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Covid-19 Indian victims in UK: doctor, grocer, Uber driver
London boroughs with large populations of Indian origin have a high incidence of the coronavirus.
Britain’s health officials do not disclose names or ethnicities of those succumbing to coronavirus, but individual stories behind the statistics are emerging: of the Indian-origin grocer who delivered supplies to a hospital, only to pass away in it days later.
Or that of Uber driver Rajesh Jayaseelan, 45, who moved to the UK from Bengaluru 10 years ago: he drove to Heathrow to collect a passenger, showed symptoms soon after, and died in the Northwick Park Hospital on April 11.
Raj Aggarwal, 51, dropped off groceries for medical staff at the Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, continued to support local causes through the crisis, but passed away after a short battle with the virus on April 9. Krishnasamy Chiyamalan, another retailer in the city, died a week earlier.
Kin of those afflicted are unable to be around them in their dying moments, as hospital visits are prohibited due to the likelihood of the infection spreading, adding to their anxiety and grief. London boroughs with large populations of Indian origin have a high incidence of the virus.
Also counted among the nearly 14,000 dead in UK are Jitendra Kumar Rathod, a ‘greatly respected’ doctor in Wales; Pooja Sharma, a pharmacist in east Sussex, and her father Sudhir Sharma, an immigration officer at Heathrow.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab reflected concern over statistics concealing individual stories behind them during the daily briefing on virus-related developments in Downing Street on Thursday.
He said: “Every time I come to this lectern, and I read out the grim toll of people who have so sadly passed away. I walk away from here, and I think about what their sons and their daughters must be going through right now”.
“Their brothers and sisters. Their grandchildren. All the loved ones left with their unbearable, long-term, grief. It makes me and it makes this government focus even harder on what we must do”.
Initial hospital data suggests that the minority non-white people in the UK constitute 35 per cent among those in critical care hospitals, prompting an inquiry. Most of the medical staff who died in recent days are non-white.
