Corona and India

Just like in the Camel in the tent story, the Corona Virus started rather innocuously in China and before one could get a deeper understanding of its implications, it spread like wildfire. Like it happens with most humans, most folks globally sat back to watch what would happen in China when the virus was already under their seats and exploded suddenly.

One of the questions that most people have been asking is – India seems to be relatively doing better with the statistics being quite low compared to almost any other country globally.

On the 14th of February this is how the figures looked like.

India had just 3 cases compared to 15 in USA.

By the 17th of March the statistics had changed to look like this.

India was still in the few hundreds while USA had climbed to 5000 +.

Globally as of 25th March 2020 the figures look like this

Meanwhile the way the cases were spreading and based on what actions each government took the impact in China versus the world looked as follows by the middle of March.

As on 5th April the situation looks like this. The break up looks like this

At this point USA has climbed to 310,000+ cases India is around 3,600+.

In India the number of cases is 3 per million, deaths at 0.07 per million and the number of tests at 93 per million.  Iceland has 4,152 and 12 as cases/ deaths per million with 69,276 tests per million. South Korea has 200/ 4 cases/ deaths per million and 8875 tests per million while Singapore has 203/1 cases/deaths per million and 6666 tests per million. USA the worst affected has 941/26 cases/deaths per million and 4933 tests/ million.

A constant criticism against India has been the low number of tests which as a fact is true. But if the lack of testing were to be a cause, then people should have died by now. The number of cases you can always say is fudged but deaths you cannot hide. A vociferous opposition would be more than happy to pass off every death as a Covind related death and we have not seen any media reports of spikes in death in any area. So while logically lower tests can mean facts not known, fact also is that mass deaths have not occurred.

Whatever be the reasons, and hot weather alone isn’t logical though a study of the detailed data at this link does seem to point in that direction. If you have a doubt about a badly affected country like say Iran, then check their weather as of today – they are at 16/9 Deg C at this moment.

So the fact is that India is doing something right at least at this moment in time. This needs to be appreciated.

However this still begs the question – has India escaped this or is there something that we don’t know. Honestly nobody can give an assured answer and anything one says is intelligent speculation based on what we know at this particular moment in time. However what one can do is share some known information to analyse the situation and future speculation.

The first known case came up by end 2019 and early 2020. With many edge of the seat conspiracy theories the people by and large I think missed the implications. A large number of Chinese fled the area and many others went on vacations during Chinese new year in February. Fact is that this double whammy distributed the initial virus attack. That the Chinese Govt didn’t act soon enough to alert the world is fact and that vitiated the situation.

Whether the Govt of India thought through and put any plan in place we don’t know but what we do know are 4 things that the Govt of India did which deserves kudos.

1.      They identified that travellers coming from abroad would be the one’s who would carry & spread the virus, especially Indians who needed to get home desperately including from the Wuhan province of China.

2.      Those who were air lifted on emergency basis were checked on arrival and logged. Then they started testing before air lifting those who were stranded and logged.

3.      Targeting certain flights from certain locations they tested every passenger on arrival however chaotic it was and earned a bad press but collected data to use.

4.      Based on reports another 64,000+ incoming travellers were identified and traced with their contacts who could have been exposed. How many were quarantined etc we don’t know but the international arrivals were screened, controlled and monitored. This likely saved the day for India.

On the last I personally know people who had travelled much before this thing broke but they were identified, met with and asked to go into quarantine. Like in many things India either does nothing or goes over the top and in this case luckily India went over the top.

The next thing that helped India was time. When every day, every hour was precious India got that extra time for the first cases to show up and that helped India manage the situation better.

Chinese who fled or others who were infected and travelled went predominantly to Europe, USA etc. India does not see a huge influx of Chinese tourists and this helped India significantly. Fact is that those who landed in other countries were just not checked or monitored or even traced till it was too late. India on the other hand kicked off preventive actions far more in advance. Many experts have been criticising India for its taking a hammer quickly but in the long run I think the world will realise that India acted the smartest.

Most importantly unlike other countries which reacted towards middle of stage 2, India took pre-emptive action during stage one itself which likely controlled the spread of the virus.

Without official lockdowns being announced the natural chaos of our systems were used to reduce the spread by travellers. Profiling of incoming flights were started unofficially also before making it common.

Above all, even if it has attracted some criticism the Indian populace have been prevented by going into panic mode by calibrated action where it started by apparently no action being taken, then a Janta Curfew and just when the Indians in our own typical style were celebrating the 1700 hrs moment in large crowds, the more strict lockdowns were announced and then immediately thereafter the 21 day lock down.

Truth be said, the ONLY people who have panicked or creating panic are the rich celebs since they live a 24x7 life being fawned around and this is like a withdrawal symptom when you don’t have your daily fix of drugs. Yes, the poor, the others have found themselves in chaos and uncertain about the future but I think the frequent nationwide messaging by the PM, as usual criticised by the drawing room experts, have calmed the nerves substantially with the poor.

Very soon the middle class rallied around and are lending a helping hand, doing whatever little, even if it for just that one person who works for them, they can and others have pitched in at a wider scale and this has helped reduce the panic mode. There is still chaos, fear, hunger but people aren’t getting into complete panic mode when they become irrational.

So this brings us to the question – is this the truth ? The complete truth ? Or is there something that we don’t know that can still hit India in its guts.

What I think we know is that so far India has been able to contain the virus. However when the lockdown lifts, how many are carriers and when will they trigger a reaction leading to more cases? Can a 21 day lockdown ensure that the system has been cleansed or at least the infected identified and quarantined to prevent spread? We honestly don’t have answers for this. Post 5th April the effects of the lockdown will be better known.

There is a possibility that this virus can keep coming back and frequent lock downs are not the answer. While the people may go through a 21 day lock down without reacting, any further lockdown may not receive the same degree of support. Somebody somewhere may just go berserk and that is all it takes to trigger a major crisis.

Also the entire world is not doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. So for how long will you close all airports

Most importantly the effect of whatever has happened will itself take at least 12 to 18 months since the world is today connected and nobody lives in silos anymore.

The overall picture looks like this.

 The target at this juncture is not exactly to avoid/reduce the number of dead but ensure that its not clustered but instead spread across a larger timeline.

By lockdowns and such actions the curve should get flattened and the pressure on the healthcare infra hopefully manageable.

This will also buy the govt time to buy stuff, get in place systems, services to handle the unpredictable consequences.

A prolonged lockdown is unrealistic and detrimental to the economy so we cannot have the cure being worse than the problem. In this situation more people will die by way of collateral damage than by the virus itself.

Data from across the world even discounting the veracity of data from China seems to indicate that the actual percentage of death is quite low but the peaking of numbers is what causes panic.

The centuries old Indian philosophy of “this too shall pass, we will adjust” should kick in and barring for deliberate media induced panic or mass deaths people should start getting back to normal as long as the curve is flattened. So flattening the curve, averaging out the incidents over a longer time frame is what is crucial.

The economy is derailed but given this is global in nature, the inherent strengths of each economy should provide the bedrock for how quickly they recover.

There is a huge perception that China has engineered this deliberately and will now take advantage of this economically by exploiting the world sounds very plausible. But if true, the entire globe when affected isn’t exactly going to sit tight. There will be repercussions.

The next 12 to 18 months if not 24 will be a tough period, life will never be the same again, what kind of economic and human costs India will bear will start to be known by the end of 2020 assuming that by mid 2020 life starts coming back to basic normalcy.

The first REAL hurdle for India assuming that weather is a friend is the coming winter of 2020. If India crosses that hurdle safely then India would have won this battle largely.

Before that the period between 5th and 14th April is the crucial stage especially since some super spreaders have been identified that is causing serious damage to all the plans.

These super spreaders by way of factual incidents coupled with rumours, innuendo will leave the country deeply divided, suspicious and while the country may well defeat the virus the society by itself will change and life will never be the same again.