Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: India is now at the heart of many in America.
The entire United States government, and particularly its three-million-strong Indian-American community, is currently galvanized to help India cope with the devastating second wave of Covid-19.
The community is also getting support from US Vice President Kamala Harris whose parents had an Indian origin.
Reiterating President Joe Biden’s pledge that America is determined to help India check the surging Covid-19 infections and deaths, Vice President Kamala Harris said on Friday that India’s welfare is critically important to the US.
Terming the surge of the pandemic’s second wave as “nothing short of heart-breaking”, she said that the entire Biden administration has been galvanized to help the country in its fight against the scourge
Currently, India is struggling with the second wave because of which more than 400,000 daily new coronavirus cases are being reported, and hospitals are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, when our hospital beds were stretched, India sent assistance. And today, we are determined to help India in its hour of need”, she said at the State Department’s Diaspora outreach event on US Covid-19 Relief for India.
“We do this as friends of India, as members of the Asian Quad, and as part of the global community. I believe that if we continue to work together – across nations and sectors – we will all get through this”, Harris said.
The Biden-Harris Administration has announced USD 100 million assistance to India to deal with the pandemic. Within a week, six planeloads of pandemic assistance have landed in India. The White House and the State Department are coordinating with the corporate sector, which has mounted an unprecedented private-sector relief for any country ever.
The Indian-American community has also been raising millions of dollars and sending life-saving health care equipment and medicines to India. Sewa International USA has raised more than USD 10 million, the American Association of Physicians of Indian-Origin (AAPI) collected USD 3.5 million, and Indiaspora more than USD 2 million, among others.
The 56-year-old Harris, the first woman Vice President, also recognized the contribution of Indian-Americans on the issue. “For years, diaspora groups, like Indiaspora and the American India Foundation, have built bridges between the United States and India. And this past year, you have provided vital contributions to Covid-19 relief efforts. Thank you for your work.”
“As many of you know, generations of my family come from India. My mother was born and raised in India. And I have family members who live in India today. The welfare of India is critically important to the United States”, Harris said.
On April 26, President Joe Biden spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to offer America’s support. By April 30, US military members and civilians were delivering relief on the ground, she said, referring to the whole-of-government approach that the administration has taken to help India.
“Already, we have delivered refillable oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, N95 masks, and have more ready to send. We have delivered doses of Remdesivir to treat Covid-19 patients,” Harris said.
According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), among the emergency supplies to India include 20,000 courses of remdesivir (125,000 vials) to help treat critically ill patients, nearly 1,500 oxygen cylinders to address critical oxygen shortage, which can be repeatedly refilled at local supply centers and one million rapid diagnostic tests to quickly identify Covid-19 cases and prevent community spread.
The six American planes, which landed in India in just six days, also included nearly 550 mobile oxygen concentrators that obtain oxygen from ambient air. These units have a lifespan of more than five years and can serve multiple patients at once, depending on their oxygen needs. The US has also sent nearly 2.5 million N95 masks to protect health care professionals and other frontline workers.
A large-scale deployable Oxygen Concentration System that can provide oxygen to treat 20 or more patients at a time and 210 pulse oximeters to measure oxygen levels in a patient’s blood to determine whether a higher level of care is needed, has also been sent to India, USAID said.
Harris also referred to the decision taken by her administration to support a proposal by India and South Africa for a TRIPS waiver for vaccines at the WTO to speed up vaccine manufacturing and vaccination.
“We have announced our full support for suspending patents on Covid-19 vaccines – to help India and other nations vaccinate their people more quickly. India and the United States have the greatest number of pandemic cases in the world”, she added.
