Indians turn to social media for help as Covid crisis overwhelmed the health-care system

A healthcare worker wearing a personal protective equipment (PPE) attends to Covid-19 patient inside a Covid-19 care center set up at shehnai banquet hall attached with Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) one of the largest COVID-19 facilities.Naveen Sharma | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty ImagesAs India’s devastating second wave of coronavirus outbreak overwhelmed the health-care system, desperate users turned to social media to seek help from the public as hospital beds and oxygen supplies ran out.People in need of assistance, either for themselves or their relatives, posted requests on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Others collated information on the availability of beds in hospitals as well as contact details of vendors with oxygen cylinders and other resources in short supply. In many instances, the efforts helped save lives.”We quite often hear only a very dystopian narrative for social media in which, it is increasing political polarization and causing a deep degree of social damage,” Apar Gupta, executive director at the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital liberties organization in India, told CNBC.”But, social media also has the potential of bringing people together,” he said and explained that is why it’s important to fight for the…
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