India’s Covid-19 meltdown exposes new front in digital divide

SAURABH SHARMA AND ROLI SRIVASTAVA - As India’s daily coronavirus cases set global records, people desperately searching for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders are finding help on social media. But for others like Ruby Yadav, who has never heard of Twitter, time and hope are running out. Travelling by rickshaw, Yadav and her mother - who is seriously ill with Covid-19 - have been turned away by nearly a dozen public hospitals in the northern city of Lucknow this week as the country’s health system crumbles. “I’m losing hope. We know what will happen next, but I can’t bear to watch my mother collapse like this,” Yadav, 21, said by phone on Thursday. India reported more than 300,000 coronavirus cases within 24 hours on Thursday, marking the world’s highest daily tally and taking the country’s total cases to nearly 16 million. Shortages of ambulances, hospital beds, drugs and oxygen supplies are crippling healthcare in much of the country of 1.3 billion, prompting people to post appeals on Twitter in a desperate bid to get help for seriously ill loved ones. People in need and those with information or resources are sharing telephone numbers of volunteers, vendors who have oxygen cylinders or drugs, and details of which medical facility can take patients using hashtags like #CovidSOS. Many people are creating Twitter accounts to seek help from those in positions of power, officials manning helpline numbers said, but hundreds of millions of mainly poorer Indians do not have access to a smartphone or use social media. “We’ve tried every helpline provided by the government and the only reply we’re getting is there are no beds available. I don’t know what Twitter is and didn’t think of asking for help on social media,” said Yadav, holding back tears. Among the more than 500 million Indians who do use smartphones, WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook are among the most widely used platforms, according to government data. Twitter, which lawmakers, charities and political party helplines are using to share information and answer pleas for help, has only 17.5 million users in India, data shows. For the vast majority of Indians struggling to get help, repeatedly calling inundated phone lines or carrying patients to emergency wards in person is the only option - highlighting the impact of the country’s digital divide. In eastern Jharkhand state, children’s rights activist Baidnath Kumar has been frantically sharing information on WhatsApp and fielding appeals for help from local residents, but as the crisis deepens he said being online could prove decisive. “Access to anything - beds, oxygen, medicines, doctors - is becoming more and more difficult,” Kumar said. “One needs to know someone or appeal on social media for a quick response. But how many people can do that? It doesn’t work.” — Thomson Reuters Foundation