Social Media: Many people are finding hospital beds , ICU facilities and other medications through social media posts and people are finding real help online.
Social Media Is The New Help
Many families who take to social media to ask for assistance would be familiar with this . From ambulance availability to oxygen tubes to plasma donors, social media has become the latest SOS hotline for people looking for urgent medical assistance for their loved ones. Social media is the pandemic war room run by, with, and by the public. People are increasingly reliant on social media.
With over 400 million active internet users, India has one of the world’s biggest online populations. With the Covid-19 pandemic set to begin in 2020, much public engagement has shifted online. From obituaries and apologies to celebrations, social media provided minute-by-minute updates. With the rapid increase in cases in the second wave, the support process was also shifted to social media.
Consolidation of information is also critical as more people turn to social media for essential information. With all of the emphasis focused on metropolises battling Covid, Tier II and III cities are often overlooked.
People are also losing out on crucial alerts released by government circulars in their respective cities due to the panic-stricken environment. For certain people, the sheer volume of material available on the internet can be daunting. Rohan Agarwal, who has a dedicated Covid Relief (U.P.) page on Instagram and has created free for all guides with only validated facts, is one person bridging the distance.
An N.G.O. is working 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the bylanes of Old Delhi to supply oxygen tanks and refill them for critically ill patients. Be Human, located in Delhi’s Daryaganj neighbourhood, collaborates with a group of devoted volunteers to find gas plants and give oxygen to patients who have a valid doctor’s prescription. According to Asim Hussain, the N.G.O’s founder and head, “We manage to support about 500 people a day, but it depends.”
Be Human began in March 2020 when several people in the area needed oxygen assistance, and they installed an oxygen bank the previous year. The N.G.O. is now supplying oxygen in Delhi, and they post updates on their social media (@be human servinghumanity- Instagram) on a regular basis.
Indians who do not have access to the internet or social media are still doing their part to assist those in need. Chote Lal is an e-rickshaw driver and migrant worker in Aligarh. He is ferrying patients to local hospitals free of cost in his humble sawari (vehicle).
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