Context

Cooperation between the Centre and the States in dealing with the threat of the virus is commendable.

Hope in dealing with the pandemic and India’s response to the pandemic

• What is the best response?  World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic, Secretary-General offered hope: “If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilise their people in the response, those with a handful of cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission.”
• The advantage with India: India, with 70-odd cases, has the advantage, and commendably, the central and state governments have reacted rapidly to the developing pandemic
• Equally importantly, they have set aside the acrimony over the CAA-NRC question and pulled together, without the need for external urging.
  • Because everyone realises that COVID-19 is everyone’s problem.
• Steps taken by the government: No visas are being issued, screening is in progress, health education messaging is visible, public gatherings are sharply reduced and there is no sign of the wearying political blame game which generally besets such challenges.

No room for complacency

• Display of political will: The secretary-general has also cautioned that while many nations can avoid the pandemic, the operative verb is not “can” but “will”. The Indian response has displayed political will, but there is no room for complacency.
• Fear of the unknown: This is the first coronavirus to reach pandemic levels. For at least 18 months, no vaccine can be market-ready. At least until the summer, there will be insufficient information about the behaviour of the organism in the wild. Wisely, Homo sapiens fears the unknown.
• Caution is the best prescription: Until we learn more about the nature of the beast, abundant caution is the only credible prescription.
  • Isolation at the focus of the response: At present, the focus of the response is isolation (including self-isolation) and the maintenance of sanitation barriers. Schools have been closing down, some workplaces are screening staff, and people are discouraged from leaving home without a compelling reason.
  • However, outside the controlled conditions in homes and hospitals, maintaining the patency of the sanitation barrier requires extraordinary vigilance and self-control.

Status of healthcare infrastructure

• The readiness of healthcare facilities: In the case of breaches — a few oversights or accidents are inevitable — the readiness of healthcare facilities would become a serious factor in controlling mortality.
• Variation in states’ preparedness: The quality of the states’ level of preparedness and the quality of health services varies. While Kerala efficiently controlled the Nipa virus, Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, has failed to contain annual outbreaks of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome for over a decade.
  • And the capital’s initial failure in the face of seasonal waves of lethal mosquito-borne diseases cannot be forgotten.
• Rural cluster-most vulnerable: How much less protected would a rural cluster be, serviced by a poorly equipped primary health centre?

Conclusion

If community transmission becomes commonplace, it would become a difficult battle. Hence, the sanitation barrier remains the most reliable epidemiological response. If the government has to resurrect primordial provisions from the era of bubonic plagues to keep it patent, so be it.

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