India’s Covid-19 war - A 25 days assessment of lock down

 India’s Covid-19 war - A 25 days assessment of lock down

Syed Ali Mujtaba

India is running through the course of 40 days of lock down period, as part of its strategy to fight the Covid-19 war. But no one knows where our country is placed after that in this Covid war?  The parable of the Blind Men and an Elephant succulently sums up India’s story of fighting the Covid war.

A quick recap: India reported its first case of Covid in Kerala on January 30, 2020. It was also the day when WHO, for the sixth time in history, declared a "public health emergency of international concern." India on March 13 declared Covid-19,  a ‘Notified Disaster.’   

However, it was only on March 19 that our Prime Minister wakes up to the reality and appeal to the nation to observe a day-long voluntary lock down on March 22 that some urgency starts emerging. The country really became serious about Covid problem, when Prime Minister on March 24, announced a total lock down of the country till April 14.  

While making the announcement of 21 days lock down the Prime Minister said; Mahabharta war was won in 18 days; we will win the Corona war in 21 days. Subsequently on April 14, our ‘Mukunda’ did not even frat on his earlier boast of winning the war in 21 days, when he extended the lock down for 19 days more.  It appears that since March 19^th, the country’s leadership is grappling with ‘what to do’ syndrome and no one knows what to do!

The burning question is can we get rid of this virus and if so what is the way out? Since the beginning it is said, there are three options to get rid of the virus and there is no fourth.

One, the virus dies its natural death and frees the world from its horrendous impact. Second, a vaccination gets developed quickly and each of us gets vaccinated and get ready to work. The third is to develop the capacity to test the people and segregate them from haves and have not!

The fact remains that the first two options are only day dreaming and wishful thinking which is not going to happen in the immediate future. So the only option is to quarantine people and test them for virus of doom.

Indian leadership too engaged in going for the third option. Since it does not have sufficient kits to test, its strategy is to push the people indoors and wait for the cases to emerge and then go for treatment. The assumption was that by lock down and social distancing method, the intensity of the corona virus could be broken.  

The 25 days assessment suggests this strategy has miserably failed. It is said, corona virus has not yet peaked in the country. The country looks nowhere in sight of defeating the virus and each of us kept in complete darkness when we will overcome this crisis.

Notwithstanding, the facts remains, even during the lock down, there are 71 categories of people who are exempted from staying indoors. It is estimated that roughly they maybe half of the country’s population. In other words they vulnerable to Covid infection and in that case the whole idea of lock down are undermined.   

Further it is widely believed that lock down is only a “pause button” and once the lock down is lifted the fear is the virus may reappear. In such no one may risk its life, even the lock down is officially come to an end. After all, protection of one’s life is more important than material gains. So work loss may continue to be the dominant feature even in the post lock down period.   

In such case when the virus curve continues to grow in the country the clamor is, what should be done differently so that we may be quickly able to control it and normalize the situation?

The only way forward should be instead of watching virus emerge; the strategy should be to go after the virus. That’s the only way to pre-empt the virus from attacking the people. And in order to do this a countrywide testing architecture has to be put in place. It’s only through rapid testing of the entire country’s populace the objective of containment of virus could be achieved.  This would entail, certifying those who are healthy, quarantining those who are symptomatic and admitting those who are Covid positive. It is only through this method any semblance of control over the virus can be achieved. 

But it is here that the problem lies. The country’s leadership has not yet put in place the paraphernalia needed to do the testing. The country simply does not have the wherewithal or sufficient test kits to do the test. This is borne by the fact that India doesn’t come even in the top 40 countries, which are doing something to challenge this deadly virus.

The country’s leadership is silent about its gigantic failure. No one from the top is trying to brief the people about the amount of capacity building the government is able to achieve so far. The reality is after 25 days of lock down we have been able to build the capacity to test only “199 people per 100,000. This is peanuts for the size and scale of India’s population.

India’s Covid war can be only be won if we are able to get enough testing kits. Right now local supply line of kits is yet to begin and we are importing the kit from China. We all know to test each and every person in this country is a herculean task but then there is no short cut to this. In this, the blame certainly goes to the government in failing in its duties.

The current leadership in order to divert the attention from these pressing problems has consciously pushing the country into the communal cauldron. The people are worried about the communal virus than the corona virus.

Meanwhile, the gimmicks of clapping and beating the vessel, lighting the candle are done by the leadership to keep the people busy that it’s trying its best to fight the Covid war.    

In a cool and dispassionate analysis India’s Covid-19 war is not heading anywhere. Indian leadership has miserably failed to tackle the corona virus war. The current leadership is too arrogant to tell to the people about the magnitude of the problem, the way and means to tackle the problem and the time frame in which the Covid war will get over. The current set of people really do not know how fix up the things.

At the moment people’s anger against this government is at its boiling point. If a referendum held now, the Parliamentary majority that this government boasts and is the real cause of its arrogance will get a public's boot. It’s high time for the people of this country to call off the bluff of this government. If the people do not like to do this, the only option left for them is to look at the sky and ask for of mercy.   

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com