Things are going from bad to worse. Getting a ventilator in hospital is akin to climbing a tall mountain. A tall, inhospitable mountain as they say.
While Jammu is comparatively at ease owing to some tough discipline that was maintained by the local populace and implemented strictly by the local administration Srinagar is suffering big time. With a substantial chunk of population working abroad, and a good chunk having been forced to seek employment outside, Kashmir was bound to explode once all the folks came back to valley due to Covid-19. The ratios of those infected in Kashmir and of those infected in Jammu is almost 80:20. Same is the case with mortality rates.
Read Also : Kashmiri IAF officer who fast tracked Rafale jets import
Sometimes the difference between life and death is determined by the availability of a particular medicine or rather the affordability of it. The medicines are ranging between anything from Rs.4000 per shot to Rs.7000 per shot and the patient has to get six shots. Some NGOs have jumped in and are offering medicines to people at confessional or no rates. The same NGOs are coordinating with the recuperated patients for the plasma donation and sometimes getting a donor from as far a places like Lolab and Kulgam to hospitals in Srinagar.
While one must appreciate the work that these NGOs are doing but from the administration point of view a lot more needs to be done. While everyone was predicting that cases would explode in Kashmir but we could not do the ground work in due time resulting in total chaos. We have to wait for the peak to be over. Another crisis. Another time when administration was nowhere near full preparedness.