Evenin the worst of the times during the Wave 1 of Covid pandemic last year, thecountry was still optimistic and general opinion was that the country is movingforward even in the difficult times.
Buteverything seems to have changed in last one month or so. Now majority of theIndians are saying that their personal life as well as the Country, both are inpoor state, as per the IANS-CVoter Covid 19 Tracker.
Thesample size of the Covid-19 tracker was 56685 and the period of the survey wasJanuary 1 to May 27, 2021 covering all 542 Lok Sabha segments.
Every10th household in India is right now reporting an active case within immediatefamily members and almost every fifth household in India is reporting loss oflife among near and dear ones, as per the IANS C Voter Tracker.
Thismeans one in every 10 Indian families has at least one family member sufferingfrom Covid and one in every 20 Indian families has self-reported a death withinimmediate or extended family.
Majorityof Indians reported that in the last one year or so their overall livingstandard has dropped significantly. This happened almost a year back and thatred line has not come down since then. Worse is, the ever-optimistic Indian isso much spiraling down the pessimism at the moment that they don't see any rayof hope in the coming 12 months either.
Andthe fear remains about someone in the family getting infected or not gettingtreatment. This fear is unlikely to go down till the actual number of cases godown and people start getting treatment and oxygen properly without getting toostressed about it. Our tracker is generally one to two weeks ahead of theofficial trendline, and we don't see that happening for next 6 to 8 weeks innear future.
Thetracker found that Corona becomes the top issue, again in India and the numberof confirmed +ve cases and deaths within immediate family as reported byTracker is multiple times over the official Government numbers.
Evenby the most conservative estimates, the self-reported ILI (Influenza likeillness) symptoms is directly in sync with the trendline of self-reported Covidpositive cases. Needless to say, that only a fraction of such cases have beentested for Covid, as usual. So, the lack of testing is being passed as lack ofpositive cases.
"Whicheverway we calculate, the official records are showing less than 1/10th of numbersthat is being reported by the public, be it in case of Active report or be itthe case of mortalities. The self-reported numbers by "We, the people ofIndia" are numbing, and experienced by all of us barring the"system", the tracker found.