Vulnerable groups caught between two worlds amid lockdowns

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the catastrophic consequences of the public health system remaining largely underfunded in India. A nationwide study on three vulnerable groups during the pandemic published recently said: “Public health measures are rarely apolitical, and, as the situation in India shows, can be experienced as forms of exclusion and repression for vulnerable groups of people.” The study, titled “Mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic in India: an in-depth exploration of challenges and opportunities for three vulnerable population groups” and published in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal in June 2021, focused on three specific groups: migrant labourers, children and refugee and/or displaced groups. Indeed, as the data in this study also showed, the actions of the Central government, as well as the majority of State governments, were mostly concerned with curtailing the pandemic from a biomedical or evidence-based perspective, using various measures of control to keep the public from meeting each other by observing ‘social distancing’. Refugee groups and IDPs became more vulnerable in the wake of ‘social distancing’ practices and lockdowns, as they were already living at subsistence level before COVID-19 and were barred from accessing aid facilities. and Misra, A., “COVID-19 pandemic and challenges for socio-economic issues, healthcare and national programs in India”, ‘Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews’, Vol.