ARE WE READY TO FIGHT COVID-19?

 

ARE WE READY TO FIGHT COVID-19?

                                                                                                   

India is a haven to a mammoth 1326.20 Million (according to 2020). It becomes extremely difficult for such a country to wage a war against a challenging, formidable and novel Corona virus (COVID-19). But before analyzing the situation in our motherland-India, we must plunge into the statistics of some of the other nations plunged into abyss of disaster. USA has reported more than 200000 cases (population: 331,002,651 ; deaths: more than 4000) , Italy has reported more than 120000 cases (population:6.05 crore deaths: 13155) ,UK has reported 33718 cases (population:6.64crores ;deaths:2921).

This scary statistics should give us some idea about the gravity of the situation. The world has been put to the heels by this microorganism, a missing link between the living and non living. The Prime Minister on the 24^th of March announced a 21 day-lockdown (from 25^th March) to fight the corona pandemic. This announcement was like that of some alien oracle keen to protect his subjects. The lockdown thus has social and economic impacts even sharper than lockdowns in other countries. This seemingly bold step rendered thousands panicking and homeless. Thus an average worker or daily wage earner had to fight two crises – humanitarian and epidemic. An announcement made the day just before the lockdown shattered a population of millions strongly depended on each day’s wages for their daily meal without giving them some minimum time to settle safely. Migrant workers packed buses and trains home, potentially taking the virus into rural areas. And as transport options dried up, many families in major cities simply began to walk to their distant villages, with little access to food. As Ravi Duggal, a public health activist prudently said, “We risk converting a health crisis into a socioeconomic crisis.”To prevent that, the Indian government has announced a nearly $23 billion economic package on 26 March to support the poor, providing rations of grains and pulses, free gas cooking cylinders to 83 million families, and cash transfers of $6.65 a month to about 200 million women for the next 3 months. Many observers say the aid is too little—less than 1% of India’s gross domestic product—and that more is needed in the coming months. The lockdown should have been done with more planning and adequate time being available to the people involved in manual labour.

It would be a lie to claim that the pandemic was unprecedented and the government had no time to tackle it. China reported its first case between January 1 and January 5. The WHO announced the novel COVID19 ‘a pandemic’ on 11^th March. So, the government had adequate time even after the announcement from WHO and the first case reported in India(30^th January). Thus such an unprecedented and hasty decision was bound to have ramifications. Despite the claim from the government that adequate resources of necessity are available, the truth is that even today people are not getting essentials like medicines and food because of disruption in transportation.

The government spends only 1.28 per cent of its GDP on health. How can then we expect to fight the pandemic with such a piecemeal? Ventilators are also in short supply. India has nearly 100,000 ventilators but most are owned by private hospitals and are already being used by existing patients with critical illnesses. The government cannot expect to treat a population of 80% in dire poverty with public hospitals facing shortage of resources and private hospitals bent in profit maximization. Thus strict regulation of these private hospitals and a unified health system is the need of the hour. Universal public health is essential not only to curb outbreaks, but also to ensure crisis preparedness.