Kolkata's first three coronavirus patients are apparently on the road to recovery.
South Korea has reported that it already has more people cured and sent home than still under treatment. Meanwhile, the USA, with by far the largest number of infections, has still not decided on a countrywide lockdown. Are they all very stupid compared to us? Or otherwise?
Given our country's gigantic population, and the considerably increased rate of testing of late, people at the highest decision making level should keep in mind how very, very slowly the infection- and death rate is going up: people are dying of coronavirus at the rate of two or three a day (remember, once more, that the normal death rate is 26,000 a day!), not in hundreds, leave alone tens of thousands, as so many doomsayers have been predicting with ghoulish glee over the last fortnight.
The media and opposition parties have rightly begun to point out that the man-made human tragedy caused by the countrywide lockdown could very quickly grow out of all proportion to the cost of the disease itself: see this article, for instance.
The highest civil servant in the central government has denied rumours today that there are any plans to extend the lockdown beyond April 14. We should be glad for small mercies, I suppose. I am also seeing reports that the government has already begun to ease up a bit on the countrywide transport of both essential and non-essential commodities. I wish they would act faster.
A thought: why not focus on the few specific areas where there have been infection flareups, and spare the rest of the country? As someone wrote somewhere very recently, why shut down Puducherry if there are a lot of infections somewhere in Uttar Pradesh?
Meanwhile, daytime temperatures in my town have risen to 36-37 degrees C. I never thought I'd welcome summer, but there is some hope that it might do away with the new virus as it deals with the ordinary flu...
Meanwhile, daytime temperatures in my town have risen to 36-37 degrees C. I never thought I'd welcome summer, but there is some hope that it might do away with the new virus as it deals with the ordinary flu...
7 comments:
Dear Sir,
I know why they have not focussed on the few specific areas where there have been infection flareups. The government's biggest(and stupidest) policy is - act first, think next. Here is another example. An hour after his Tuesday address, the Prime Minister tweeted that essential supplies would be available. By this time, panic buying had already hit the streets. I wish the government starts easing up. Idleness is already taking a toll.
One small thing, the activity on this blog has increased during this lockdown.
Yours faithfully,
Swarnava Mitra.
Dear Sir,
With proper and due respect to you, I would like to strike a contrarian tone. I believe the lockdown decision per se is not wrong, in fact with the anecdotal evidence of the 'new infection curve' taking a slightly more exponential path compared to an equivalent period before that, I would say the lockdown was timed perfectly. You have argued that the infection rate of this global pandemic is still way less than other common killers, which is also undeniably true. However, you never know if the suppressed numbers are due to lack of enough testing or cases going unreported as many in our country have no / minimal access to healthcare. Also, if lockdown wasn't imposed and the curve suddenly took a mighty exponential turn, the same government would have been blamed for not doing enough proactively.
Having said all that, the fact that the government failed to factor in the plight of migrant workers, is utterly shameful. There should have been policies implemented to safeguard against this such as - no eviction due to non-payment of rent, direct benefit transfer for people below an income threshold etc. The daily wage earners are no less citizens than Indians stranded in foreign land who were airlifted back home.
I live in Jersey City now, which is part of one of the hotspots of the virus now. Life is at a complete standstill here and I feel the pain of people in similar situations around the world. Fervently hoping that we get through this with less than expected damage.
Regards,
Ritambhar
Amen to that prayer, Ritambhar. I have only three complaints, actually: a) the panic that has spread, at least here in India, is out of all proportion to the ground reality, and government is largely guilty of fanning it, b) far better anticipation and contingency planning should have gone into preparing for the lockdown, and c) the economic consequences of a prolonged lockdown (note that the Chinese didn't lock down their entire country, nor have the Americans yet) would be horrendous, with the poorest people shouldering the heaviest part of the burden.
Sir
Dear Sir,
I speculate that an indirect consequence(which might do us some good) of the National Lockdown is that it might reduce the level of pollution in many Indian cities due to less traffic.But the economic hardships of millions of slum-dwellers and daily workers would surely overweigh the benefits of inhaling cleaner air.
I hope normalcy is restored after 14th April because only then the revised dates of our last three ICSE exams will be announced,you will be able to conduct classes peacefully and my father will not have to work for extra hours(he has worked thrice for thirty two hours at a stance in the last fortnight so that he does not have to use the roads to go to office frequently).We will not have our summer vacation this year as the school has planned to conduct classes in the month of May and June to compensate for the loss of classes.So, I am a little sad but I would certainly be overjoyed if normalcy returns sooner than expected.
I don't know if this comment was posted twice because the mobile is malfunctioning.So,my sincerest apologies in that case.
With regards,
Arunabha
(ICSE 2020,Batch two)
You're right, Swarnava, idleness and boredom are already beginning to take a toll, on the internet as much as all around me. It seems from today's news that there will be no easing of the lockdown till April 14. I shudder to think how I am going to spend another fortnight like this...
Arunabha, my sympathies about the exams, and for the likes of your father who are having to work long extra hours. I don't know which is worse, though. And yes, school vacations will certainly have to be shortened if the regular coursework is to be completed within time this academic year. Like you, I shall be overjoyed with the return of normalcy. Your comment didn't appear twice, and in any case you don't have to apologize for an inadvertent technical error.
Sir
Dear Sir,
Here are my 2 cents:
1. India has most likely entered stage 3 i.e. community transmission though the govt won't admit that and MoHFW is simply using verbal obfuscation in their briefings. Common sense also says that the numbers put out by the govt. are far too low to be believable for country like India, given the poverty, unsanitary conditions in which the bulk of our population lives.
2) India is not testing enough. Every epidemiologist and expert worth their salt is saying the same thing - test, test, test. South Korea brought this under control through aggressive testing. Our testing criteria is still very restricted - reason cited is to prevent false positives. Drug Controller General of India has approved 18 new test kits but the approval process has been completely opaque.
3) Our healthcare system - We all know this. With stories of inadequate supplies of PPE for frontline healthcare workers to absolutely insufficient number of ventilators (if anyone has a handle on the real numbers to begin with), if this enters stage 4 (epidemic), then God help us. I am not even getting into the number of hospital beds, critical care beds per 1000 population India has when compared with Italy, China, the US or countries like the UK with their amazing NHS.
I think GoI understands this which explains the sledgehammer, reactive approach to lockdown.
I don't want to go on a scaremongering rant and here comes the importance of perspective like the daily death rate you mention. Spanish flu of 1919 had 500 million infected and 50 million dead. We, Indians, can definitely do better with having a little bit of perspective.
Just one point to make here, Rajarshi: the hard truth is that there is no 'cure' for the disease, just as it is with the common cold of which it is a close relative, and the only way it will be finally tackled is by way of the infection spreading widely enough (in 80% of the cases, the symptoms are very mild and go away by themselves, whereas only 5% need critical care, mostly the old who are already ill). The faster that happens the faster the vast bulk of our species will acquire some immunity against this particular virus, as it has with countless others before (the flu virus no longer kills millions). Sounds harsh, but unavoidable. The worst possible harm has already been done by spreading panic with the idea that mere infection means a death sentence. It is beyond absurd to see that millions of even supposedly educated people have fallen prey to it. I don't think anything more should be done to fuel that panic.
Sir
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