COVID-19 surge| India bashing must stop, Osaka should use ‘Mumbai Model’ to tackle virus, says Anand Mahindra

Mahindra’s particular reference to “India bashing” and suggestion of using the “Mumbai Model” is seemingly in response to Akira Takasu, head of emergency medicine at the Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University Hospital (OMPUH), who was quoted cautioning against holding the Olympics to “stop the flow of new variants from England and India”. (File Image of Anand Mahindra)

Industrialist Anand Mahindra in a tweet on May 26 said that Osaka “should try the ‘Mumbai Model’” of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Mahindra & Mahindra chairman’s tweet followed reports that Japan is struggling against a “COVID-19 onslaught” with skyrocketing cases leading to shortage of beds and oxygen facilities – a situation much similar to India’s ongoing and deadly second coronavirus wave.

Acknowledging that the “Japanese Model of fighting COVID and their healthcare infrastructure was envied”, Mahindra quoted a Japan Times report to say “yes, no one’s safe anymore”.

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He added that the “India bashing” should stop and people “need to understand that we have to heal the world together”, adding: “Osaka should try the ‘Mumbai Model’.

The ‘japanese model’ of fighting Covid & their health infrastructure was envied. But yes, “No one’s safe anymore.” The India-bashing should stop & we need to understand that we have to heal the world TOGETHER. Osaka should try the ‘Mumbai Model.’ https://t.co/GHDoPRCruk

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— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) May 25, 2021

As per the report, hospitals in Osaka are “buckling under a huge wave of new coronavirus infections and running out of beds and ventilators as exhausted doctors warn of a ‘system collapse’.”

Doctors, the publisher said, are advising against holding the Tokyo Olympics scheduled from July 23 to August 8, this year.

Also Read | Japan newspaper sponsoring Tokyo Olympics joins cancellation chorus

Mahindra’s particular reference to “India bashing” and suggestion of using the “Mumbai Model” is seemingly in response to Akira Takasu, head of emergency medicine at the Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University Hospital (OMPUH), who was quoted cautioning against holding the Olympics to “stop the flow of new variants from England and India”.

“The Olympics should be stopped, because we already have failed to stop the flow of new variants from England, and next might be an inflow of Indian variants. In the Olympics, 70,000 or 80,000 athletes and people will come to this country from around the world. This may be a trigger for another disaster in the summer,” he said.

Japan’s Osaka Prefecture is home to 9 million and is currently facing its fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The region has accounted for a third of Japan’s COVID-19 death toll despite constituting only 7 percent of the country’s population.

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