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As a foreign correspondent, my job is to tell stories of India and not be a part of it. But when I started to have a fever while writing an article about Covid-19 vaccine policy last month I had the feeling that the Sars-Cov-2 virus had found me.
I was hoping it was a sleep exhaustion, but the next day, still feverish, I was urged to take a Covid test. A chain of leading diagnostic labs, which had previously run an efficient home testing service, had stopped answering their phones and responding to online requests. But a medical friend convinced one of the phlebotomists in the lab to pick up my sample. Two days later, the results confirmed that I was part of the fierce coronavirus wave hitting India and boosting its healthcare system to the breaking point.
Over the next few days, my physical symptoms remained mild. But it was still distressing to be sick of a bad reputation unpredictable virus knowing that drugs, hospital beds, and oxygen were scarce. I suffered from constant anxiety knowing that I would struggle to get medical help if I took a turn for the worse.
I quickly discovered that I had focused so much on avoiding the infection that I had no idea what to do once I got sick. A friend connected me with a Kolkata-based infectious disease specialist who believed he had a low risk of serious illness. He had had the first dose of Covid vaccine 10 days before the fever started. But the doctor urged me to treat the disease aggressively from the beginning, given the chaos in hospitals.
He prescribed the antiviral drug, favipiravir, which is currently being treated clinical trials in the UK as a potential Covid-19 therapy, but already approved in India for emergency use. Many of his patients had taken him, he said, and none suffered severely, including 90-year-olds.
Usually, I am reluctant to medicate. I knew the effectiveness of favipiravir as coronavirus treatment was not yet scientifically validated. But with hospitals pushing patients away, the logic of taking one experimental drug it made sense. I discovered that the challenge was to achieve this.
I called five pharmacies, but they were all sold out. A friend called six more to no avail. I panicked: the doctor wanted me to start the drug quickly and Delhi was just hours away from the start of a weekend curfew. Then a friend, who had heard he had a Covid-19 positive, called.
“I’m looking for this drug,” I told him. “Any idea where I can get it?” He said he would check. It turned out that people with foresight had prepared small emergency protections for drugs. Her friend had such a reservation and was willing to share it.
That night I was excited to receive the pills to begin treatment. But it was not enough for the prescribed course. Days later I spent hours calling pharmacies in an unsuccessful search to get more, before finally asking an industry friend to help.
My difficulties pale in comparison to the despair, anger, and pain that lies beyond my sick room. My Twitter feed was filled with requests for hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, antiviral remidesivir, plasma or a place in an intensive care unit. The best hospitals have asked Twitter to recharge decreased oxygen supplies. Friends and many professional contacts were fighting for their lives. The medical friends cried with helpless rage.
There was a lot of news of death. An antique Ambassador of India died after hours of waiting in a hospital parking lot to be admitted; hospitalized patients whose oxygen has been depleted; a young journalist, the 34-year-old son of a top politician. The crematoria fought with an unprecedented flow of bodies.
I decided that I had to detune the crisis that was unfolding, to ensure my physical recovery and protect my mental health. I stopped checking Twitter. Stacked newspapers, unread.
Once I felt better and re-tuned in, I saw that Narendra Modi’s government had cynically extended the possibility of getting vaccinated to everyone over the age of 18, despite acute shortage of punctures.
And, with thousands of people dying daily, often for lack of medical help, the health minister no doubt cited dubious official data to claim India’s coveted mortality rate. it was inferior to the richest countries – hardly consolation for grieving families.
Today I recovered from my encounter with the virus. It will take much longer to overcome the trauma of seeing how this calamity envelops the place I call home.
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