Dr. T Jacob John talks to Jagdish Rattanani about the acute information deficiency syndrome, a different kind of AIDS in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown taking its toll on the elderly and the middle-class.
JR- What is the reflection for today if we can talk….?
My reflection today is I will come back to that….. anyway I'm way behind with writing, or writing commitments. Also I had an unexpected commitment from Kerala government for immediate write up .., so I spend a lot of time..
JR- that should take priority because it may impact outcome, isn't it?
Yeah,..that’s about a Virology Institute Kerala Government is creating. …. Anyway, today's thought was about one doctor in Chennai fairly well known neurosurgeon died of COVID-19 and he got infected in the hospital looks like. So it is a tragedy because the doctors are not, have not been, prepared to face this COVID outbreak. This is not the first surgeon there are at least three surgeons that I've heard about who admitted patients for some surgery, no symptoms whatsoever suggestive of COVID. Postoperative time, they develop COVID. The doctors are infected the nurses are infected. And this cardiothoracic surgeon was also infected and the unit had to be closed down. He died. His body, then funeral, Chennai corporation assigned a place for his funeral by burial. So his immediate family and a few doctors’ friends took the body in an ambulance to that cemetery…. It is a burial, he is a Christian
Two hundred local people came around and drove them out. They said ‘you can't come here, we will all get infected’. So the corporation sort of told them we'll arrange some other place and the corporation…. Identified another burial place under Corporation’s control.
It is a tragedy because the doctors are not, have not been, prepared to face this COVID outbreak.
When they went there again a crowd formed and said you can't bury here. So, apparently they had to retreat. They broke the windows of the ambulance. And finally with police protection a few persons cameback and around midnight or so quickly buried him and went home.
Okay, the point I'm saying is Indian nation is suffering from AIDS in this pandemic time. Acute Information Deficiency Syndrome. People, if they think that burying a dead body in a cemetery is increasing the risk of people in the vicinity in the,… in the in the neighbourhood. It is the result of … somebody having created panic. Somebody has created misunderstandings. Nobody has given the correct information. Acute information deficiency.
JR- Correct
Who is at fault? Okay. So I'm calling it acute information deficiency Syndrome among the public. And the second point is…..10 years ago, not
JR- Sorry, so you said 10 years ago?
10 years ago, if there was a COVID epidemic, and then body had to be cremated, a mob would not come forward and at least in Tamil Nadu.
JR- okay
There is a general feeling that it's okay for mob justice system. That’s a new phenomenon. See in… in olden days, even in the Middle East , for religious and such like guilt, people could throw stones and kill a person. Yeah, stoning to death. The stoning to death. principal is, no one person is guilty of murder; it is a collective action. .
If people think that burying a dead body in a cemetery is increasing the risk of people in the vicinity, in the neighbourhood...it is the result of somebody having created panic, misunderstandings. Nobody has given the correct information. Acute information deficiency.
JR-Correct
Okay. And in the time of Jesus, the Jews tried to stone him to death on a few occasions. But Jesus sort of gave the slip…. disappeared. And the crowd around him did not allow the religious leaders to organize a stone killing episode. And so that is why he was arrested in midnight or late at night, on a Thursday, taken to the religious court first. They have no right to condemn a person to death…… under Roman colonial power. So the Roman prelate had to be woken up, like our supreme court midnight sitting. So he had to go through a trial. He found him innocent. And the religious people wouldn’t have it. Then Pilate the Roman prelate realize that Jesus did not belong to the place where he is sitting, but he belonged to a kingdom. The King of happened to be in Jerusalem at the same time. So he sent him early in the morning to that King. So the king didn't make up his mind and sent him back to Pilate and Pilate declared him innocent and said so to the religious leaders then condemned to death, okay, all of this during one night. (he was declared innocent and condemned to death?, this doesn’t read correct, no?).
The point is only the Roman prelate had the power to punish somebody by death. The religious leaders questioned Pilate’s loyalty to Rome, and he condemned him to death to protect his own position. Back to the topic. I am talking about the mob violence. So, mob violence in India is a relatively new phenomenon.
Cow vigilantism, and what is that called ….mob violence….
JR- lynching
lynching and so, for some reason, that mentality…. it has happened in Tamil Nadu also lynching. A woman in Tiruvannamalai, temple town, visiting a temple, a woman coming in a car, going to the temple. The rumour was that she was coming to snatch children, this was early last year and ruthlessly beaten to death.
JR- It happened in Maharashtra two days ago.
Yes. This is not the India as I knew about, this is not the India I grew up in. This is not the India that I accept… this is different India. So that is another thing that crossed my mind today.
JR-Okay. Interesting. Yeah.
So acute information deficiency syndrome signals a poor management of the COVID epidemic.
JR- Okay.
Yeah, no,
JR- I must tell you that my mother is 90 plus, 94 and she stays little away from me with my sister.
Where exactly in Mumbai?
JR- in Mumbai in an area called King circle, which is near Matunga. And two of them stay there…today…… they are on the fifth floor, Of course, I have not been able to see them since the lockdown. But, today on the fourth floor they found COVID and they have, they have kind of isolated the building or quarantined the building or whatever they call it, so that nobody can go out. So one floor away is too risky, isn’t it?
It is no comfort to protect somebody from COVID infection but then the person dies of a preventable or treatable condition that could not be managed because of the lockdown
it is a bit dicey. The thing is
JR- On the fourth floor, they have phone someone's
Yeah. As your mother had any contact with any member of that family under any circumstances?
JR- Not at all. She doesn't go out of the house at all.
Okay, nobody visited her?
JR- no, no, no, no. only my sister, my sister
even sister also had no contact with anybody like that.
JR- Not in that family. No.
Okay. So the physical distancing is the safety issue here. So, keep fingers crossed.
JR- but since there is no physical…. there is no physical contact. There should be no worry, right?
Absolutely. SARS virus in Hong Kong hotel, no, not hotel….a flat complex had somehow the virus containing stuff got into the drainage tube, the drainage tube leaked in some floor, and something happened and so they got infected. So that's a weirdest way of respiratory infections coming through a broken drainage pipe spreading it in Hong Kong. That is said to be a super spreading event. But under normal circumstances one floor away…the front door of the two flats are not at all in alignment. So therefore. yeah, it should be okay. Any idea from where 4th floor people got infected from?
Letting people die with preventable and treatable conditions during this fight against COVID and this is also acute information deficiency syndrome -- a flaw in the plan of action or strategy
JR- no idea, no clue, I will try to find out. As of now no clue..
Yeah okay. Don't bother your mother at this time to make her anxious.; keep talking to her three or four times a day.
JR- Of, course, she is least bothered, we are more bothered
Yeah, yeah, okay. Still. And strict quarantined.
JR- Yeah, yeah, her eyesight is weak, so she doesn't go out. She's at home, but my sister was out to buy some vegetables, that’s a problem. Now she can't go because they have quarantined the building.
yeah, they are okay for food and all that?
JR- Yeah, fully reasonable stocked up. That's not a problem.
See, that's the another thing and you're on your own. Nobody…. Today.., yesterday there was a news of a 12 year old girl walking from Telangana to Jharkhand.
JR- Oh, 12 year old ?!
12 year old girl with her family, she died of exhaustion
JR- Oh. Where did you…
10 kilometres short of her
JR- Oh my god. Terrible…..where did you read this?
I can't remember, today or yesterday in the Hindu or Malayalam newspaper, one or the other… I can search it out for you
JR- Yes yeah, it is a very very painful story. Yes please search for …..
yeah, so today I wrote to somebody that, we are talking about lockdown and lifting and all that. So that you know, it is no comfort to protect somebody from COVID infection but then the person dies ofa preventable or treatable condition that could not be managed because of the lockdown. That is is…..thats…
JR- unacceptable
yeah, yeah, unacceptable…
JR- this is what is happening unfortunately
yeah 1984 the Rotary International wanted to take polio immunization as a flagship program globally just polio alone polio plus and the,… I was on that committee in Evanston, Illinois, USA. And the majority wanted just polio alone, rotary spearheading polio, I strongly argued, saying that we cannot let the child protected from polio, dying of diphtheria, or whooping cough or measles. So we need to take the entire immunization program as what we support, within which we only fundraise for polio.
JR- Yeah.
JJ- Ultimately, I was able to convert the group to accept that. Before that, the program was called Polio 2005.With this the term the name of change Polio Plus. The Plus is the EPI, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough ….. all those immunizations. So my argument was you can't let somebody protected from polio, dying of diphtheria. So you need to immunize the child and protect the child completely, all preventable diseases together.
JR- correct, true
Anyway, here we are seeing it, letting people die with preventable and treatable conditions during this fight against COVID and this is also acute information deficiency syndrome -- a flaw in the plan of action or strategy. Okay
JR- yeah, very true
This conversation was recorded on April 21
(Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay)