More than government, it appears to be Twitter that is the source for urgent requests of medicines and oxygen alike, as India battles the world’s worst-ever onset of a COVID-19 second wave. With hospitals fast running out of oxygen, citizens have turned to social media and volunteers to source much needed medical supplies for COVID-19 patients.
On Sunday, the New Zealand embassy in India joined those calls for help on Twitter, in a since-deleted post that appealed to the Indian Youth Congress for a cylinder, tweeting, “Could you please help with oxygen cylinder urgently at the New Zealand High Commission? Thank you” to the Indian Youth Congress and to its National President Srinivas B.V, who later shared a video of the high commission opening its gates to allow IYC workers in with a cylinder.
The embassy, after taking down the post, tweeted, “We are trying all sources to arrange for oxygen cylinders urgently and our appeal has unfortunately been misinterpreted, for which we are sorry.”
Commenting on the matter, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed to News 1 that a local staffer inside the commission’s compound had been “very unwell”.
When asked whether it was a “good look” for the high commission to ask a member of the opposition party wing for help, Ardern said that the high commission should have used a normal channel to get oxygen, but noted that the local staffer was very unwell.
Ardern said that the embassy had been taking care of all its members including local staff. In response to a question on whether New Zealand would pull all its staff home, Ardern said that many of them have essentially worked as frontline workers providing consular assistance to New Zealanders.
"Our High Commission has apologised for [the tweet] and that's for the fact that there are channels that they can and should be going through for such matters," Ardern told TVNZ's Breakfast.
The matter of foreign missions seeking help came to the attention of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who engaged in a Twitter spat with former minister Jairam Ramesh who asked whether the MEA was “Sleeping” if the “youth wing of the opposition part is attending to SOS calls from foreign embassies”.
Speaking of a call for help from the Philippines Embassy, Jaishankar said, “MEA checked with the Philippines Embassy. This was an unsolicited supply as they had no Covid cases. Clearly for cheap publicity by you know who. Giving away cylinders like this when there are people in desperate need of oxygen is simply appalling,” and added, “Jairamji, MEA never sleeps; our people know across the world. MEA also never fakes; we know who does.”
Incidentally, the New Zealand High Commission’s request came shortly after Jaishankar’s Twitter spat.
