DNA Exclusive: COVID-19 pandemic reaches villages, people die in lack of medical aid

New Delhi: The number of new cases of coronavirus in the country stood at 3.48 lakh and 4205 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. This was the highest number of deaths in a single day. A big share of the new infections and fatalities were recorded in rural India which has become a cause for concern.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Wednesday (May 12) discussed how the second wave of the pandemic has affected the villages across the country. He also highlighted the plight of the villagers who are suffering due to lack of medical aid.

The rate of infection in the country is not going down as the virus has now spread from the cities to the villages. This has been mainly observed in 13 states including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

The infection rate in the rural areas of these states has left the urban areas behind. It points towards a big crisis.

In Maharashtra, the number of new cases is around 24,000 per day in urban areas, while in villages this figure is more than 30,000.

Similarly in Uttar Pradesh, the new cases in villages are about twice that in cities.

In Rajasthan, out of about 12,000 new cases, the cities are recording only about 5000 cases and the rest are being registered in the villages.

Similar situations have been found in Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Jammu Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

There are 6.5 lakh villages in the country housing a population of about 90 crore. The situation is indeed quite worrying.

There are 11 states where the number of infections is more than ever in the villages. Among them, Punjab tops the list, where 49 percent of the new cases are being found in villages. In Karnataka, this figure is 44 percent and in West Bengal, it is 47 percent.

These figures clearly indicate that the virus has spread in the villages.

To make things worse, there are limited test centres and medical facilities in the villages. In many places, the villagers have to travel about 50 to 60 km to the district headquarters to get tested for COVID. The health centres are also not adequate.

In many villages, people have to walk about 2 km just to get drinking water. They are forced to go out of their houses, which is not advisable in this pandemic.

In such a situation, it is very crucial that the government take special measures to take check the spread of the virus in the villages.