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North Texans organize for India as deaths from COVID-19 soar

‘I will say the situation is as dire, if not more, than what we see in the news,’ said Anurag Jain, who returned from the country in April.

Anurag Jain boarded a plane at DFW International Airport last month not knowing if he would see his mother again.

Unable to breathe, she was being placed on a ventilator at a hospital in Chennai, India.

Jain arrived in Chennai in April, at the beginning of what would soon become the second wave of COVID-19 in his home country.

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He was devastated by the scenes — jam-packed hospitals, lack of food and medical equipment, families separated by illness, fear and grief.

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“I will say the situation is as dire, if not more, than what we see in the news,” he said.

COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed in India, creating a humanitarian crisis no one predicted in January, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that India had “saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.” Life began to resume, and so did attendance at cricket matches, religious pilgrimages and political rallies for Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.

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Four months later, cases and deaths have exploded, the country’s vaccine rollout has faltered and public anger and mistrust have grown. Crematoriums and burial grounds have been overwhelmed, and relatives often wait hours to perform the last rites for their loved ones.

New cases have started to decline, but Reuters reported Monday that daily deaths remained above 4,000, and experts said the data was unreliable due to a lack of testing in rural areas where the virus is spreading fast.

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North Texans have attempted to provide what help they can, and some are on standby to travel to the country should a family member contract the illness.

‘We are among the lucky ones’

Access Healthcare Chairman Anurag Jain poses for a portrait at the Access Healthcare office...
Access Healthcare Chairman Anurag Jain poses for a portrait at the Access Healthcare office in Dallas on Monday, May 17, 2021. Jain traveled to India in April to visit his critically ill mother, who had contracted the novel coronavirus at the beginning of what would soon become the second wave of COVID-19 in his home country. Since returning, Jain has worked with partners to send 3,200 oxygen concentrators to India and is arranging a shipment of 1,700 more. “People around the world have been incredibly generous,” he said. “The human spirit comes alive in times like this.” (Lynda M. González/The Dallas Morning News)(Lynda M. González / Staff Photographer)

When Jain arrived in India, he estimates the COVID-19 ward at his mother‘s hospital accounted for roughly one-tenth of the hospital’s beds.

Two weeks later, he said, that had increased to half the hospital.

Jain returned to the U.S. in late April and has heard from family and friends that the entire hospital is now the COVID-19 ward.

Anecdotally, he said, the virus appeared more transmissible than before, with younger people also falling ill.

“It was harder and harder to explain,” he said. “Lots of people who were being reasonably careful were contracting the virus.”

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Jain, who lives in Dallas, owns Access Healthcare, a company that provides health care outsourcing services, and Perot Jain, a venture capital firm with Ross Perot Jr. He also founded Get Shift Done, an initiative that staffed food banks, schools and pantries with unemployed hospitality workers during the pandemic.

Since returning from India, he has reached out to charities and potential donors, including Perot, who made a substantial contribution.

He said former classmates in India started Oxygen for India, a nonprofit working to deliver oxygen from warehouses to hospitals, which he and other D-FW donors are supporting.

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Working with partners, Jain has sent 3,200 oxygen concentrators to India and is arranging a shipment of 1,700 more.

“People around the world have been incredibly generous,” he said. “The human spirit comes alive in times like this.”

Jain’s mother survived and should soon be released from the hospital. He said the timing of her illness, before resources were so stretched, likely saved her life.

“We are among the lucky ones,” he said.

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In Irving, a ‘symphony of compassion’

As cases of COVID-19 in India exploded, Ashok Mago and Neel Gonuguntla knew they would need to act swiftly.

Mago, the founding chairman of the U.S India Chamber of Commerce DFW, and Gonuguntla, the organization’s president, reached out to everyone they could think of — individuals, companies, nonprofits, community organizations — to seek donations.

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Almost immediately, donations poured in.

“It truly was a symphony of compassion,” said Gonuguntla, who lives in Irving. “That’s the best way I can describe it.”

The chamber’s foundation has raised more than $1 million, which it used to purchase roughly 115 oxygen ventilators, more than 1,000 oxygen concentrators and personal protective equipment.

Medical supplies were shipped to hospitals across India, the Indian Red Cross and various government agencies.

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Numerous companies, including logistics companies Perimeter Global Logistics and Big Logistics, offered their services for free. United Airlines helped transport more than 300,000 pounds of medical equipment.

Mago, whose brothers and nieces and nephews still live in India, said many in the D-FW area are in frequent contact with friends and family in India.

Mago and Gonuguntla said they will likely cancel their planned trips to the country later this year, as have many in the community.

Raising money and sending supplies has provided them with a way to help when so many have felt helpless, said Mago, who lives in Dallas.

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“The situation in India is catastrophic,” he said. “But India and people there are resilient and will see better days. I hope and pray things will have improved in a few months.”

Finding help from Coppell to New Delhi

Coppell resident Sridevi Potu usually visits her parents in India each year, but the plan was different for 2019 and 2020.

“In 2019, I didn’t go because we were planning to bring my parents here in spring 2020,” she said.

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But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Potu hasn’t seen her parents now for two years. They both tested positive for the virus this month, despite being recently vaccinated. She worries that a variant is infecting patients too quickly.

“It’s progressing very rapidly, this variant, and it’s affecting the lungs very fast,” Potu said. “By the time you realize that it’s getting late and you have to get the treatment fast, you are not able to get it.”

She is raising money through her nonprofit, the Svechha Foundation, which is run by volunteers.

“We are trying to raise funds to set up ICU facilities in the remote places,” she said.

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Although stories about the severity of India’s COVID-19 crisis are making headlines, Potu said she hears a number of positive stories, too.

“There’s a lot of help being given through WhatsApp and these group messages,” she said. “Suppose you need oxygen, you just send it to your group of friends.”

‘As an Indian tradition, you have to be there with your parents’

Mahendar Rao is the vice president of the India Association of North Texas, a Richardson nonprofit that connects people who have moved to the U.S. from India with resources around the D-FW area.

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Rao said many people he works with are on standby to help their families in India who have contracted the virus.

“As an Indian tradition, you have to be there with your parents,” he said. “It’s kind of built-in, engraved in our bodies or souls to support our family, our parents who are in trouble.”

Rao, a Frisco resident, said his mother and father came down with the virus within the past few weeks. The family lives in Hyderabad, a city in the southern state of Telangana.

When Rao’s brother stepped in to help, he also contracted the disease.

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“I planned to go this weekend, but since my dad is recovered, as of yesterday, and my mom is fine, I would rather not go because I’ll be putting my family who is here in the states at risk,” he said.

The association is raising money to send to nonprofits that are on the ground in India, such as the Akshaya Patra Foundation.

Rao said the organization raised over $100,000: “We sent ventilators, oxygen concentrators and some other medical supplies.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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