India – and the world – is effectively in an emergency mode. Due to COVID-19, flight services are disrupted, businesses have landed themselves in slow mode and public assembly is increasingly getting prohibited. Shopping malls and cinema halls have been asked to down shutters in many states.
With COVID-19 tolls overshooting SARS and spreading to over a hundred nations in a matter of three months, the world is now faced with a grim situation. Over 1,61,000 cases have been detected around the globe, and the death toll at about 6,000. As yet, there is no known cure or vaccine to treat the disease.
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Even rich and powerful countries such as the USA, which have proved inefficient in the face of this particular crisis, have declared national emergency. Mainland Europe is reportedly worst affected. India, thankfully, has not yet seen the disease go out of control. It may not be because the healthcare system is robust and has not let the disease spread in the country; it could just be sheer luck. On the other hand, we Indians may have been spared the full brunt of the virus because of our filthy living conditions, which may have helped create a better immune system. Also, some claim, the rising temperatures due to onset of summer in the subcontinent may help keep cases of COVID-19 relatively under control. The most worrying factor about spread of the pandemic in India is the insensitivity of people who return to the country from the coronavirus affected places such as Italy. In Kerala, one set of travellers who returned from Italy went around spreading the infection among their kith and kin. Their irresponsible behaviour has led to rise in the number of people infected by the virus in the southern state. Although COVID-19 has not claimed many lives in India, it is no reason to drop guard. It roughly has a 3% mortality rate, according to reports. In this case, the asymptomatic infected person becomes a carrier and can thereby infect others without detection, posing a huge threat to a society such as India. In the context of COVID-19, India is presently considered to be at Stage-2, as described by World Health Organization. That means, infections could now be locally transmitted after getting introduced from other geographical locations. Stage-3 would imply community transmissions, in which case the infection crisis would affect larger geographical areas. With a massive and close-living population, the spread would become truly pandemic if social isolation goes unheeded in India.
At a time when the disease has already dragged the world into economic turmoil, Indians will have to act extremely carefully in the larger interests of the country. The state alone cannot be held responsible for preventing the outbreak of a pandemic. People are equally responsible and need to behave responsibly to avert a crisis. It is understandable that there is much fear about the disease and no one wants to contract it.
Another equally important measure in the fight against the infection is preventing scare mongering. Several instances of rumors spreading panic among people have been reported. In countries such as Italy, even national leaders have led to the spread of perceptions that immigrants were responsible for the spread of the disease. Such actions will have deeper consequences on the world in the days to come. It will lead to cornering of the marginalised and possibly lead to further deterioration of their conditions. Every single individual action will matter in how the disease is contained. In a globalised world, it is next to impossible for any nation to be excluded from the impacts of a pandemic. The only way out is having a sensitised and sensible population where people behave responsibly in the interest of both themselves and the society. It is important that persons suspected of the disease keep their social interactions to bare minimum. If and when family or friends travel and come from infected areas, they should quarantine themselves for the requisite amount of time while waiting to be tested by appropriate health authorities. Refraining from socializing and maintaining distance from family and friends goes without saying. These are not matters that are entirely in the control of the state. It is important particularly in countries such as India, where the healthcare infrastructure is not strong and wide enough to contain an outbreak on a larger scale. It is doubtful whether India could keep an outbreak of the dimensions that China has witnessed if it was faced with such a misfortune. While saying this, one must take note of the conspiracy theory about coronavirus spreading from Wuhan, which pointed to a germ warfare experiment gone wrong. Luckily, India is incapable of such high level research and development. This may remind many of the heated debates that took place during the Indo-US Nuclear Treaty in 2009. Every sensible Indian was concerned at that time about possible nuclear accidents and whether we, as a nation, were prepared to face a calamity of that level while at the same time controlling the atmospheric damage. General conclusion of informed people at the time was that India was totally unprepared and would create a global catastrophe if faced with a situation similar to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster.
Even if the country were to be well-equipped to handle a pandemic, it will be helpless if pitted against careless behaviour of its citizenry.
