What was the need to fictionalise a series on real events that were far more horrific because they were real? asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.

'Parsis are brought up with a great sense of the importance of truth and speaking your mind.'

'It was unfair to expect him to continue to keep on supplying vaccines without being given a firm commitment or a financial grant of any sort.'

'I think Ratan felt he had to do everything that he could to retain control of the company started by his forefathers, because that was the first priority and nothing else mattered compared to that.'

'COVID-19 and diabetes have a very intricate relationship.' 'People with diabetes tend to get the most severe forms of COVID-19.'

'If the government has not listened to scientists, it must.' 'It's obvious that this is a science-driven campaign (fight), a science-driven situation.' 'We cannot afford to ignore the science.'

'And he was really trying just to do the best by the shareholders, and by the laws of India.'

'Wherever the Delta variant is spreading, and the population is not vaccinated, there is death and devastation.'

'When you are on these drugs, there is a possibility that you come to the hospital late, just by virtue of the fact that you believe that things are going to turn around, because you are on all these medicines.'

'You will still want to take all the necessary precautions, which is the right thing to do.'

'If we vaccinate quickly, it could be pushed to January, February, and the longer it can be pushed, the smaller the wave is likely to be, because by that time vaccination will scale up.'

'You have sufficient protection if you take the second dose of the Covishield vaccine at 12 weeks, because this vaccine works in a way where it provides protection in the first dose.'

'The vast majority of people are going to get better.' 'And the small fraction, who are not going to get better, unfortunately, there's no drug that we have that can that can alter the trajectory.'

'The reality of this virus is that as long as it is circulating, it can mutate into new variants and by the time you realise that this is a new virus, which is more dangerous, and more transmissible, it is too late.'

'Chances of getting the disease are not reduced, either after one dose or both doses of the vaccine.' 'And the probability of getting the infection -- you need to differentiate infection from disease -- by getting vaccinated is almost unaltered, be it single dose or two doses.' 'But your chances of developing moderate to severe disease, after getting infected, gets reduced with every dose you receive.'

'Unfortunately, during this pandemic, everybody started saying that well, these are desperate times and desperate times need desperate solutions.' 'Purely out of fear, anxiety, panic, this knowledge that people started acquiring from WhatsApp University and social media, it pushed science completely to the backseat.'

'The second wave was more virulent, more aggressive, more transmissible.'

'Where did this fungus suddenly come from and get all over the country?'

'I try to say to myself, 'Don't cry in front of people'. But sometimes I can't help it.'

'We can't rule out the fact that the virus might have changed in such a way that it's actually causing more harm to young people.'