In the first week of April, Manoj Tomar, 40, a daily wage earner from JP Nagar in Old Bhopal, got a cough and fever that wouldn’t go away. A breathless Tomar, suspecting he had Covid, looked for a testing centre but there was none nearby. On April 7, he went to a local quack, a “jhola chaap” doctor. A rapid antigen test detected the Covid virus in his body, but Manoj could not find a bed at any of the government hospitals. Later that evening, he died. A week later, his brother Jitendra, 38, also developed symptoms but was able to get himself admitted at the Government Hamidia Hospital, where he too tested positive for Covid. Later, he also died. While the family got a death certificate from the hospital…
