The US president has a significant geopolitical imperative for supporting India through its Covid-19 catastrophe.
You are browsing in private mode. To enjoy all the benefits of our website LOG IN or Create an Account India is in crisis. Covid-19 cases are surging. People tweet out and send messages on WhatsApp and Instagram that they are looking for hospital beds and oxygen for family members and loved ones and friends of friends. People are dying without oxygen in Delhi. In Kolkata, every other person is testing positive for Covid. On Sunday, the United States finally, belatedly announced that it would offer some help, making available specific raw material for the manufacture of vaccines, providing personal protective equipment, and “pursuing options to provide oxygen generation and related supplies on an urgent basis”. This is better than nothing. But it is not enough. Joe Biden should be doing everything in his power, including sending off AstraZeneca vaccines that are sitting unused and unapproved here in the United States and temporarily waiving the patent on Covid vaccines, as India proposed back in October. It is not enough to watch American citizens post selfies with vaccine cards and talk about economic reopenings and recovery; the US government needs to think of the rising Covid in India as its problem, too.
