01.05.2021
India Slum Residents Fear COVID Explosion In Cramped Conditions
Densely packed slums like Kirti Nagar sprawl across the capital's suburbs and are home to tens of thousands of impoverished families for whom securing drinking water is a daily struggle and hygienic living conditions a pipedream. "We are all living at the mercy of God, and if something happens to us, no one is there to look after us," said Kirti Nagar resident Ram Niwas Chandrawanshi. In Kirti Nagar, a ramshackle settlement by a railway track where Kumar lives, social distancing is not an option for residents who share single rooms with large families, navigate narrow alleyways and use the same toilets as their neighbours. "God forbid, if any one of us gets infected then they say he or she can infect 460 people in 24 hours," said Kumar, repeatedly pulling his face mask back up as it slipped while he talked. Access to healthcare is difficult at the best of times for slum dwellers, but with a shortage of hospital beds and medical oxygen contributing to India's catastrophic second wave of COVID-19 cases, their situation is more precarious than ever. "If something happens to us, then there are no beds available at the hospitals," he said. "The rich will make their arrangements, but where will we go? What will be our condition?" The capital New Delhi is one of the worst-affected areas, with every third person tested for the virus found to be infected and a new death being recorded every four minutes on average. Credit: ALJAZEERA
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
