Covid-19: BBC journalists recall horrors of India’s lockdown five years on

On 24 March 2020, India announced its first Covid quarantine, just as the world stood on the verge of a global pandemic that would say millions of lives.

Under the weight of the pandemic, India’s now fragile medical system collapsed.

The WHO estimated over 4.7 million Covid deaths in India – nearly 10 times the official count – but the government rejected the figure, citing flaws in the methodology.

Five years later, BBC India reporters reflect on their experience recounting how, at occasions, they became part of the story they were covering.

BBC News, Soutik Biswas

It was the summer of 2021.

I woke up to a university teacher’s furious voice. Her father, 46, had been fighting Covid in a Delhi medical where air was out of reach.

Here we go suddenly, I thought, panic creeping in. Delhi was at the heart of a destructive second wave of infections that had put India in the hold of. And it was just another day in a town where it was customary to breathe.

We scrambled for aid, making calls, sending SOS information, hoping someone might have a guide.

Her voice trembled when she claimed that her husband had a lower hydrogen level than 58. It ought to have been 92 or higher. He was slipping, but she clung to the small satisfaction that it had climbed to 62. He was speaking and also speaking. For the time being.

But how much could this next? I pondered. How many more life would be lost because the fundamentals, such as gas, beds, and healthcare, were beyond achieve? This wasn’t supposed to happen in 2021. No right below.

The girl returned the call. The doctor didn’t even have an air flow sensor, she said. She had to locate one on her own.

We made another effort. Phones buzzed, posts flew into the hole, hoping someone would notice us. A system was suddenly discovered, a welcome relief from the despair. The air would flow with air. For the time being.

However, the quantities weren’t false.

A 40-year-old man died waiting for a pillow, according to a report from the same doctor. He found a bed, at least, the report thoughtfully added. We are now thankful for a place to lay the deceased.

Oxygen was a resource in light of this. But were medicines, in short supply and collected by those who could give. The town choked on its own indifference, and people were dying from breathing.

This was a conflict. It felt like a battle. And we were losing it.

Yogita Limaye, BBC News

A person screamed” Balaji, why are you lying like this” while stumbling her unconscious nephew, who was stretchered outside Delhi’s GTB doctor.

Her brother, the father of two children, passed away shortly after waiting outside a doctor before also being seen by a doctor.

I did not forget her weep.

People pleaded at the hospital’s entrance to have a doctor visit and view their loved ones around her.

In addition to the hundreds of requests for assistance that we heard throughout the week we covered how the next influx of Covid, which started in March 2021, brought a country to its knees.

It was as though people had been left to handle a violent crisis on their own – going from doctor to doctor seeking for beds and air.

The second wave had not come without warning, but India’s government, which had declared victory over the disease two months earlier, was caught unprepared by the resurgence.

I witnessed the head doctor in a big hospital’s ICU make one phone call after another while searching for oxygen supplies in the middle of the room.

” There’s only one minute of source left. Reduce the amount of gas we’re giving to our patients to keep all of our organs functioning, he told his assistant, his expression stressful.

At a Delhi crematory, 37 funeral pyres that were instantaneously burning in April have a vivid memory in my mind.

People sat in shock- no still feeling the grief and anger that had come- apparently stunned into silence by the frightening speed at which Covid ravaged the capital.

Our job messaging groups were constantly inundated with information that another partner was in urgent need of a doctor sleep for a loved one.

No one was left behind by it.

In Pune, my dad was recovering from a Covid-related center attack he’d suffered a month earlier.

One of my closest friends was critically ill in a hospital in my town of Mumbai.

He unexpectedly recovered after five months in the ICU. But my father’s heart never did, and a year later, he suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving a lasting hole in our life.

Covid-19 will always be the most challenging account I’ve ever covered.

BBC News Vikas Pandey

The most challenging task of my life was actually covering the crisis because it was a real story.

Friends, family and neighbours called every day, asking for help procuring oxygen cylinder, hospital rooms and even essential medicines. At the time, I spoke with a number of grieving individuals.

However, a couple events have persisted in my remembrance.

In 2021, I reported Altuf Shamsi’s story, which sums up the unimaginable pain millions went through.

His wife, who was pregnant, and his parents, both admitted to various Delhi institutions, were both infected with the virus. After his father’s hospital admitted him, he called me to question if I may assist him in finding another doctor after learning that his chances of survival were zero. He made contact with me through a friend. While he was speaking to me, he got another call from his sister’s physician who said they were running out of hydrogen for her.

He lost his father first, and he later texted me,” I was looking at his body, while looking for oxygen at Rehab’s ]his wife’s hospital.”

He also lost his wife after giving birth to their child a few days later.

The two different instances came closer to home than anything else.

After being admitted to a doctor, a sibling quickly deteriorated.

Doctors gave him a grim outcome after placing him on a vent. One of them advised trying an experimental medicine that had shown some benefits in the UK.

I called everyone I believed was support on Twitter. He was sinking with each hour, but the medication that might have saved him was nowhere to be found.

A form doctor helped us with one shot but we needed three more. Then somebody read my message and reached out: She had purchased three containers for her parents, but he passed away before receiving the doses. My equivalent survived thanks to her assistance.

But a niece did no. The clinic where he was admitted. His air levels were dropping every minute, and the doctor didn’t have any free time to put him on a ventilator.

I made invites the whole night.

The medical ran out of gas the following morning, which caused some deaths, including his. He left behind his two young children and his family. I also wonder if there was something more I may have done.

Geeta Pandey, BBC News

The day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a painful quarantine, I headed out to Delhi’s major bus stop. The only people who were out on the roads were separatists and officers, who were deployed to keep residents inside.

The bus stop was deserted. A few hundred yards away, I met people, women and children who were looking for ways to achieve house, hundreds of miles away. As people sorely tried to find a way to be with their families and loved ones over the next few weeks, those numbers soared into thousands.

Tragic events persisted at every turn as the disease spread over the next few weeks and the capital city remained strictly closed, along with the rest of the nation.

We feared stepping up and we feared staying on.

All hope, including me, were pinned on a vaccination that international scientists were working hard to develop.

Just a few months before the lockdown, I had the opportunity to see my mother, who was suffocating in our ancestral village, 450 miles ( 724 kilometers ) from Delhi. My family, like millions of other people, didn’t really understand what Covid was- the disorder that had abruptly disrupted their lives.

She asked,” When will you visit,” when I called, but she always had one more question. I was unable to stay with her because I was afraid I may transmit the virus to her at a vulnerable period.

On 16 January 2021, I was at Max clinic in Delhi when India rolled out the country’s biggest vaccination drive, tempting to treat all the people in the country of 1.4 billion people. It was described as a “new sun” by doctors and medical personnel it. Some people promised to attend their people as soon as their second doses were administered.

I called my mother and told her that I did get my vaccination and visit her quickly. However, she was gone a week later.

Anagha Pathak, BBC Marathi

I was visiting Maharashtra state’s boundary a few days after India announced the quarantine in order to check the effects of the restraints.

As I drove along the oddly empty Mumbai-Agra bridge at three in the morning, it was still dark. My home of Nashik looked indecipherable.

Migrant workers walked again home, stranded, and out of work instead of driving. A young pair from Uttar Pradesh figured prominently among them. They had worked as workmen in Mumbai. The woman was expecting, and she was still in her first 20s. They had hoped to take a ride on a vehicle, but it was a dream come true. By the time they reached Nashik, they had run out of food, water and wealth.

I’ll never forget seeing the frightened girl walking in the blistering sun as she is pregnant. Rarely did I feel more vulnerable. Covid techniques prevented me from offering them a trip. While documenting their voyage, all I could do was offer them some water and snacks.

Around 300 citizens waited for a federal bus to take them to the state boundary a few miles away. But it was nowhere in sight. Two cars eventually arrived after making some calling, but they were still not enough. However, I made sure the pair was traveling on the one that was supposed to take them to another vehicle in Madhya Pradesh.

I followed them in my vehicle and waited for some time for them to get their second vehicle. It always arrived.

I later left. I had an task to accomplish.

Five years have passed, and I still have to know if the person made it home. Has she perished? I don’t know her name, but I still remember her sick eyes and delicate system.

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