ARE WE LOOSING OUR BATTLE AGAINST NOVEL CORONA VIRUS ?

 

None of us be it USA or Uganda  or India  were  prepared  for this novel  virus .But  after initial setback ,all the countries geared up to cope with the epidemic. some countries were successful  but  others  were only as successful as India's top order in knock out matches.

What  was  the  difference  between these  two  kind of victorious and unsuccessful  countries?

Along  with  being the one of  the finest leaders Jalinda  Ardern turned  out  to be  an  impressive crisis  manager  as  well. She announced  the  lockdown when there was 100 cases in NEW ZEALAND .The Govt. Made a proper  communication with public giving  them information about the  precautions for the virus. Testing capabilities were  ramped up and isolation  of the people started.Today  the  numbers  of corona virus cases in New Zealand is the same as the number of runs scored by Akash Chopra that is around 1500.

Taiwan  understood  that,the  virus can be devastating and  it  will wreck the whole country if it got spread. Corona  had  swept  over  Wuhan back  in December since then,Taiwan began onboard quarantining  of the  direct  flights from  Wuhan.They  a made a response team immidiately and started conducting massive  numbers  of  tests.Mask export  were banned,mask  production  was  ramped  up  and social  distancing  rules  were enforced,what was  the result?Till now there are only 476 cases were found.

SOUTH KOREA  might be the only country in the world  to have  flatenned  the curve of  corona without lockdown. South Korea  began taking action in early phase against virus.The  reasons were two testing and tracing, infact the per capita testing rate of south korea was one of the best in world. Not  only them,there are  other countries as well –Vietnam, Singapore, Iceland ,Australia who  have  managed  to triumph the virus to quite an  extent through lockdown,testing and  tracing.

Before the outbreak of virus in India it has already  wrecked  many  countries.we had a long lists of  do’s  and  dont’s and  apparently we did follow it but with no results. Italy,Spain,Germany,UK  imposed  lockdown and as you can see in the  graph,the  no. Of cases peaked  then they declined.Then lockdown was lifted and situation was brought under control to some extent.Now take a look at the graph of  India,lockdown  was  announced, the cases peaked,they kept  on  peaking.Lockdown  was  lifted  and now  we are having more than 50000 cases per day.

So  why  did India’s lockdown  failed?

Experts believed that  after  imposing  lockdown,health  infrastructure should  have  been improved rapidly which we didn’t  do,that could hae made our battle much easier.A better timed lockdown could have saved our MSME’S and our economy could have been salvaged as well(the wire link).In short,problems had to be solved after imposing lockdown,lockdown  was not the solution  and now even the COVID task force of PM  admits that our lockdown was failure.

Instead of flattening the curve of infection is growing exponentially.In such situation  it  becomes mandatory  to  examine the steps taken  by succesfull countries.When lockdown was announced in  Newzealand  then their Govt. kept everyone on same page and through consistent messaging and frequent communication and daily press conference  both of them achieved a victory against virus together.The  condition in  India was  somewhat the same.There was exchange of information but by 8 PM method and there was no information given about  crisis management and the steps taken.

As far as testing goes, other countries increased it rapidly at first instance while India  acted  on  it  after huge outbreaks.In the month of April the ratio of per capita tests in India was 0.04 and it was one of the lowest in the world but after enormnous spikes in cases India ramped up per capita test to 12.18  but  it was too late as the infection goes high and high everyday.India now rank 2^nd  in the world  in the no. Of cases of  virus after USA  and still ICMR claims tht there is no community transmission of virus.

The  success mantra was quite simple lockdown-mass testing-contact tracing-capacity building.But we failed to do.But it would be wrong to say that india  did  entirely  nothing,we did a lot of things! First,we banged thaalis to threatened corona then we lit candles to conduct last rites of corona.Afterwards we showered flowers over the corona  warriors before putting their lives in danger.When the  people of whole world  were coming together to deal with corona  virus in order to stop its community transmission then we were busy in spreading the “COMMUNAL VIRUS.”

On the other hand, lockdown gave rise to MIGRANT CRISIS. Amidst the pandemic govt. never lose its focus  as in a bid to prepare for elections 70000 LED screens were installed. Instead of this if govt. would have focused on the virus then we would have been in a good position today.But it would be wrong to say that we entirely failed,there are few cities like bengaluru and bhilwara which came with better strategy and  controlled the spread of virus.

Still we can rectify our mistakes.There  are so many models of different countries before us  South Korea,Taiwan,New zealand, yet we failed to understand that testing and tracing is very essential for us to conduct.Along with that mask and PPE  production  should be increased and targeted lockdown should be focused.

Labesh gupta