This was the last time that Erica left the apartment before lockdown began (she wouldn't be able to leave again until we were heading to the airport to fly to Australia). I had a feeling that we should go stock up on fresh food and water, so Erica and I went out to multiple stores and bought lots of groceries.
It's fortunate we did this, because that night the Indian government announced the lockdown with only 4 hours warning. Once that was announced people panicked and went out shopping to buy as much as they could within that 4 hour window. We had been in our self-imposed quarantine prior to this (due to David returning from Korea). When Erica and I left the apartment everything 'felt' a bit different and a little more tense. There were lots of people doing the same thing as us - stocking up on supplies, and we could already see that many stores were starting to run low on stock.
There was a little Nilgiris grocery store directly across the street from our building. We thought this would be our best option to restock during the lockdowns, however they didn't open the store for many weeks. I'm not sure their reason for keeping everything shut as they were permitted to be open. However, we did speak to the manager of the North Indian restaurant across the road and he shut his restaurant because his workers kept getting pulled over by the police (it was difficult for them to get to work and then also make deliveries). Our little local grocery store did open up eventually but in a very limited capacity - selected days and hours. They told us they were having trouble getting restocked, but they were ok to sell what they had to the surrounding residents.
When the lockdown first started we were hearing stories of people being turned away by the police while trying to get to the hospital for treatment. We know somebody directly who had tried to drive their mother-in-law to the hospital for a dialysis appointment and couldn't get there due to the police not allowing it. I read in the paper of people dying due to an ability to access hospital treatment. Meanwhile one of the hospitals in Chennai accidentally released two Covid positive patients and then could only track one of them down when they realised their mistake.
Here is a link to a youtuber I watch sometimes, who lives in Delhi. He describes what it was like to try to get a covid test - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHRniRXxwYk. If you watch this, bear in mind that the Australian government is now not letting Australians fly from India unless they can show a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of departure. I understand the reasons from the Australian perspective, but it's easier said than done for Australians living in India who need to leave. On top of that the hospital system in India is far more strained than it was then.
When the lockdowns started there were a large number of migrant workers who ended up stranded in their work cities and were trying to make their way home to their villages. I remember reading about a large group of people who were travelling from one state to another via train when the lockdown was announced, only switching from one train to another in Chennai. They ended up stranded in Chennai because the trains were no longer allowed to run.
We eventually received information that a flight had been organised to Australia (this wasn't organised by the government, this was a private charter organised by individuals and in co-operation with Lion Air). We were able to get tickets and had a very short period of time to try to get ourselves organised (a couple of days). We were only allowed to bring limited luggage to get us by for who knows how long. We also needed to get the apartment organised for packing (ie - separate out our air shipment, give away the items we didn't want etc) so that everything would be ready for whenever the removalists could do their work. We had hope that David might be able to fly back to India and supervise the packing at a later date, but that wasn't to be.
One last picture of our neighbourhood from our lounge room window on the morning of our flight.
A last picture of Ethan, Erica and Clara at the entryway to our apartment building.
The reported covid cases in India around the time we left were ranging between 1000 - 2000 per day (the total population is ~ 1.35 billion). I had looked at an app that tells you how close the nearest reported covid case is to your current location - we were 13.5km away from any known cases. Now (in April 2021) India is reporting > 300,000 cases per day with a new surge occurring, hospitals are horribly strained with not enough icu beds and there are shortages of oxygen.
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