Like all cities, Hyderabad city also that was affected by the Covid-19. When the Covid-19 virus pandemic first wave spread became clear most local businesses and regular people did not understand what was happening.
Due to heavy presence of many offshoring firms in Hyderabad with locations within India and abroad – these firms took the lead in planning work from home. When the lockdown was announced it came as a shock to many. Starting with Last week of March 2020 till end of May there was was full lock-down across Hyderabad like with rest of India.
With the first wave of coronavirus pandemic cases reducing, especially in last quarter of 2020 – things became almost normal barring a few areas. For example, the changes in residential property rentals was facing difficult times, as many people went to their hometown making best use of work from home. The schools have also been closed giving those who came to Hyderabad for work purpose and living in rental places an opportunity to work from home from their hometown.
The construction of major flyover continued at a decent pace making use of reduced traffic. One good development was the opening of the Secret Lake Bridge or the Durgam cheruvu Bridge in last week of September 2020. There are more such examples of new infrastructure additions to the city. Thereby offering new citizen facilities via completion of the several infrastructure projects.
The second pandemic lead to sudden surge in the Covid-19 cases and forcing the second lockdown which brought certain types of retail activity to screeching halt. The movie theatres, the bars and the malls of Hyderabad just started doing great business. However, due to the second wave, they were forced to restrict or stop activity. Certain kinds of businesses like those in malls, bars and cinema halls are definitely affected by second wave. The real estate market has seen severe fall in transactions.
The airborne nature of coronavirus seems to be the reason for the sudden spike in the coronavirus cases. The information that coronavirus is airborne and spreads through an aerosol and not as droplets came only in early May 2021. This meant that a single mask was not effective in stopping the transmission of the disease. By the time double mask was strongly recommended, the number of Covid-19 patients had risen in large numbers and hospitals were overwhelmed were patients suffering with breathlessness.
Lockdown definitely brings the situation under control – it works. Though there is economic impact. It is interesting that public take the panoramic seriously only after the lockdown is imposed this has been true the large section of the population. Without a lockdown, large sections of the population are careless with precautions and avoid mask protocol, social distancing, use of sanitizer and do unnecessary travel.
In the last quarter of 2020 and in the first quarter of 2021 the public in Hyderabad city behaved as if the coronavirus pandemic has ended. The real estate sector was booming, the colleges had restarted and cinema theatres were running houseful. This situation caused the habits to develop in such a manner with no social distancing being followed and worse people stopped wearing masks.
However, after the second wave of Corona epidemic hitting Hyderabad the situation totally reversed. Even those who do not get an infection in the earlier wave, this time definitely experienced close family members, colleagues, and neighbour get infected. There was no one whose near and dear were not affected. The absence of hospital beds, the shortage of oxygen and scramble to get medicines like Remsdesivir scared the public like never before.
There is no doubt in saying the during the peak of the second wave it was an intense experience for residents of Hyderabad city. For those that had deaths of their family members and the families that experienced financial stress of hospitalization – this negative effect will be a lasting effect. There is no doubt that the long term negative memory of the second wave of covid-19 will not be forgotten easily. The one positive change in this has been the lakhs of people from Hyderabad city who have got vaccinated.