The inevitable has happened! India has now edged out Brazil to have the dubious distinction of being the country with the second highest number of COVID cases. The numbers as of yesterday were more than 4.5 million cases in total, about 3.5 million people who have recovered, slightly over 76,000 deaths and probably close to a million active cases. The US as usual leads the world numbers, but I can see the trend line reducing, while that of India’s is actually increasing. This is seriously worrying. What is more worrying is that my home state of Maharashtra leads the country’s statistics with a total of almost a million cases, which makes almost a quarter of all cases in India from this state. Nearly 700,000 recovered cases, about 28,000 deaths and about a quarter million active cases.

I am not able to get more detailed information for Maharashtra, but I do know that Mumbai is one of the worst hit cities in the country. And it is not surprising, given the large number of migrant workers who come to the city in search of a living and who live in really bad and cramped conditions with little running water or sanitation.

I am sure there are many like me who live outside India and have elderly parents living alone in the country and who are worried sick at the news that comes out daily. My parents, like most of the elderly have other conditions, which an exposure to the virus may excabate. My daily prayer is that my parents get out of this well and somewhat healthy. This is why, even though I don’t really like the idea of them moving out of Mumbai, I am happy that they will finally move to a retirement community once things get better. They plan to stay for a month with an aunt who already lives there and who has offered to host them so they get a chance to get acclimated to the place. Once there, they can also look at options available and buy their own apartment. Then they will come back to Mumbai, wrap up things and move there permanently. This is for their best, in the long run since they will have access to family and friends around as well as a 24-hour medical attention, should the need arise.

In other news, there’s no real news. After about five-six months, BB finally met his besties. They used to be called the three musketeers in school and now that secondary school is over, all three are doing different things. So it’s only during holidays they get a chance to meet up and given the situation this year, they met after a really long time. This is not to say they don’t talk or do do video calls regularly. They do that practically daily and play games together, so they are talking all the time, it’s just they haven’t met each other physically!

That’s about it from us. Stay safe everybody!