register.
I have always believed that every decision I made in the past year was based on reason, but looking back now, I feel so stupid.
"Almost every one of my clients has immediate or collateral relatives who have fallen ill. Many of them have been infected by domestic servants and labor departments.
Yang Xuhong, Deputy General Manager of Mumbai Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, currently living in Mumbai
From my personal experience, the recent outbreak of the epidemic in India is simply "a world apart" from the first wave of last year.
Not only is the number officially reported rising every day, it is also a significant difference in personal experience:
Last year, I rarely heard of one of our Indian partners, customers or friends who had an infection in their homes, and even less of who had a severe illness.
But in the past two weeks, every time I called to communicate with customers or partners, I almost heard them say, "Someone in the family has the new crown" or "Someone in the relative has the infection."
What is even more shocking to me is that such conditions are almost universal, and many of them are severely ill, and even have deaths.
It can be said that this round of the epidemic has affected almost every family in India, and the psychological impact on them is not the same as last year.
Why did the epidemic in India reach where it is today?
I think there is a trace.
Before the second wave of the epidemic broke out, I observed carefully on the road. Out of every ten people on the street, basically only five or six people wear masks. Among these five or six people, only two or three people cover their mouths and noses. Up.
If you look closely, you will find that many people are actually not wearing masks, but gauze scarves and handkerchiefs. In other words, as long as there is a piece of cloth on the mouth, it is considered a "mask".
Moreover, I estimate that some people have not changed their "masks" for a month or two.
It is understandable why the Indian epidemic has lasted so long, but there has never been a shortage of masks: on the one hand, production has indeed increased, but on the other hand, wearing masks is really just a form for many Indians.
In fact, until March of this year, people thought that India’s epidemic control was very good. Although there are still 10,000 to 20,000 new cases every day, they think that their population base is large. This number is not a big deal. Therefore, India goes up and down. The whole society felt very optimistic at one time.
In March of this year, all restaurants in India were even open for dine-in, with people coming and going, talking and laughing, and there were many gatherings.
Elections and public gatherings have also been liberalized.
Looking back now, this violent outbreak can be said to be the consequence of the neglect of the entire Indian society.
It is worth mentioning that a large part of this epidemic was transmitted within the family, especially many cases were transmitted through domestic servants in India.
In India, many wealthy families hire nannies, servants, and laborers, and the family employs several, including cleaning, cooking, childcare, dog walking, different types of work, and "performing their own duties." The maid also transmitted the virus to other family members.
This situation has also led to further difficulties in prevention and control.
Since the beginning of this month, Mumbai, the largest city in India where I am, has been "closed."
However, India’s “cities closure” is not the same as in China. It is more like a “curfew” and relatively loose: during the day, basic life services are still open, shops and grocery stores can buy things, and they are closed at night.
The restaurant is also open, but now it is not allowed to eat in, only take out.
People can go to work and buy things, but they cannot wander aimlessly.
The bus system is still in operation, but private cars without a permit cannot go out of the street casually.
However, overall, after the blockade, there were a lot fewer pedestrians and vehicles on the streets of Mumbai.
Personally, I still have to go to the office every other day because there are too many things to deal with. However, since last year when the epidemic in India was still in its infancy, we have taken measures like those in China to work in groups to maximize Reduce the number of staff in the office.
I would also urge the driver to wait for local colleagues in India to wear masks and never go to parties after get off work, but it is not known whether they will do so.
In the current situation in India, many employees of Chinese companies are counting on domestic vaccines to come in quickly, but I feel that this may be more difficult to achieve.
India itself is a major vaccine producer, and its relationship with China is not very good, so it has no intention to introduce Chinese vaccines.
However, we are also very worried about the Indian vaccine: their phase III trial has not ended yet, what is the quality of the vaccine?
I don't know; after the fight, the antibody will become positive, can I recognize it when I apply for returning to my country?
do not know either.
However, watching the number of cases in India are rising faster day by day, I think I can't take care of the future. Life-saving is the most important thing right now.
So, after India opened up injections for people over 45 years old in April, I immediately went to the hospital to get local vaccines.
Later, I heard that other Chinese had also been vaccinated.
As far as I know, most of the employees of Chinese companies in India now want to return to China.
However, there are certain difficulties in the realization of this wish: First, there are no direct flights between India and China, and there are even few transit routes. Most countries have suspended passenger flights with India; second, we have some Chinese capital. Enterprises are central enterprises and state-owned enterprises. We need to protect the country's interests and business operations in India, and we have a responsibility here.
When the first round of the epidemic broke out in India last year, most of the Chinese-funded personnel had already returned to China through commercial chartered flights and other channels. Today, there are only about 500 or 600 Chinese employees who are still here. Most of them have no way to abandon their business and return to the country. of.
Therefore, what we are most looking forward to is that India's own situation will improve.
Although most predictions are that the infection situation in India has not yet reached its peak, it will not reach an inflection point until May.
However, I have seen that after a period of blockade in Mumbai, the number of new infections in a single day has declined in the first two days, which shows that strict social distancing measures are still useful.
"A household of 6 people, 3 infections-perhaps, our'herd immunity' process has just begun"
Tan Xining, an employee of an Internet company, married an Indian boyfriend in 2017 and now lives in Gurgaon
There are six people living in my Indian home: father-in-law, mother-in-law, husband, me, and a couple tenants.
Now, three out of six people have been infected with the new crown virus.
I think maybe we are just at the beginning of the "herd immunity" process.
My mother-in-law and husband probably got the infection on the traditional Indian festival "Holi" at the end of last month.
On that day, the mother-in-law went to a relative's house to participate in religious activities. Soon after returning home, she developed fever and fatigue. Later, her husband also developed symptoms.
Later, relatives told us that their family members also tested positive.
I don’t know what the infection chain is like, but everything happened very fast.
Fortunately, both of them had milder symptoms, so they performed some conservative rehabilitation at home.
My father-in-law has been vaccinated against the new crown and is responsible for taking care of them, but I, who is still negative, moved to the top of the house and isolated myself.
I also started to contact some friends in China, order some medicines, and make some preparations in advance in case of infection.
More unfortunate than my family and I are our tenants. They are a couple. The wife was also diagnosed during the infection of my husband and mother-in-law.
Her condition was much more serious and she was sent to the hospital's ICU for observation and treatment.
She lives in a very good large private hospital, but it is said that some of the drugs used to treat the new crown have been used up there.
However, she is still relatively "lucky" because there are still some hospitals in India that do not even have beds. At least the medical resources of big cities like Gurgaon have not been "pierced", and she still has beds for treatment.
Therefore, from my personal experience and observations, the infection within the family in this round of epidemic is very serious.
My family is considered to have isolation conditions, but more than 70% of Indian families do not have such conditions, and Indians have a strong family concept and are accustomed to living together for two or three generations, so the elderly and children are also more susceptible to infection.
However, perhaps due to religious and cultural reasons, I feel that although Indians feel anxious and painful for the epidemic and their sick relatives, the overall social and psychological state is not as "miserable" as reported by many foreign media.
The concept of hierarchy in Indian society is very heavy. Some poor people think that it may be more important to have money to live tomorrow than infection; while others think that even if one day we really die due to illness, what can we do?
It's like in the eyes of my mother-in-law and husband, whether they are sick or not, how the condition develops, "everything is arranged by heaven."