Hundreds of bodies are laying in the middle of cities in India, awaiting to be cremated. There are an average of 2,500 deaths a day (Image Credit: CNN)

By Chad Klassen

COVID-19 IN INDIA

Kamloops residents worried about family back in India impacted by deadly COVID-19 spread

Apr 27, 2021 | 3:55 PM

KAMLOOPS — The scenes from India are stunning. Hundreds of dead bodies in the middle of cities. Makeshift crematoriums being built just to accommodate the thousands dying every day from COVID-19.

Max Patel lives and works in Kamloops, but all his family is back in India. They live in Pune, a city of about six million people that’s two hours southeast of Mumbai. Already, his sister has been impacted.

“My sister’s mother-in-law tested positive, so their house is on lockdown,” he said. “They’re working from home. I have an 11-year-old niece, who is worried about getting COVID and she’s like, ‘Am I going to die from this?’ There’s a lot of panic.”

Patel is worried as well that his family will catch the virus. With families in India living in such close quarters, he says it makes it nearly impossible to self-isolate if someone has COVID.

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“Her mother-in-law and [five other family members] all live in the same house. [It’s] a generational-based family. They all live in the two-bedroom apartment, so when someone tests positive in the family, the one bedroom is kind of gone and now the entire family has to accommodate in the same house because they don’t have enough space,” Patel said.

Patel added with 1.3 billion people in India, it’s nearly impossible for his family and others to social distance. COVID-19 — including many variants that are contributing to the tragedies — are all around them in Pune.

Additionally, with India’s healthcare system privately-run, the level of care is compromised. It’s why many COVID-19 patients lack access to live-saving oxygen.

Meanwhile, Remya Kannan is a Thompson Rivers University [TRU] student who just arrived from India, her home country. She finished her 14-day quarantine over the weekend, making it to Kamloops before the Canadian government banned all flights from India and Pakistan until at least May 22.

“Always, we are looking into the news, what’s happening in Canada, Ontario where my friends are. They told me the numbers are rising — the COVID cases — so [Canada is] going to be closed very soon. They advised me that if you want to come in, you have to make a plan very soon.”

Kannan, working on her Master’s of Education at TRU, did virtual learning for the last year in India. However, with the university planning to welcome back a limited number of students back on campus in the fall, she wanted to be in Kamloops to learn in-person.

“Definitely will be a good experience because it’s education and these teachers will teach in-person. That will definitely be better than the virtual thing because we don’t have anybody to assist us [online],” she said.

Even with 330,000 cases a day on average — and nearly 2,500 deaths every day — the Indian government is telling its citizens not to panic. Thousands of kilometers away from his family in Kamloops, Patel finds himself at times panicking.

“This is just a complete devastation of the way the nation has come out and a real picture of how much [India] lacks — not just in development but all of our hospitals or our medical infrastructure, our healthcare system. This is going to be a good eye-opener.”