The Bay Area Indian Community’s Concerns About COVID For The Family In Their Home Country

MILPITAS, California – While many in the Bay Area watch from afar the coronavirus crash on the results on India, fear strikes very close to home for many who live here.

“My cousin’s son and his wife got infected and their daughter got infected and I just found out that my cousin was also infected,” said Rupal Dandia, a resident of San Jose.

The San Jose resident tells us she was nervous watching the media coverage of India where cases have increased and led to over 360,000 infections in a single day.

Along with the impressive number of infections, the death toll has exceeded 200,000.

The disease spreads both in dense cities and rural areas of India.

It would have overwhelmed the health care system, which is said to be on the verge of collapse.

Dandia tells us that she is worried about her hundred or so parents in India. Among them are his parents and in-laws who are of an age sensitive to the deadly consequences of COVID-19.

“I’m just worried. I don’t want them to leave the house. I don’t want anyone to visit them just because there are no hospital beds,” she said on Wednesday. at KTVU.

Like Dandia, Milpitas resident Naren Bakshi is from Jaipur, a city of around 3 million people.

He traveled there before the coronavirus became a pandemic and remained in the country after his Bay Area family warned him of the seriousness of the infections here in the United States.

Bakshi returned home a week and a half ago.

“Everyone is scared. I have heard of situations in my own family and they have struggled to find hospital beds and some have even died,” Bakshi said.

Due to the outbreak, travel within the country is limited, so those with family say all they can do is send money to help.

“The community here is very saddened by what they see. She seeks to help the best she can through fundraising efforts, by stocking up on oxygen concentrates, ”said Raj Desai, CEO of the Milpitas Indian Community Center.