A virus called SIR is sweeping across West Bengal, sparking a panic unseen since COVID. Cooked up in a New Delhi lab and unleashed this June, the virus may not have set off alarms had it been released after the general elections last year or even early in 2025. Instead, now, notionally at least, SIR has killed seven people in West Bengal in ten days since it announced its arrival in the state. Bihar had its bout with the virus too. However, Biharis are a hardy lot and staved off an upheaval. But West Bengal has some comorbidities that make it perhaps the most vulnerable-to-SIR-chaos state in India. It also has the bad luck of its potential crisis managers turning the epidemic into an opportunity for profit.

That's as far as this attempt at sarcasm—or SIRcasm, if you will—should be allowed

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